Any former processing lab people out there?

[Mr Bill]

This is actually the first time I hear of "Nord package", "Lucht Engineering" or "Photo-Control" at all... (and believe me, even though it's just my personal interest in the matter that drives me in writing my little, I've wasted quite a bit of my free time to research on the topic.)

Yes, there seems to be scarce information on the internet about these things. Possibly because few photo hobbyists know about them, and perhaps the people who worked with them just don't have much interest in posting about them. Plus, there's probably no benefit to photo enthusiasts in knowing about such things. The equipment became mostly obsolete when digital cameras took over those aspects of the business, and I expect that most of the Nord printers were scrapped, including all the optics, etc.

During the time I was familiar with them Photo Control manufactured a line of specialized portrait camera under the name Camerz. These took mainly long roll film, 100' rolls in mainly 35 or 70mm. The cameras had built-in provisions to make the portrait operation smooth and efficient. I briefly went through the operation in thus thread: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/camerz-slr.176210/#post-2294594

There was another line of portrait cameras built in the US under the name of Portronic, by a company I knew as Beattie-Coleman. They had similar functions to the Camerz line, long-roll film with auto-advance and sitting number tracking on every shot, etc.

As I said above Photo Control also manufactured Nord printers, which was the next step in a high volume "portrait manufacturing system."

I briefly went through the operation of these in this thread: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/are-these-color-filtration-the-same.188434/page-2#post-2497496

Most of this now seems relegated to the dustbin of history.

 

[Europan]

What kind of machines were you using back then? Any 'Printing-Nikkors', 'Printing-Ektars' or Zeiss 'S-Sonnars' in those perhaps? And did you have any contact with Gretag equipment?

I forgot to write step contact printers. We didn’t have any optical printing equipment. Gretag also nothing. A truly classic densograph that I found at a thrift shop is an ICA, I still have it. A photograph of it can be seen with Wikipedia. We had a small Colenta processing machine that saw some work but most everything I developed manually in spiral reels of various sizes from 70 mm to 8 mm.

Work with the spiral systems inspired me to set up Cargo (unfortunately still unfinished). The subject of densitometry brought about my Ecco projector (not even built as a prototype). Lack of capital

 

[MattKing]

As a general note a about this type of equipment... yes, they were expensive, but there was little risk to the buyer. A lab would buy these because they ALREADY HAD THE BUSINESS, but wanted to be able to print faster and cheaper. So it was just a matter of how long it would take to pay for itself. Of course, those days are long gone now.

And possibly more important, there was little risk to the commercial lender who may have financed the purchase, because there was a good business plan that showed how easily the loan could be paid off, and how valuable the secured interest in the financed equipment was.

 

[simplejoy]

You're welcome. My understanding is that a Nord printer, new, cost as much as a smallish house, more or less. Or a lens deck, alone, a couple thousand US (1980s)$, more or less.

It's not a comparison we ever bothered to look at. I'd see it more as a case of "plenty good enough" in the application. In addition there were probably no readily available commercial substitutes.

In our situation the Photo-Control lenses were used for smallish images (such as wallet-size up to 5x7", from 35mm film). The distance from film to paper plane is sizeable; I would estimate about 22.5" (actually calculated based on some approximations). As a consequence of this longish distance the wallet-size lens needs to have a considerably long focal length, about 112 mm, and be positioned roughly 1/4 of the way from negative to paper to achieve focus. (Nothing else will give the correct image size.)

Someone slightly familiar with optical design (like me) might note that this uses a fairly small "field of view." This, combined with the fixed magnification and moderate aperture, suggests to me that a lens designer could optimize a fairly simple design for very high image quality. At any rate the quality was plenty good for our purposes.

As a general note a about this type of equipment... yes, they were expensive, but there was little risk to the buyer. A lab would buy these because they ALREADY HAD THE BUSINESS, but wanted to be able to print faster and cheaper. So it was just a matter of how long it would take to pay for itself. Of course, those days are long gone now.

Thanks again - that's a lot of valuable details. I guess the "plenty good enough" mentality of this probably quite hectic and fast-changing era is really the main reason why no one (except me ) really cares about those lenses. I've seen some price lists and some of those 'standard lenses' used in every machine, were comparable or higher in price than even the highest-end commercially available longer focal length variants of the Apo-Rodagons/Apo-Componons etc., so REALLY expensive.

I've tried some of the small lenses from the wallet-setups (often used in arrays of 2, 4, 8 etc.) and those lenses don't seem to be of any use nowadays. But I'm sure they worked great when used in their original application.

Yes, there seems to be scarce information on the internet about these things. Possibly because few photo hobbyists know about them, and perhaps the people who worked with them just don't have much interest in posting about them. Plus, there's probably no benefit to photo enthusiasts in knowing about such things. The equipment became mostly obsolete when digital cameras took over those aspects of the business, and I expect that most of the Nord printers were scrapped, including all the optics, etc.

During the time I was familiar with them Photo Control manufactured a line of specialized portrait camera under the name Camerz. These took mainly long roll film, 100' rolls in mainly 35 or 70mm. The cameras had built-in provisions to make the portrait operation smooth and efficient. I briefly went through the operation in thus thread: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/camerz-slr.176210/#post-2294594

There was another line of portrait cameras built in the US under the name of Portronic, by a company I knew as Beattie-Coleman. They had similar functions to the Camerz line, long-roll film with auto-advance and sitting number tracking on every shot, etc.

As I said above Photo Control also manufactured Nord printers, which was the next step in a high volume "portrait manufacturing system."

I briefly went through the operation of these in this thread: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/are-these-color-filtration-the-same.188434/page-2#post-2497496

Most of this now seems relegated to the dustbin of history.

You're correct: Those things will be seen as obsolete by a majority of people and I'm in an incredibly small minority (maybe even the only one) who is curious about them for some reason.

For example: I'd really like to know who built some of those Noritsu lenses and why Agfa (who had their own lens manufacturing - a pretty good one at that) seems to have bought lenses from the same manufacturer or at least copied them. I find those things quite curious and fascinating and while it may be true that there's no one around on enthusiasts forums who really know any answers to specific questions like that; I just have to try my luck, I guess.

But I feel like I've learned plenty by all the nice people contributing to this thread already, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to expand my knowledge in other areas of this forgotten era. Thanks to everyone!

Very interesting you mention Camerz - I know the name because some of the lenses labeled Camerz were manufactured by the small German lens-maker C. Friedrich from Munich. Later they seem to have also used Kowa-made lenses.

Your story about the Nord printers is very interesting as well and it's so unfortunate almost all of this stuff got dumped to be honest. I get why you can't keep those whole giant machines around, but why not take some of those lenses out before you get rid of them? But I guess in some cases that's easier said than done, given more complex mechanisms....

I forgot to write step contact printers. We didn’t have any optical printing equipment. Gretag also nothing. A truly classic densograph that I found at a thrift shop is an ICA, I still have it. A photograph of it can be seen with Wikipedia. We had a small Colenta processing machine that saw some work but most everything I developed manually in spiral reels of various sizes from 70 mm to 8 mm.

Work with the spiral systems inspired me to set up Cargo (unfortunately still unfinished). The subject of densitometry brought about my Ecco projector (not even built as a prototype). Lack of capital

Thank you for the explanations. I'm not familiar with some terms: could you explain what the difference is between a step contact printer and a optical one, if it's not too complicated?

And what is an Ecco projector? Sounds interesting, but I have no clue unfortunately...

 

[AnselMortensen]

Well, ok...
My first photo-lab job was in a small-town custom lab.
My job was to come in early, mix C-41 chems, clean the rollers of the Colenta roller-transport C-41 machine, run cleanup sheets and control strips, and then run the morning's film.
My second photo-lab job was as custom B/W printer for a small-town camera store that had an in-house custom B/W lab.
My third photo-lab job was in a college town, and started out as custom B/W printer.
After two years of the burnout of making nice prints from other people's LOUSY negs, I changed over to B/W & E6 processing, dupe slide, title slide, copy neg & interneg production.

 

[Europan]

could you explain what the difference is between a step contact printer and a optical one?

And what is an Ecco projector?

You can make a positive off a negative under contact or optically. Motion-picture film you can pull as a negative and print stock over a revolving sprocket drum or move them intermittently like cameras und projectors do. Out of that you have four basic printing methods and the according apparatus.

The Ecco projector is a lab machine the details of which I’d like to not spread publicly.

 

[braxus]

I worked in a department chain store 1 hour photolab for 18 years. I was right in the heyday of film to the transition to digital. I actually worked 19 years between 2 labs. I started in 1997 in one lab, and went to a new store lab in 1998. I stayed in that lab till 2016. Kodak and Noritsu were our suppliers/ machines in the second lab. The first lab used Agfa equipment. I was the guy who kept the machines maintained when chemicals needed replacing, etc. Also did lots of work with tech support on the phone to help with machine issues. I loved the job, but digital pretty much killed the photolab. It didn't stay open long enough for the resurgence of film again. We got rid of our C41 machine a year or two before I left. Went from using an analog chemical printer, to a digital chemical printer, to a strictly dry die sublimation printer. I saw it all, for a 1 hour type of lab. Even went to Noritsu for training for a week, to come back and train the rest of the staff. I dont know how many times I had to call either Noritsu or Kodak for fixing the machines. When I couldnt do it, they came to the store to repair in lab. The fact people made less and less prints over time, pretty much killed the lab. It was getting staffed less and less the last few years open, to the point no one worked in the lab and others from Electronics had to come over and help. They finally shut the lab down completely and removed most of the machinery just last year. I do miss working in a Noritsu lab. I often scanned my own films on their professional scanner, which was so much easier than having to do it at home today with what lousy scanners we have today. I got really good at color correction. I was the techie guy in the lab, so I did all the stuff the others didn't want to touch. If a memory card had its photos deleted, I was the one to recover the data off of it. I would have stayed in the lab if they didnt cut my hours to bare minimum the last couple years there. I wish I could open my own lab today, but the cost to do so isn't feasible today. Its too risky. Lots of old chemical printers for sale for cheap. Id put one in my garage if I owned the place I live in. Its all a dream now, and there is no local lab I could work at that gives full time. Only option here now is London Drugs and they only give part time. Good if you were retired though.

 

[simplejoy]

I worked in a department chain store 1 hour photolab for 18 years. I was right in the heyday of film to the transition to digital. I actually worked 19 years between 2 labs. I started in 1997 in one lab, and went to a new store lab in 1998. I stayed in that lab till 2016. Kodak and Noritsu were our suppliers/ machines in the second lab. The first lab used Agfa equipment. I was the guy who kept the machines maintained when chemicals needed replacing, etc. Also did lots of work with tech support on the phone to help with machine issues. I loved the job, but digital pretty much killed the photolab. It didn't stay open long enough for the resurgence of film again. We got rid of our C41 machine a year or two before I left. Went from using an analog chemical printer, to a digital chemical printer, to a strictly dry die sublimation printer. I saw it all, for a 1 hour type of lab. Even went to Noritsu for training for a week, to come back and train the rest of the staff. I dont know how many times I had to call either Noritsu or Kodak for fixing the machines. When I couldnt do it, they came to the store to repair in lab. The fact people made less and less prints over time, pretty much killed the lab. It was getting staffed less and less the last few years open, to the point no one worked in the lab and others from Electronics had to come over and help. They finally shut the lab down completely and removed most of the machinery just last year. I do miss working in a Noritsu lab. I often scanned my own films on their professional scanner, which was so much easier than having to do it at home today with what lousy scanners we have today. I got really good at color correction. I was the techie guy in the lab, so I did all the stuff the others didn't want to touch. If a memory card had its photos deleted, I was the one to recover the data off of it. I would have stayed in the lab if they didnt cut my hours to bare minimum the last couple years there. I wish I could open my own lab today, but the cost to do so isn't feasible today. Its too risky. Lots of old chemical printers for sale for cheap. Id put one in my garage if I owned the place I live in. Its all a dream now, and there is no local lab I could work at that gives full time. Only option here now is London Drugs and they only give part time. Good if you were retired though.

Thank you so much for sharing that and also the on-the-scene photos - very interesting! Seems like you really got a lot of experience with quite a number of different machines and also had some real knowledge on their inner workings. I'm not sure if you've looked through the thread, but just to summarize in case you didn't have the time:

I'm personally very interested in the lenses which were used in those machines, because I'm writing a small article on Noritsu (and have already written an article on Agfa, where I've only touched on the subject of minilabs so far, but have plans to expand it in the future). So if you have any additional information (on the possible manufacturers, constructions, properties...) of one of the lenses below, that would really be an immense help.

Thanks a lot! I think you're right - that's exactly how (surprisingly similar looking) varifocal lenses were used in Noritsu QSS machines as well. I initially thought there must have been some mechanism in those machines to change their focal length, but all the samples I've seen so far were actually used at a certain focal length fixed with some screws - so it looks like many of those minilabs probably made use of a couple of those varifocal lenses adjusted to the print sizes, just like you described. If that's true it's even more surprising that they seem so hard to find... I'm afraid most of those machines have landed in the garbage bin when they stopped working and the lenses with them.

What I find the most interesting about the MSC2 lenses is that they seem very different to the MSC1 lenses. For the latter Agfa produced quite heavy and unique looking lenses:

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Because multiple sellers of such lenses have told me they were used in Agfa minilabs, I've always assumed the MSC might have been the one to incorporate these in addition to the varifocal ones. Some of them were labeled COPAL, others only E90C and JAPAN. They are fixed aperture lenses and have a common LTM/M39 mount.

View attachment 333339

View attachment 333340

View attachment 333341
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I know that the second one (varifocal lenses) were used in a range of Noritsu QSS machines, but I'm not quite sure about the rest, so any hint would be highly appreciated.

And if it's okay I would like to ask you one additional question about the QSS 3011 you've also worked with: was that a fully digital lab? And if so, did it still feature lenses for scanning? I know the above mentioned varifocal lenses were used from the QSS 8XX to at least QSS 2611, but I'm not sure about anything that came later. Thank you very much!

 

[foc]

@braxus . Thank you for posting the photos of the lab equipment. It was great to see such a well-kept, tidy lab and equipment.

 

[MattKing]

And I can confirm that that appears to be a slightly younger version of someone who looks exactly like the real braxus - no actors playing a real photographic technician here!

 

[braxus]

And if it's okay I would like to ask you one additional question about the QSS 3011 you've also worked with: was that a fully digital lab? And if so, did it still feature lenses for scanning? I know the above mentioned varifocal lenses were used from the QSS 8XX to at least QSS 2611, but I'm not sure about anything that came later. Thank you very much!

I have very little knowledge of the technical aspects of the lenses used in their specifics. The 2102 machine used a sliding zoom lens for 110 all the way up to 35mm. If you wanted to do 120 film, you had to plug in another lens by pushing the zoom lens out of the way. Thats as far as my knowledge goes on that. I cannot say how their construction was, in terms of type. We never got into that, as it wasn't relevant to doing the job. That info was more to the repair technician who worked on our machines at times. My knowledge is just based on using the machine and maintaining it.

As for the 3011 machine, its based off of the 3101, but is just more compact and only does smaller rolls of prints. The 3011 was a partially digital lab yes, but it still used chemicals to develop the prints. To make the prints, it used a laser assembly in the machine itself to output onto the chemical print. The laser assembly was prone to going once in a while, as we had to replace ours at least once. Very expensive part. This was long before dry prints came into being. We got the 3011 machine in around mid 2004. You could scan up APS, 35mm, and 120 film on the 3011. You just needed the correct film tray to plug into the outboard film scanner. Rez was limited to 3000x2000 on that scanner. And it was painfully slow to scan at that rez. The newer Noritsu scanners are way faster. As for the scanner itself, I believe it used some sort of lens in it yes, but I never actually got a good look at it. The outboard scanner (the r2d2 looking unit next to the printer itself) used a plug in light, and works similar to most other film scanners that consumers would use. Nothing fancy here. It was a very good scanner though. Best scans I ever got were off that machine. There was a slit of glass in the scanner itself that the film would shine through to get the image. Dust on the glass was an issue. You could easily ruin entire scans if you didn't deal with dust on that glass. The machine did use Digital ICE for the film itself, but the glass became an issue on ocassion.

Here are a few more pictures of my lab time. The 3011 machine moved around once, depending if we still had the 2102 or not. Same with the V100 film processor.

 

[simplejoy]

I have very little knowledge of the technical aspects of the lenses used in their specifics. The 2102 machine used a sliding zoom lens for 110 all the way up to 35mm. If you wanted to do 120 film, you had to plug in another lens by pushing the zoom lens out of the way. Thats as far as my knowledge goes on that. I cannot say how their construction was, in terms of type. We never got into that, as it wasn't relevant to doing the job. That info was more to the repair technician who worked on our machines at times. My knowledge is just based on using the machine and maintaining it.

As for the 3011 machine, its based off of the 3101, but is just more compact and only does smaller rolls of prints. The 3011 was a partially digital lab yes, but it still used chemicals to develop the prints. To make the prints, it used a laser assembly in the machine itself to output onto the chemical print. The laser assembly was prone to going once in a while, as we had to replace ours at least once. Very expensive part. This was long before dry prints came into being. We got the 3011 machine in around mid 2004. You could scan up APS, 35mm, and 120 film on the 3011. You just needed the correct film tray to plug into the outboard film scanner. Rez was limited to 3000x2000 on that scanner. And it was painfully slow to scan at that rez. The newer Noritsu scanners are way faster. As for the scanner itself, I believe it used some sort of lens in it yes, but I never actually got a good look at it. The outboard scanner (the r2d2 looking unit next to the printer itself) used a plug in light, and works similar to most other film scanners that consumers would use. Nothing fancy here. It was a very good scanner though. Best scans I ever got were off that machine. There was a slit of glass in the scanner itself that the film would shine through to get the image. Dust on the glass was an issue. You could easily ruin entire scans if you didn't deal with dust on that glass. The machine did use Digital ICE for the film itself, but the glass became an issue on ocassion.

Here are a few more pictures of my lab time. The 3011 machine moved around once, depending if we still had the 2102 or not. Same with the V100 film processor.

Many thanks for your detailed response and the images - it's really fascinating to read about! Your statement about the 'repair technician, who might know more' was echoed by other people in this thread and elsewhere online a couple of times already... It's really unfortunate (for me at least, I doubt many people care ), because the likelihood of some of those repair people reading about this here and providing some answers seems to be almost zero.

I also have one of those zoom lenses (not sure it's similar to the one you used - there have been a number of them), but it's not of much use for anything than its original application unfortunately.

It was moved by two tiny motors originally and probably able to cover a large amount of formats with that magnification, but optically speaking it seems rather weak compared to the Noritsu-labeled varifocal & prime-lenses which preceded it, as well as the zoom-lenses used by competitors Agfa and Fuji in their minilabs. But that being said it's far from impossible that I'm not just unaware of the need for some additional device, (like a condensor etc)., which might be responsible for the lack of performance here.

 

[foc]

@braxus Again thanks for posting the lab and equipment photos. It is a joy to see such well maintained machines and how tidy the lab is.
Even the drip trays under the machines are clean and empty, always a good sign.

 

[braxus]

@braxus Again thanks for posting the lab and equipment photos. It is a joy to see such well maintained machines and how tidy the lab is.
Even the drip trays under the machines are clean and empty, always a good sign.

To be honest, we didnt have the huge volume that a larger city lab would of had. So this is partially what kept the lab clean. Any breakdowns usually were inside the machine, so the drip tray didnt get messy too often. It did happen, but not often. I did obviously work in a smaller city lab of course in a department store. I remember many times we had to work overnight doing 20 hour shifts or more, to catch up on all the film orders. Those days are obviously long gone. It was a fun, but sometimes stressful job, especially during Xmas time. Worst thing was trying to explain to a customer why their "1 Hour" order wasnt ready, when they could see we were extremely busy and overloaded.

 

[sasah zib]

I spent 30+ years commercial dye transfer printing. it was an intense, rewarding, and sometimes, gratifying time.

 

[simplejoy]

The weirdos escaped from the (mini)labs! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Because I've mentioned a couple of those lenses, machines etc. in this thread and perhaps some people might recognize a couple of things in there, I hope it's okay to post it here.

I've finally gotten a first version of my article on Noritsu lenses online, so if you're interested, you can take a look at it here:

https://deltalenses.com/the-makers-noritsu/

 

[kodasnape]

I just found this forum while trying to research the mini-lab equipment I worked with back in 1988-1990 (after looking into home dev kits). I worked for a UK Kodak subsidiary in a one-hour lab in a department store, following a brief stint as a C-41 darkroom operator for a professional lab that went bust shortly after I joined (look, it wasn't my fault). It's fascinating reading all the details about equipment people worked with. We had a Copal processor & printer set, that were considered old even then. Breakdowns were a regular thing and we were on first-name-terms with most of the Kodak engineers that would come out to repair. Having to go out to the front counter and explain the mangled negatives and ruined holiday photos to the customers was about the worst part of the job, thankfully jams in the dev and bleach stage were relatively rare, the printer was the real nuisance. I became quite adept at calibrating the printing channels on the printer, we had a kit called 'Truebal' which had test strips of most of the popular films of the time (Gold etc). I remember the launch of the Ektar range of films, we had some trouble with the 25 in particular and its seeming lack of tolerance to even the slightest under-exposure, it didn't work well with hobbyist cameras' auto-ratings. I don't recall much about the printer lenses, but I remember changing the carriers and the constant pushing my knee to the right to release the negs for the next print. 35 years later I reckon I could still sit down at that machine and print a good set of prints off the bat, but then the older I get the better I was!

 

[kodasnape]

Worst thing was trying to explain to a customer why their "1 Hour" order wasnt ready, when they could see we were extremely busy and overloaded.

We used to have a one hour light above the counter, and if we ever switched it off (due to overload or problems) the phone would ring within about one minute, with the store manager on the other end asking why/when/how etc! At Xmas and during summer we'd have to make a judgement every morning whether to 'offload' the 24-48 hour orders to the main lab, which was frowned upon as it required a paid courier to collect and return, but was often necessary to keep up with the one hour orders. It was indeed very stressful at times.

 

[markjwyatt]

I just found this forum while trying to research the mini-lab equipment I worked with back in 1988-1990 (after looking into home dev kits). I worked for a UK Kodak subsidiary in a one-hour lab in a department store, following a brief stint as a C-41 darkroom operator for a professional lab that went bust shortly after I joined (look, it wasn't my fault). It's fascinating reading all the details about equipment people worked with. We had a Copal processor & printer set, that were considered old even then. Breakdowns were a regular thing and we were on first-name-terms with most of the Kodak engineers that would come out to repair. Having to go out to the front counter and explain the mangled negatives and ruined holiday photos to the customers was about the worst part of the job, thankfully jams in the dev and bleach stage were relatively rare, the printer was the real nuisance. I became quite adept at calibrating the printing channels on the printer, we had a kit called 'Truebal' which had test strips of most of the popular films of the time (Gold etc). I remember the launch of the Ektar range of films, we had some trouble with the 25 in particular and its seeming lack of tolerance to even the slightest under-exposure, it didn't work well with hobbyist cameras' auto-ratings. I don't recall much about the printer lenses, but I remember changing the carriers and the constant pushing my knee to the right to release the negs for the next print. 35 years later I reckon I could still sit down at that machine and print a good set of prints off the bat, but then the older I get the better I was!

The Copal machines worked with friction to drive the film (and prints). If prints jammed, not a big deal, but negatives were a problem. Many of the employees did not have strong photo backgrounds, and if a machine jammed, would shut the shop down, call the technician and wait for hours for him to come. It happened to me two or three times, and I shut the shop down, turned off the lights, closed the window shades (still had some ambient lights through the shades), then dip processed the film using the metal lids to minimize light exposure. Surprisingly, I saved a lot of negs. Some were chewed up a bit, many were solarized. I explained to the customer what happened, gave them their roll of prints as possible plus a free roll of film. Some customers were amused by the solarizations. No one got really mad.

 

[Sharktooth]

I went to photo school at Rye High in Toronto in the late 70's. After that I managed a minilab for a couple of years in Hamilton. Then it was time for an abrupt career change, but I remain a hobbyist. In the 90's I had a 20" Kreonite for a few years, and that was wonderful for making large color prints from negatives, but when I moved I no longer had space for it, and had to get rid of it. I still have a couple of Macbeth TD-504 units, but for the life of me I can't remember when I got them. Still have them, but it's been years since I've pulled them out for actual use.

When I shoot with film now it's always in color, but I send that out to be processed. I digitize it myself for hybrid output. I still do some B&W work, but it's almost always just for quick testing of cameras, since it's easy to develop at home.

 

[kodasnape]

The Copal machines worked with friction to drive the film (and prints). If prints jammed, not a big deal, but negatives were a problem. Many of the employees did not have strong photo backgrounds, and if a machine jammed, would shut the shop down, call the technician and wait for hours for him to come. It happened to me two or three times, and I shut the shop down, turned off the lights, closed the window shades (still had some ambient lights through the shades), then dip processed the film using the metal lids to minimize light exposure. Surprisingly, I saved a lot of negs. Some were chewed up a bit, many were solarized. I explained to the customer what happened, gave them their roll of prints as possible plus a free roll of film. Some customers were amused by the solarizations. No one got really mad.

Ah that all makes sense now, the Kodak guys really didn't like our Copal machines, but then again I used to fill in at another store as manager where there was a Kodak machine set, and we also had at least one bad jam in the processor. Unfortunately we were on show in the middle of a brightly lit store, no option to switch off the lights or blackout the windows for a salvage operation. Most people were understanding about it. I only ever remember a few upset customers the whole time I was there. One was drunk and had dropped her film in for 48 hour service and staggered back in an hour to collect, another had taken rolls of the (then) new Ektar 25 film on safari with an expensive auto-rated camera and the whole lot were under-exposed, another was upset we hadn't perfectly colour-matched their reprints to a rival lab's originals (she took a note of my name and I'm still waiting for the repercussions ). Happy days.

 

[BillBaileyImages]

Great to read about everyone's experiences, and here's another:
Started processing Kodak Microfine in 1954 for my step-father (my mother had just remarried, and he was a cardiologist and on the faculty of the medical school), so he taught me how to process the slides for his lectures.
First darkroom with a Dejur enlarger (35 and 120) in 1955.
Fast-forward to 1973: had a lab in our home with 3 1/2 gallon tanks and Nikor reels doing E3, then E4, and finally E6. C22, then C41. One shot processing in "Brunhilde"--a Kodak drum for large prints (up to 30x40)--both Ektaprint and various B/W paper developers. 16x20 and smaller prints were processed in trays.
We had so many commercial clients that we had to move into an industrial building with 2,500 square feet on the main floor.
Offices, employee break room and 10x10 enlarger (a dream that was never realized), were all on the East side 2nd floor above the printing rooms and sales counter.
Also on the East side 2nd floor were two 100-gallon water tanks that fed tempered water to the E6 and C41 Pako dip and dunk machines, and to the 52 inch Hope EP2 paper processor.
Also on the East side 2nd floor was the SpeedMaster transmission and reflection densitometer--right next to my office.
Had three Beseler 45MCRX enlargers with roll easels, Componon lenses, and SpeedMaster fiber optic probe exposure meters.
Used the Kodak drum processor for 30x40 transparencies, ("Brunhilde" from our home lab).
My wife and I loved to name items beyond our drum processor: our car ("Pearl Bailey" since she was pearl gray, was purchased on Pearl Harbor Day, and was a member of the Bailey family), the VW delivery bus (Claudia VanBuskirk), and many other equipment family members.
Too much detail? Lots more--like the West side 2nd floor where the replenishment tanks lived (right above their respective processors), and the North side frame shop where all our frames were made.
However, my standard work week of 120 hours, and training/supervising the 18 employees, along with doing all the large prints, led to what some would call "burnout."
My passion for photography and film processing is intact (E6, C41, and B/W at home), but being by myself (my loving wife passed in 2009) means processing and printing for others will remain as a significant element of my life experience.
Thanks for reading this, and hope it brings smiles to the great folks on Photrio.

 

[btaylor]

Great to read about everyone's experiences, and here's another:
Started processing Kodak Microfine in 1954 for my step-father (my mother had just remarried, and he was a cardiologist and on the faculty of the medical school), so he taught me how to process the slides for his lectures.
First darkroom with a Dejur enlarger (35 and 120) in 1955.
Fast-forward to 1973: had a lab in our home with 3 1/2 gallon tanks and Nikor reels doing E3, then E4, and finally E6. C22, then C41. One shot processing in "Brunhilde"--a Kodak drum for large prints (up to 30x40)--both Ektaprint and various B/W paper developers. 16x20 and smaller prints were processed in trays.
We had so many commercial clients that we had to move into an industrial building with 2,500 square feet on the main floor.
Offices, employee break room and 10x10 enlarger (a dream that was never realized), were all on the East side 2nd floor above the printing rooms and sales counter.
Also on the East side 2nd floor were two 100-gallon water tanks that fed tempered water to the E6 and C41 Pako dip and dunk machines, and to the 52 inch Hope EP2 paper processor.
Also on the East side 2nd floor was the SpeedMaster transmission and reflection densitometer--right next to my office.
Had three Beseler 45MCRX enlargers with roll easels, Componon lenses, and SpeedMaster fiber optic probe exposure meters.
Used the Kodak drum processor for 30x40 transparencies, ("Brunhilde" from our home lab).
My wife and I loved to name items beyond our drum processor: our car ("Pearl Bailey" since she was pearl gray, was purchased on Pearl Harbor Day, and was a member of the Bailey family), the VW delivery bus (Claudia VanBuskirk), and many other equipment family members.
Too much detail? Lots more--like the West side 2nd floor where the replenishment tanks lived (right above their respective processors), and the North side frame shop where all our frames were made.
However, my standard work week of 120 hours, and training/supervising the 18 employees, along with doing all the large prints, led to what some would call "burnout."
My passion for photography and film processing is intact (E6, C41, and B/W at home), but being by myself (my loving wife passed in 2009) means processing and printing for others will remain as a significant element of my life experience.
Thanks for reading this, and hope it brings smiles to the great folks on Photrio.

Nice story, Bill. I enjoyed reading about your adventures! Sorry to hear about your spouse. Keep telling us your stories! Thanks

 

[BillBaileyImages]

It is SO GOOD to find and converse with other photographers! Living in a small town (1500 folks, not a single traffic light, and heavy traffic is 3 cars or a tractor) means nobody else to share advanced items lives within 100 miles.

 

[Lawrence_8965]

I found this website quite by accident while doing a nostalgic search on the web for information on the old C-22 Processing Machine I learned to operate back in 1968. A bit of background: I was a Junior in high school and had just joined the high school camera club. There, I met a guy who taught me how to take action shots during night football games and how 35mm SLR cameras worked (my first!). Prior to that, my first camera was actually a Polaroid self developing camera.

I learned that my new friend worked (after school) at a commercial photo processing lab developing B&W negative film and that they were looking for someone to fill an opening running the C-22 Color Processing machine so I applied and with his recommendation, I got the job.
My job was to load racks with 10 rolls of film both 126 and 135mm for the older guy in the darkroom who then loaded the machine. Of course the film had to be extracted from the 126 cartridges or the 135mm cannisters, hung from clips, unrolled and clipped with weights. The machine would then take the racks, lift them up and lower them into tanks of chemicals one every two minutes. Once the machine moved the racks of film through all of the chemicals, it would move them into a large dryer machine.

Primarily, my job was to remove the customer's film from their envalope, add a number sticker to the envalope and an identical number to the rack behind a spring-loaded clip where the film cartidge of cannister was held and once the rack had all 10 slots filled, move the rack into a box system in the wall of the darkroom. Inside, the technician would take the rack, place it on the machine, strip each film from its cartidge or cannister, hang it on the clip and clip a weight on it.
Later, I learned how to work in the darkroom myself and got quite good at it. I worked at this lab for over 4 years and became the lead tech on that machine when the older guy (mid-60's) I worked with retired. But I was not given the supervisor's title. They hired another older (mid-30's) guy for that position.

The lab I worked for serviced a tri-state area with customers in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. We had 6 drivers who picked up film from camera shops and drug stores throughout the three states and delivered the negatives and prints back to the customers on a daily basis (excluding Sundays).
During my time working there, I learned alot about the C-22 process (and later the C-41 process) and the machine that processed the film. My work shift was typically from 4PM to midnight depending on the volume of the workload each night and it was not uncommon for me to work 16 hour days right after Christmas and New Years.