Decent film labs in melbourne

[nodabs]

I just got myself an F4 and i'm wanting to shoot some film to complement the digi (mainly velvia/provia for slide and Tmax B/W) but i have no idea where decent labs are. so do any of you guys know where you can get decent cheap prints made, as i'm slightly out of my depth in the film world.

[Steffen]

I don't want to discourage you in any way, but this very issue had almost have me give up photography after I came to Oz 9 years ago. I found even the mediocre quality labs to be extremely expensive, not to mention slow.

Everything to do with slides (decent frames, magazines, projectors, screens, compressed air, you name it) seemed at least 2-3 times more expensive than what I was used to. When I asked about why I was told that slides are simply not popular over here. And then, to make matters worse, the Kodachrome mail-in service was discontinued...

I ended up shooting less and less, until I finally came across a digital Nikon body that would work with my collection of glass.

Don't get me wrong, all my issues may well have been due to not finding my way around or not knowing the right places to go, but in this day and age I'd be surprised if shooting slides wasn't getting more difficult by the day.

If you know where to get decent processing, and can afford it, you'll have a lot of fun with the F4, I'm sure.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Nikon boy]

Go to Vanbar in Cardigan street Carlton, join their club, ( which costs about $15 a year) which lowers their already good prices,
They have some of the best processing machinery in Australia
They sell Nikon Gear (no cannon here !!) and are great for all things film and digital

[nodabs]

cheers i will definatly check out vanbar as i'm also looking for a decent lab to get digi prints as well so they could be the ticket.

Steffen, i kind of know it's going to be hard to get anything done at a resonable cost luckily film is more of a backup body and also to shoot new things and generally get better (plus my 15mm fish is soo wide hehe) i really like the look of slides but i won;t be shooting heaps of slide film most will be B+W like the Tmax it's mot to just shoot a roll here and there and see what happens

[^catalyst]

Yes at Vanbar we've got a pretty good setup, I don't know alot about film but we get a lot of pro's in so we must be doing something right?

The VIP card doesn't cover true B+W processing however.

-Lachie