For the Love of B&W Photography

[Brilliant Bill]

I went into the last local traditional camera and film processing shop in the region, and asked if I could have contact prints made of hundreds of old 120 and 35mm film strips. I wanted contact prints to sort and cull the negatives and choose full-size prints. He was eager to help, but he replied that neither he nor any labs do contact prints of film anymore.

If anyone knows of a lab in the USA that does B&W (and color) contact prints, please share. (Or is there a digital equivalent I can do with my MFC printer/scanner? I would assume the negatives have to be backlighted to scan...right? I am reluctant to delve into digital equipment to do a one-time job of viewing thousands of negative images. I gave up on finding a decent negative scanner a decade ago, but maybe things are easier now.)

Fred, I'm sure there are commercial places still providing scan services, but to do hundreds, you're going to spend a lot for high quality scans. I suggest you go to ebay, find a good quality used scanner, do the tedious chore of scanning yourself (hours and hours of pure boredom from my experience), then resell the scanner if you never intend to use it again. I'd guess your net cost would be $100 or less -- far, far less than any commercial scanning service!

Here's a sample of B&W film scanned to digital. I think it was Fuji Acros film from a Canon D1 camera:
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