Developing Disposable Cameras: A Step by Step Guide
Disposable cameras have been gaining popularity for the past 10 years and today, they are as popular as they ever were back in the day. Disposable cameras have become popular at weddings, travel with kids to summer camp, snap the first photos of newborns at the hospital, and everything in between. But after you’ve taken the last picture on your disposable, what happens next?
We’ve got several guides on where to take your disposable camera once you’re ready to develop it. This blog post is going to look at the developing process so that you can understand what happens during the process. From dropping it off at your lab to getting the digital images or prints, we’ll walk you through the entire process.
Step 1 - Choose Your Film Lab
For many first time disposable camera shooters, this is the most difficult and confusing step. There’s an entire rich culture in the film world that is a little overwhelming for anyone new to disposable cameras and film. The process, the options, the turn-around time, and understanding a lot of strange terms film photographers use can be confusing. There are a few things to consider when it comes to choosing your film lab, and we will discuss each one briefly.
Should I Mail in My Disposable Camera, or Find a Local Lab
After the film apocalypse in the early 2000’s, most of the film labs went out of business. Unless you live in a big city or an area with a lot of artistic and creative influence, there’s a really good chance that there won’t be a local film lab near you. A quick Google or AI search for “Film Labs Near Me” will help you locate any close by. Many local film labs are ran by passionate individuals who deeply love film and are working hard to keep film alive. But as I can tell you from experience, that is a very very difficult process. You may run into long lead times or higher prices, or both at the local film lab as constant changes to our industry and unpredictable price increases have made the film lab business a difficult one to maintain. Some smaller or new local film labs may struggle with quality and customer service also. There are many posts on Reddit about really poor service or just awful developing at smaller local labs. However, every lab is different and if you’ll take the opportunity to get to know the individuals in the lab and do some research on reviews and customer feedback, you’ll have a much better experience in choosing a lab that will do a good job for you.
A temptation exists, for the sake of convenience, for many to head to a big box store like CVS, Walgreens, or Walmart to get your film developed. However, this almost always results in a negative experience for many customers. I can’t tell you how many photographers have come in with their disposable cameras telling us that it was going to take 8 weeks or that they were just told flat out that they weren’t accept disposable cameras to develop at that time. And even when they take the disposable cameras to develop, the turn around times are often double the amount of time quote and none of the three return your negatives (they destroy them after scanning).
Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens send their disposable cameras off to a factory somewhere else to get developed and scanned. If there was ever a problem or a mix-up, it would be impossible to recovery or rescan your images. While there are some customers who have a good experience taking their disposable cameras into the CVS, Walmart, or Walgreens, I’ve heard so many complaints that I honestly can’t recommend using them at all.
If local labs aren’t an option, for whatever reason, there are many mail-in film labs that exist and are amazing. Many of the mail-in labs have been in business for many years and have a proven track record of quality and reliability. The majority of our film and disposable camera developing comes from our mail-in film developing service. We love our customers, no matter where they are from and like all of the other mail-in labs, do our absolute best to return the best quality images and customer service we can to them. The DarkRoom, Shutter Junkies Photo Lab, House of 35, and many other mail-in labs are out there. However, the downside to using a mail in lab is that you have to pay for postage and wait a little longer for the package to make the trip from you to them. The upside to using a mail-in lab is that generally they stay much busier and have a more refined and higher quality service than most local-only film labs. We would definitely recommend you considering a mail-in film lab as an option for getting your disposable camera developed.
Step 2 - The Lab Gets to Work
Once your disposable throw away cameras arrive at the lab, there are several steps that have to take place to convert the latent image on your film into a digital or printed image. Here’s a detailed breakdown of everything we do in our lab:
Your package has to be opened and contents inspected and we need to identify who the package came from.
We confirm the quantity, types of disposable cameras included, and details of your order
An order envelop is created with your details
Your throw away camera has to be inspected for damage or issues. We also check to see if all of the pictures have been taken.
We break open the disposable camera - yes, we have to break them open with a screwdriver. Once opened up, we can pull the film out and remove the battery. Newer cameras are set aside to re-use and older cameras are recycled
We have to extract the film leader from the 35mm film cartridge contained inside.
We trim the film leader and add a twin check tag (a little sticker that comes in twos with a four digit number. And is adhered to your film and the other to you order envelop
Your film is placed in a line of film to be developed and your order envelop moves to the next step
Your order develop is sent for data entry where we take any notes we’ve added during receiving and the twin check numbers and we enter that information into our database. This helps us to identify and keep everyone’s order sorted. At this point, the system sends an automated email to you to let you know that your order has been received and in-processed.
For most of our disposable cameras, the film is taped to a leader card and ran through our Noritsu V30 developer. The film moves throughout all of the chemicals and is monitored by a technician at all times.
The film comes out of the machine dry, where the technician inspects each roll for quality and then hangs the film on a film hanger to be scanned.
Another technician takes each hanging roll of film and checks it again the order envelope and then sets the scanner to the required settings for the order.
As the roll is scanned, the technician examines the images to check for correct color balance and framing. A scanning technician has to be good at quick and accurate color correction, a skill that takes quite a while to master!
Your digital images are saved to our storage device and if you ordered prints, the digital images are transferred over our laser photo printer where you images are printed oh photographic paper and then developed much like your film was developed!
Your images are inspected one more time and then set in the upload queue.
Your negatives are sleeved and returned to you (if you selected that option at check-out).
Your prints are ran and packaged and mailed back to you.
Step 3 - View Your Digital Images
Almost every lab uses an online gallery system. These systems generally send you an email automatically once your order completes with a secure link for you to view and download your images. Many more professional labs use some of the same systems, what are just branded and look a little bit different, but they all function the same. Here are a few things to be aware of once you receive your digital gallery link from your lab!
Your Gallery Probably has an Expiration Date
Our lab, handles literally millions of individual images each year. That’s a lot of data to try to keep up with and in order to keep all of our systems working efficiently and keep your images secure, your galleries expire and the images are deleted. Our lab, Shutter Junkies Photo Lab keeps galleries open for 30 days. Some labs keep your galleries online longer and some shorter. There is usually an option to create an account and store the images permanently, so ask your photo lab about that option. Our lab will allow you to create an account for free and store your images permanently so you don’t lose them, but you do have to set that option up before the gallery expires. Once you have an account, all future disposable camera images you send in to be developed can easily be saved to your account. We do not charge for this feature, but some labs do charge an annual fee.
You can Order Prints from Your Online Gallery
Almost every lab gives you the option to order prints from you online gallery after the images are scanned. This is usually a fast and easy process and gives you the option to have your images printed in several different sizes and on a variety of papers and products!
You Should Download Your Images to at Least One Device
Accidents, glitches, and even data losses can occur so it’s absolutely necessary to download your images to a local device (phone, tablet, computer, etc) as soon as possible. And make a back-up copy somewhere else if you can. I cannot tell you how many individuals download their images to their phone only to have them disappear or get lost or the phone gets destroy and there is no cloud back-up. Even if you download them and then re-upload them to a Google Drive, at least you have a back-up!
From Moments to Memories - Disposable Cameras are a Great Too
That pretty much covers the entire process. While some people consider disposables just to be nothing more than a throwaway camera, I can tell you that some of the most amazing and beautiful moments in peoples lives are captured daily on disposable cameras. They have a unique look, and unique feel, and are so much fun to use. Our lab processes hundreds of them each day and I can tell you that they are a reliable and simple way to get photos without the risk or distractions a smart phone provides. And knowing more about how the process of developing them works and how your labs process your little throw away cameras hopefully will give you a little more piece of mind!
If you have any questions, you can always reach out to us at info@shutterjunkies.org . And if you’re ready to get started developing your disposable cameras, we’d be happy to help you out! Just click the button below to get started.