Cine Film Processing & Developing

All of a sudden you discover some old cine film in a square cartridge perhaps. You’re not sure what it is sometimes but then work out that it’s unprocessed cine film?

Chemically process your old Kodak, Agfa, Fujichrome 8mm, Standard 8, Super 8 and 16mm Cine film with Supaphoto.

Other familiar names to you perhaps include Pathé, Pathéscope, Agfa, Polavision, Technicolour, Ilford, Gratispool and Boots. So if you’re looking for cine film processing near me, whatever the brand and type, we’re used to handling the differences and making scanning adjustments accordingly.

With over 20 years of Super 8 processing experience our lab procedures are highly evolved for the best handling of small format film. We employ only the freshest chemicals and have a wide variety of tools to ensure consistency and high quality outcomes.

With older film in particular, we cannot always promise happy outcomes but we have a very high success rate in obtaining images. (87% +) We’re truly passionate about film and what we do and you can trust us when we say that we really care about the outcome. There’s nothing nicer than the feeling of seeing images you’ve never seen before – sometimes after 40 plus years!!

We are pleased to say that discontinued films such as Kodachrome 40 film, for example, can still be processed using special chemicals. However we should say that this is not a simple or fast process so you should expect to pay a little more and wait a little longer.  It takes 13 baths for example. We can develop black & white negatives . The results are more or less a little contrasty depending on age and storage of the film. You might also need to have the inverted while digitising. We develop old Agfa-Moviechrome films and Kodak Ektachrome too. Regular 8: Fujichrome R 25 and RT 200 and specialised makes such as Pilot, Peruchrome and more – we use E6 (= color reversal method).

The Agfa-Movie Chrome films in their blue and white boxes often result in better outcomes: light pastel colors, azure comes out bluey and blacks are more or less green. The reason is that the embedded film colour coupler weakens after 40 years. Ektachromes might become, depending on their age, ‘pastely’ or even worse very light and low in contrast generally up to completely transparent.  We develop colour films only if I have at least 4 pieces of work since the chemistry is expensive but it is enough for about eight super 8 films and it stays fresh for about 14 days.

In reality, most high street chains don’t touch this stuff since it’s bitty and time consuming as far as they are concerned. It’s not commercially viable. They often prefer low effort processes that don’t require specialised knowledge for their staff you see. But’s ok. We’re in it for the long journey and we love what we do.

So this isn’t a standard everyday process. Keep in mind that the film we are processing is generally a long way past its ‘process before’ date. Processing and developing is therefore undertaken on the basis of trying our best and often in steps to see what works best on snippets initially. Results will vary of course and depend on a wide variety of factors such as storage and conditions of the film – not to mention its age.

We’ll call you receipt of the film anyway and advise you about the options , timescales and cost. We also apply a further discount when digitally converting to digital files or disc at the same time of order. You will after all want to view your films at the end of the process!!

Learn more about our cine film services.