UNWIND ~ Film Lab
WHAT'S IMPORTANT TO ME
a.k.a SUSTAINABILITY IN THE LAB
My goal is to provide exceptional service at a very fair price. Additionally, I strive to work as environmentally friendly as possible and offer a wide range of options & products!
That means your film will always be developed in the best possible quality, using fresh chemicals. Regular checks and replenishment of the chemicals are self-explanatory, but I'm still trying to work as eco-friendly as possible. That means I'm using just enough chemistry to get superbe results out of your negatives! No more than that and also nothing ever gets wasted because of expiration. But because of that turn-around times may vary and can take up to a 1,5 weeks (depending on workload). Please be patient if that happens from time to time (I know it's hard) for the sake of our environment! :)
Also my scanner is getting cleaned daily and I regularly calibrate it to ensure optimal results. All Fuji Frontier SP-3000 scans are done frame by frame with manual in-scanner corrections by the way. This means that corresponding parameters for exposure and color are adjusted as needed based on my assessment for every single frame. There is no complete automation involved!
Furthermore, you'll always get back your shots correctly aligned in landscape or portrait mode. Also all of the scans are reviewed on an EIZO CG 2420 monitor, which is regularly calibrated, before being made available for download. Final corrections are made as needed (and if wanted).
A bit more about sustainability for all of you that are interested in it:
I established a sophisticated recycling & waste management practice. That means that I use a silver recovery system to clean the fixer chemicals of all processes (ECN-2, C41, B/W) and I will work together with a jeweller in the future to make jewellery out of the reclaimed silver. Also all the waste chemicals will be stored and dumped at specialized facilities in separated canisters.
The water from the film processor (water bath) which isn't polluted with chemicals is used for watering my plants & garden.
From 2025 onwards all of the film processors, scanners, PCs & servers will 100% be powered from my own solar power system. Until then I'm using a service provider with 100% renewable energy from within Austria.
Last but not least I'm re-using all your sent-in film canisters for re-spooling ECN-2 Motion Picture Film for stills photography. Also all the plastic covers will be re-used for sending out these re-spooled rolls again. So nothing goes to waste here! If you own a film lab and don't know what to do with the film canisters and plastic covers than please feel free to send them to me instead of throwing them away!
WHY I'M DOING THIS
I just want to give photographers and filmmakers another option where they can develop and scan their films and help them with all their questions. I'll always strive to keep everything as affordable as possible to keep film alive. I think it would be a shame if this beautiful medium with over a hundred years of extensive research just dies because of our digitalized world!
I'M DEFINITELY NOT THE FASTEST LAB IN THE WORLD!
After many years of working in the post production sector within the film industry – mainly for advertising – I realized that I'm really unhappy with the constant stress and ever changing deadlines. That's also one reason why I opened up this film lab. I wanted to change my way of life and unwind! So this lab is definitely not the one with the fastest turnaround. Fast turnarounds usually also means that it's not the smartest thing for your planet either, as you're wasting a lot of chemicals. So if you're in a real hurry this lab is probably not for you. That being said – I obviously will make sure that you get your negatives back as fast as possible. But the chances are high that you won't get a same day or even 24h turnaround.