phranque, sorry I wasn't clear abt the processing. You've got to take the film to a film lab, and maybe get it scanned there, outputting either to the cloud, an external drive, or an optical disk. You then edit the digital files, and take an edited file to a place like Costco or a print house, making sure you've set it up with the right color space for their printer. I'd do a test before making any quantity prints. You could also get chromagenic (chemical) prints at some custom labs.
But, as you say, there's nothing for analog photoprocessing at CVS, Costco, etc. In the mass market, acquisition is all digital now. Essentally, once you've got digital files, the computer has replaced the darkroom. Certain effects like motion blur, I find, are much nicer when shot in analog, but transferring to digital with any degree of quality can get expensive. If I were shooting film now, I'd use a custom lab as I describe, and have TIF full roll scans made at time of processing...
$8 16mb TIF/JPG Full roll scans at time of processing
$13 60mb TIF/JPG Full roll scans at time of processing
$10 16mb TIF/JPG Full roll scans from cut film
$15 60mb TIF/JPG Full roll scans from cut film
$4 16mb TIF/JPG Single frame machine scans
$8 60mb TIF/JPG Single frame machine scans
$20 20mb Imacon Scan
$35 60mb Imacon Scan
Re cameras... I've never owned a digital camera I've liked, because it costs a fortune to get a digital camera with manual controls. Simlarly, most affordable digital cameras have a large amount of latency... that brief but significant time lag between what you see in the finder and when you press the shutter button and when the picture is focused and taken. IMO, it's really pretty hard to do decent photography, or to learn much about photography, with an automatic camera.
Obviously, that's not the popular take on it, and most affordable digital cameras are automatic with menu settings as opposed to physical, manual controls. Those physical controls are much more expensive to build than chips are to program. But using a long menu instead of a manual control is a nightmare. It's a long discussion.
The entire digital motion picture revolution, spearheaded by using Canon DSLRs in movie mode... would not have been possible if an LA cinematographer had not been able to talk Canon engineers into making a *manual version* of one of their DSLRs, with which he shot a bunch of TV commercials, some short films, and a feature, as proof of concept. The cameras became very much in demand, but were ergonomically ridiculous for movie use... Eventually, dedicated motion picture modules, with sensors and ergonomics intended for motion capture, were manufactured. They've changed the entire movie business.
Re
Olympus cameras... I have an Olympus XA pocket camera, a nice camera for street photography, that is a physically beautiful object. Even with a plastic shell, it's built like a battleship compare to most comparably priced digital camera. I scarcely have used it, though, because of the cost of getting good scans to digital. Here's a Ken Rockwell article on the XA and the XA2... [
kenrockwell.com...]
A friend has an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera which I've played with a little, and mostly have seen what he's done with it, and it is a stunning beautiful system... but not cheap. I don't think I'd get a full format DSLR at this point. I wonder whether its value has gone up or down with the closing of the company. I'm guessing down for now, with maybe long term value going up.
Old cameras either have a current use value, or an antique value... like a very rare edition, say, of a Leica model with a very low serial number. I'm not sure whether such an animal exists in Olympus... In the current use value, I'm sure that for certain lines, like the OM-D E-M1 Micro Four Thirds, things like lenses and accessories might be sought after. Depends a lot on inventories and current demands. Ultimately, it's difficult to support old hardware without parts and techs who know them.. and it's possible that Olympus bargains might be available right now for that reason. Keep in mind that you'd be buying a system that no longer was being enhanced. I read that Panasonic has also gone out of biz. There are worries about some models of Nikon... and it's hard to say about Sony.
I should note that Adorama has acquired a good reputation for used professional equipment, as has B&H... but not for cheaper consumer level equipment.. I too would avoid ebay for cameras.
