Start with the film that is the most accessible for you. We strongly believe that everyone needs to make up that decision for themselves by trying through the different film stock. Like the good old saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. However, if you want a definitive answer, we highly recommend trying out Kodak Potra 400 (for having a lot of latitude to work with) and Ilford HP5 for B&W.

P.S. If you are a someone that fills up the roll fast, you may consider more budget friendly films like Kodak Colourplus 200 or even the notorious Shanghai GP3 100. As you shoot more variety of film, you will slowly narrow down the list to the few that you feel most excited about when you go out for a shoot.

Unfortunately we don’t. It is a service and skill that we really wish to bring to the community as older film cameras starts to break down and not may new film cameras around. More updates soon!

It’s quite simple actually. First, you will have to fill in your details such as name, email address and phone number on a piece of note. Here, we will get hold of your contact details and your preferences on how we are to process and scan the film roll. Next, you will have to send your film rolls to us at the Black hole Lab via your preferred courier service.

Alternatively, you can always drop off your film rolls at our lab 🙂 We would be more than happy to meet and have a chat with you over coffee. 

Setting up drop off centres around various states in Malaysia will also be part of the plan in the near future. Do hit us up if you know any shops that would be interested.

*Do note that it is vital that you store the film properly to make sure that the images are preserved prior to processing. You can check our quick guide HERE.

A better question would be what started the Black hole Labs. We’ve dedicated a short article on what our core and philosophy is about! Check it here!

We believe that every lab has their own unique services and offerings that serves the part of community.

For us at Black hole, we strongly believe that quality over quantity.

We take pride in what we do in terms of care provided for during the developing process, where all the chemicals used are fresh and processing is only done by our expert.

In terms of scanning, we make sure we check for any unwanted artefact on the scans, ensuring that any film dust or scratches to be sorted out to bring out the best possible outcome.

After the scans, the exposed film will be stored in archival grade folder until retrieval by our customers.

We believe in consistently producing nothing but high quality scans.

Different films are made up from different materials to capture light. Thus, there are different chemicals needed to interact with the film stock. 

In short, C41 is will handle the majority of colour negative film available.

ECN-2 will be able to process motion films (fancy word for cinema film).

E6 will be the process for slide films / colour positive film / transparency film.

B&W as the term suggest will be used for most of the B&W film available now.

It is usually mentioned on the box/canister. You can always just send us a message, we can assist you ASAP.

At the moment, we can process 135, 120, 4×5 and 8×10 format.

Starting at a humble price of RM20 will be enough to kickstart your film journey! We do offer a wide variety of services. You can check our price here!

Yes we can! Only for B&W film though. The reason for this is to pull or push film you will need to run the process at different times compared to usual processing.

At Black Hole, to ensure the quality and the consistency of the results, it is imperative that we do not reuse film chemicals.

This means that the cost of pulling and pushing colour film can be quite expensive.

Contact us for more info!

*if you really need your colour film pushed / pulled, feel free to contact us!

Of course

For colour negative film, we mainly use Kodak Flexicolour which we found the results to be reliable and consistent.

For B&W, we use Ilford HC but we do have some other chemicals available, do let us know your developer of choice.

For most 35mm scans, we use our trusty, industry standard Noritsu and Fuji Frontier. We yearn to provide with our customers the best of scans so we need scanners that are able to do high quality scans, and without a doubt the Noritsu&Fuji is the scanner of our choice.

We do have a professional scanning service that produces what we believe to be superior over the other scanners. With the rapid growth of the quality and the ability of the modern sensors, we took the plunge and invested in a complete kit of Negative Supply Scanning with coupled with the resolution and dynamic range monster. We are convinced and found that (maybe besides drum scanning), our DSLR scanning setup can easily fight toe to toe to any of best scans available in the market.
Don’t just trust us blindly, try it yourself!

We provide scans from 6000 long edge all the way up to 9500 long edge, varying in format. 

You can check more of our scanning options here.

Besides having a scanner setup that gives our customers high detail and large scans, one of the major advantages of through our professional scanning service is the dynamic range that scanner setup can capture.

To fully utilise the capability of such setups, we offer our customer a RAW version of the film scans using TIFF file.

Here, the colours, shadows, highlights, detail and grain are preserved and can be tinkered with. It’s like the darkroom, but digital.

We recommend this for photographers who want more control during the editing process.

We mainly deliver through the cloud. It will have an expiry date of 30 days for you to download. Rest assured, we will keep a copy of your scans for up to ONE (1) month to ensure that everything is kept and preserved properly.

We will hold them for a total of 90 days. Strictly no further actions when its over 90 days.

In short, we will first scan each of the photos individually using our DSLR scanning setup.

With the A7RIV, the quality of the scans are very high detailed and the highlights and shadows are preserved to allow further tinkering to the photographers intention later on.

Next, we will go through the batch frame by frame to remove film scratch marks and dust that somehow landed on the film throughout the process. Going through frame by frame will take some time and a lot of effort. This is to ensure that the film scans are at the best possible quality.

Lastly, we offer a fully customised colour correction service  as how you, the photographer had intended based on your instructions. Check more here!

In short, Pro Scan takes a huge amount of time to scan a single roll.

Each frame is carefully examined to make sure that any artefact, such as hair, dust and scratches is on the scans.

After going through the whole roll, each photo is then adjusted and curated to an acceptable level colour and detail at the discretion of the photographer.

With all these processes followed strictly and performed flawlessly, we believe that the best possible scans are created.

Of course! We love to scan old films. You will be surprised, with new scanning technology, how much more detail and colour you can get back from old film.

No matter how much the world has changed, the photo on the film will always live on.

35mm film is cut into strips of 6 frames each and sleeved.  120 film is cut into 4 strips (frame length varies by format) and sleeved.  You can collect back your negatives in store after 30 Days from the date of receiving the email. We will make every effort to hold negatives for up to 3 months.

Around 80% of negatives are left behind at the lab, forgotten or unclaimed. It’s more than just a hassle—it’s a waste of resources, including plastic for sleeving and the team’s time. Let’s work together to change this!

Opt for return shipping instead!

W.M – RM10
E.M – RM20
SINGAPORE – RM40
OTHERS – Please ask us more more details.

We usually ship back the negatives after 30 days, or you can pay extra RM10 for an IMMEDIATE return of your negatives!