Calypso Imaging is Closing

[D. Bryant]

This story has been repeated all across the country frequently for the past few years.

That is small or smaller family owned pro labs closing. No one wants to purchase their business because of a dwindling customer base. The owners are ready to retire and just want tot sell their facilities and equipment and enjoy their freedom.

[pocketfulladoubles]

If you are going to continue working in film - particularly color - then sooner or later you will have to learn to do it yourself as suggested by Ansel Adams.

Fortunately in the Bay Area there is still Action Photo in Concord who will do E6 and C41.

[QT Luong]

Here is the entire Calypso announcement:

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...o-closing.html

Joe mentioned to me that the monthly service contract is $1750 for the LJ and $500 for the Tango.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

45 min South, across the bay in Monterey, Rob at Greens Camera World has been doing my 4x5 and 120 E6 very well and very inexpensively. It's dip and dunk with several runs per week. They also do 120 C41 on the premises.

(Still need to find someone locally other than Bay Photo who does 4x5 C41 reasonably... at least until I find another place to set up my Jobo and darkroom again).

[RichSeiling]

Wonder how West Coast Imaging is doing? They're across the river from
my mtn property, only about 20min away, but I rarely stop in because I don't personally need anything digital. Nice folks, however.

Thanks for the kind words! We're here and we're printing every day! We're working on adding mounting to take care of Calypso customers.

[luis a de santos]

No big loss.
They are better labs

[Sideshow Bob]

What a horrible thing to say. Calypso did an excellent job processed my film for over 20 years, I can only hope that something like this happens to you that makes your life more difficult.

Gale

[bob carnie]

As a co-owner of a small family lab, and after working my whole career in other family owned labs, I can wish the owners , staff of Calypso good luck in the future.

Most times labs close basically because they cannot keep the cost of operations within a managable % of gross sales in a market that changed dramatically over these last years.
Perfect examples would be E6 labs that need film to keep the processors in line, at a certain point the balancing act becomes difficult to maintain plots.
Steichanlab and Colourgenics in Toronto, both world class E6 operations came to this point recently. In Steichanlabs case the owner decided not to reinvest in heavy cost digital printing devices and still compete but rather retire comfortably to a farm, In Colourgenics case they stopped E6 this year but still continue on as the owner has invested in digital output and is a first rate source for output.

Like any buisness the reasons for leaving are mixed, but I do know a lot of content ex Lab owners.

What a horrible thing to say. Calypso did an excellent job processed my film for over 20 years, I can only hope that something like this happens to you that makes your life more difficult.

Gale

[MyNikonLens]

I am so sad to find out they've closed down. I loved their work and so many of my friends that used their services.