Here’s some cheerful E-6 news for Washington state – and for everyone else, too.

Beginning this spring, Panda Lab (in Seattle) will begin offering E-6 processing for large format film – they’ll process 4x5 up to 11x14. Walk-in or mail-in service will be available. This will the first time Panda has offered E-6 services to LF photographers.

Currently – to the best of my knowledge – no Washington lab offers E-6 services for LF film. The last company to do so, I believe, was R&R Custom Color Lab (in Spokane) who, last year, discontinued the service to concentrate better on “1 hour lab” type work.

In fact, Panda will be using R&R’s equipment to make this possible – in a friendly gesture, R&R sent it over the Cascade mountains to them. That’s less junk for the landfill, more services for us!

Panda is currently making room for the equipment, and said they’ll need additional time for optimizing set-up, testing, inspection, and to verify conformity w/ Seattle city codes. Still too early for Panda to set prices, but I suspect they’ll be competitive w/ other West Coast and national services.

The time frame looks like late March or April, Panda says.

Spread the news, share the joy.