I shoot 120 film (Fuji Provia 100F) and understand your questions about making something of the images you capture. I elected to have my film processed at a great local lab. I know they'll use the right chemistry every time -- fresh, untainted -- so I don't have to mix up expensive solutions for a couple of rolls and then have it go bad waiting weeks for the next batch. I have them do the drum scans, too, and yes, each one is costly, but the key for me is, I exercise super critical evaluations before I hand a piece of film over to them. Early on, I bought a good light box and better loupe, and I do a few steps before a scan order. I go through all the strips and weed out 2/3 rds of the images instantly. I put together a group of "really good" and a group of "maybe good" (or back-ups), and set them aside for a day or two. When I return with more objective eyes, I work over each scene with two strengths of magnification, starting with whether it is a good composition and represents the subject positively. Next, I assess the slide for technical elements: focus, motion, edges, etc., to determine if one of those factors should disqualify the shot. The keepers that emerge are then sorted into "is it a pretty good shot" or "is this one I'll post on a strong forum or pursue for a juried show or contest." Of this last group, I'll then rank them for preference/need to have a scan made. All of this can take a week (no instant gratification here), but I've found it lets the deserving shots through, and the pretty good "tourist" shots end up on a side track. Every 6-10 months I go through the tourist shots and throw most of them away, only keeping the very good alternate views of the best shots I've gotten scanned. Insight: 120 size film for a 67 system is more than four times larger than a full-framed DSLR. I have mine scanned at 400 mb. I know I'll be able to take any of the files and produce a clean 40" print, and if I work with it some, a 60" print. Don't underscan to save a few dollars. An eight foot print hanging in a corporate office will underwrite quite a few scans in the future. On a parallel line of thought: I've known a couple of guys who were quite accomplished with the techniques and workflow for digital capture, who figured as "simple" as film shooting was (shutter, aperture, right?) they would add the medium format "feather" to their bonnets. Didn't work that way for them: there's different savvy and instincts at play and it takes a fair amount of conditioning and practice to previsualize and produce consistently good results with film. MF film work can give you special images, but my advice is to hand off your film for lab processing, and then become very selective about WHY and WHAT you end up scanning, and don't stint on the quality.
