Horror story courtesy of Kodak

[albert knapp md]

I recently returned from Holland and sent in 45 rolls of slides for

E6 development to Kodalk. One week later, I received all 45 rolls,

but.... 10 of those rolls were miscut!! A typical slide would have

half of one frame and half another! I was horrified and spoke to

the owner of the local camera store. He told me that all Kodak

slide processing is now outsourced to Kansas City and that the

quality control has deteriorated. Kodak wants to exit the

processing market as they view it as a loser. I am very distraught

as there were some nice sphots that were literally cut up in front

of my eyes. What can I do alert everyone as to this outrage?

[el_fang]

Switch to digital while you can still convince some stupid sucker to pay you top dollar for your film stuff?

[el_fang]

Seriously, this sort of thing will become more and more commonplace. Just get a scanner (as you've been advised to do before) and start learning how to stitch in Photoshop... maybe you'll save a few of those photos.

[grant_.]

find a local pro lab? e6 is a pretty common process that doesnt need to be sent out to kokak....its either that or shoot negs...or goto digital... ;-)

[marc_lieberman1]

I do my own scanning, so when I shoot slide film, I ask the shop not to mount the processed film into slides. Even though I can scan mounted slides, it's more efficient to load stips of processed slide film into the scanner as if they were strips of negatives. Some may say that htis defeats the purpose of shooting slides, that being the ability to project big, beautiful images onto a screen or wall. Maybe. But unlike with negative film, I can enjoy looking at the developed strips of slides at red lights and stop signs on the way back him from the photo lab

[djl251]

There is certainly a clandestine plot to get us to stop using film. My local pro lab gave my

last 120 roll to someone else "because he shoots a lot of 120" who in turn probably

chucked them in the trash. Also cross processed the last slides of my father in law's

brithday party (he died the next day). Kodak alst cut through the image area of my last

Kodachrome. However they were very apologetic - and gave me a free roll and 2 mailers.

Thirty five of the chromes were fine and in fact I beleive it was my M6 shutter misfiring

that caused the problem. So I can't fault Kodak. But is enough to make you crazy this

sloppy work from professional photo processors.

[link]

25 years ago I worked in an E-6 lab running the slide mounting machine. You would

be shocked if I revealed how often this happened.

 

I was instructed to be on my toes as to stop the machine quickly in this event. I was

then told to keep the printed frame numbers on the mounts consecutive and in the

hope that the customer didn't notice the missing frames.

 

I didn't last too long at that job, but it's not a new problem.

 

Sorry to hear of your loss. I now have all my film returned uncut by my lab.

[michael s.]

Bad luck -- and on your foreign travel photos, no less.

 

Albert, you're obviously a good customer (45 rolls). If it were me, I'd be pushing Kodak very hard to have the salvageable slides (if any) salvaged expertly, then duplicated, then scanned professionally, all at Kodak's expense.

 

Maybe you should own a scanner, but that's no answer to this mishap. And I don't think any of us who have popped for a scanner have done so on the assumption that our slides or negatives are likely to come back to us looking as though they've been through a shredder, rather than a processor.

 

And Grant makes a point about E6 being done on premises by pro-oriented places locally. Certainly that's still true here in the DC metro area -- at a number of shops. Can't speak to your area, of course.

 

I wish you well with Kodak. And if this ornery old lawyer can offer a tip, I'd say this: do not take "no" for an answer ... at least not the first dozen times you hear it. And move up the ladder at Kodak until you're talking to somebody whose job is to make things right, not simply "thank you for your input and your expression of concern..."

 

[Do I correctly recall that a higher-up at Kodak once responded to a discussion here? Memory is fuzzy on this, but I'll take a look -- you should, too -- and report back if I find it.]

[alistair o]

I had the same issue but that my images were ending up normal size but comprising a collage of two or three different images. It was my digital camera that it happenned on and it was due to some sort of file corruption.

 

That was the last straw for me and digital and while I have kept my digital body, I shoot only film now and use a good local pro lab for development. No more archiving issues for me.

[john_amiet2]

As I have said before on this and other fora, process your own! It IS easy. If you invest a fraction of the money into processing gear that you do into camera gear this would never happen. Regular dev tanks will do the job, but such gear as a JOBO processor are wise and wonderful investments for Leica (or other film cameras!) to maintain the quality and standard we get so fussed about with what our cameras and lenses can do.

 

The next best move is a Pro lab, not a film manufacturer, but they can/do stuff up as well, but not as much.

 

The advice given above about PS 'stitching' the current problem together is probably as good as it will get for your current dilemma. Good luck with it.

[jorge]

Doc,

 

When I got fed up with my local labs delivering all my color negatives scratched and with fingerprints in every strip, I got me some C41 chems (the same ones that minilabs use, not the home darkroom presentation).

 

With the Kodak RORR materials I can finish a roll in less time than a B&W one. I have a Jobo rotary processor but it's really overkill. Processing by inversion is just as efficient. The developement step is so fast (3:15 min) that the chemicals don't have time to drop in temperature and the other steps have a lot of leeway.

 

Start processing your slides at home. It's pretty easy and eventually you might have to do it anyway. Seen any lab that does silver B&W lately?

[marc_lieberman1]

"Sorry to hear of your loss."

 

Yea though I walk through the valley of the crappy minilab, I shall fear no botched processing, for Thou art with me . . . but from now on I'll get my film returned uncut!

[majid]

That's why I get my film uncut, and it is easier to scan in batches of 5 this way.

[steve g]

Local prolab misplaced one of my rolls from a recent wedding shoot. I noticed it last night and called them this morning, they still haven't found it. I also have someone else's roll in place of mine, so there are 2 people affected by this. Luckily if they never find it, it wasn't vital, as I was shooting 2 cameras, but nonetheless..

[Bill Blackwell Images]

Albert:

 

I am very sorry to hear this has happened to you. I had a similar experience with one roll of film about ten years ago, half of which was miss-cut because I had rewound and reloaded the film (causing the framing to be off). Since then, whenever I use slides I get them processed un-mounted. I then can take the time to cut the film and mount the slides myself.

 

I hope you get some satisfaction from someone besides ten fresh rolls of film.

 

Best regards, Bill

[doug herr]

<I>Seen any lab that does silver B&W lately?</I>

<P>

Yes, I know of three here in Sacramento without looking for any.

[andy m.]

I'm sorry to hear about that. It should be possible to salvage the "keeper" images digitally. If you get a good lab to do it, the results should be impressive, but this type of work is not cheap.

 

On the related point, I don't know what it is like in the US, but a recent survey of pro labs in the UK, published in one of our best pro magazines stated that for the pro labs that were surveyed, film processing is still the biggest source of income. There are literally hundreds of labs (pro and otherwise) here that can do a very nice job of E6. Getting good hand prints done is less easy, but some of the pro labs have kept this facility, and one that I use seems to be making specific marketing point by offering both digital and traditional printing.

[peter_evans4]

Before you ask to receive your film uncut, consider who's likely to deal

with this unusual request, and how. While living in Britain for a year, I

was dismayed by Jessops' bizarre insistence on snipping negs into strips

of four rather than six. They were snipped well enough, but I calculated

that the risk of disaster was being unnecessarily increased, so insisted

on having the film uncut. So what did they do with the first one? Why,

they just rolled it up, stuck an elastic band around it, and chucked it in

the envelope together with the prints. So of course it was a bit crushed.

It could well have been a lot more crushed, and the entire roll might

have got unwound and screwed up. I pointed this out. "Well, yeah, that's

the kind of thing that's going to happen if you insist on not having your

film cut," was the look on the man's face. "Why wasn't this placed in a

spare canister?" I asked. "Perhaps there wasn't one available," I was told

(with a straight face). So I replied with undeserved coolness that in

future I'd hand over the canister with the film, and they could (bloody

well) use that. Which they did. (In defense of Jessops, I should add that

my experience there was generally a lot better than this.)

[socke]

As Marc L. I do my own framing and scanning. So I get my slides six on a strip in negative sleeves. In February they cut three rolls on the 20th, 26th and 32nd frame at the first third of the frame.

 

I do my own B&W now, give my color negs to a local minilab and shoot more digital.

[john_amiet2]

It seems clear to me that the future for us analog dinasaurs (proudly declared) is bloody well do it all ouselves! It ain't hard. Really! I already do. And you can too. Processing is a 'numbers' game. Shooting is much harder. So don't delay, get under way. My motto (one of many!) is "what I don't do, dosn't happen"! In my case it is true, and my disaster rate is at an all time low.

 

So simply process your own. It is very achievable. Much easier than using a camera (especially a Leica). :-))

[terry_rory]

My local (very good) Fuji frontier place has decided that it can no longer process Kodak. (They have just recently had too many Kodak films ruined by the Frontier and ONLY Kodak strangely!)

 

Rather than get it sorted by Fuji, they have put up signs saying all Kodak films will get sent away to Kodaks own UK processing plant! (That is a MUCH bigger nightmare than some rogue frontier machine as Kodak have zero quality control in the UK.)

 

Rather than send my film away to Kodak or use Boots or Tescos or Snappy Nappy (or whatever these nightmare places are called!) I decided to pull forward 'Digital Day' from sometime next year to now. I now have my D70 and I will only put process paid Fuji slide film through the new Leica CM.

 

At UK prices the cost of 45 premium films plus d&P in a good lab would buy you a Nikon D-70 body!

[andy m.]

That many E6 films in a good U.K. lab (arguably one of the best) would cost about 250UKP which certainly isn't insignificant and would buy a nice Rollei T, or an older Summicron ;-)

 

I have had no significant problem using mail order (for valuable work, with insured delivery). That way you can select a good independent pro lab without concern for location.

 

However, having just got into scanning my own film (for web use, not printing), I can really see the advantages of direct digital capture. I used a Canon D60 recently, and the image quality, once printed by a pro lab, was impossible to distinguish from film (without the aid of a magnifier).

[arthuryeo]

Use the A&I mailers. They are consistent.

[leica ron]

I send my E6 to the local lab, have them process and sleeve the film uncut. When I get them home, I cut them into strips of five and store them in neg archiving pages.

 

But then, I don't own a slide projector so don't need mounting ...

[robert_johnson15]

The person at the send out dealer IS WRONG! If it's E-6, it was sent by Qualex to District Photo/Clarks/Snapfish/whatever they are calling themselves today. They are located in Beltsville, MD. ONLY the K-14 (Kodachrome) is sent to the lab in Parsons, KS! FYI, Wal-Mart also sends their K-14 to this Parsons, KS lab if you leave it in one of their Fuji send out envelopes. It's only $4.88 at Wal-Mart, not 5.99, 6.99 or even more at the Qualex send out! Dwayne's takes care of the E-6 from Wal-Mart BUT NOT QUALEX.

 

You should immediately call Qualex at 1-800-635-3686 and COMPLAIN! Have the dealer number and bag number ready for the customer service rep. Be prepared to wait a long time on hold!

 

Ever since Qualex/Kodak closed down the Fair Lawn, NJ operations on August 29th, service has gone from terrible to horrible! Send your E-6 to A&I by way of a mailer and you'll not be disappointed. I just wish they still did Kodachrome! The A&I number is 1-888-666-5199 or you can buy the mailers from B&H for $5.49 each.

 

Qualex sends the Kodachrome to Dwayne's in Parsons, KS. Problem is, the trans shipping to them is taking many extra days. I remember the Kodak PR guy telling me we there wouldn't be any difference when Fair Lawn closed. K-14 users would still receive 7 day service, Right and I'm from the government and I'm here to help! NOT!!!!

 

If you want to complain to that person, send an e-mail to charles.s.smith@kodak.com and send a CC to brand@democratandchronicle.com He's collecting "bad stuff" about Kodak for a future Rochester NY newspaper story! I'm serious - COMPLAIN and COMPLAIN LOUDLY!

 

If you call Dwayne's to check out this iformation, ask to speak with Dwayne Steinle the owner or Grant Steinle, the son and lab manager. They will talk with you and not just some worker that can't hardly speak English and is paid almost minimum wage like at Qualex!

 

Robert Johnson

Nashville, TN