Does anyone know who develops slides for the supermarkets, drug stores, etc.?

[battra92]

After my local lab (Vermont Color) royally screwed up some slides that

I had taken by mounting them wrong, I went looking for a new lab. My

dad told me to give Stop and Shop a try because as he said, "They all

send them out to the same place anyway." While I know that's not true,

I decided to humor the old man and brought them two rolls of slides I

had shot that week. One was a 24 exp. roll of Elite Chrome and the

other was a 36 exp. roll of Kodachrome. While I have no doubt the

Kodachrome was sent to Dwayne's, the other one I'm not so sure of.

 

Stop & Shop now has a new processing service called "PicturePros" and

after a short Google search it appears that they are in some other

grocery chains as well. Any idea as to who this is? I assume it's

entirely possible it's not a major lab but I am curious as to who did

my slides.

 

The Kodachromes came back in a black plastic box with the classic red

lettered cardboard mounts that you get with Kodachrome. The E-6 slides

on the other hand were in plastic mounts with one side of the mount

being white and the other being black.

 

The unfortunate part was that it took two weeks. The fortunate part

was that the E-6 cost under $3 while the Kodachrome rang in at $7.50

or so. It's a nice cheap way to get slides developed should I ever

decide to photograph like mad, though the two weeks is a bit of a long

wait if I ever shoot for anything but myself.

[john_shriver]

That's a fine price for Kodachrome processing -- it's gotten expensive, and of course Dwayne's did it. That's the nice thing, you can be sure of the quality of K-14 processing no matter what you pay -- so long as the film doesn't get lost.

 

My local dip & dunk lab would charge $5 for the E-6 work, if I remember right. Find out where the local pros go.

 

As for where your E-6's could of gone, it could be anywhere. Fuji does lots of no-name work, I don't know if Kodak/Qualex would, but perhaps District Photo would. But, they could be getting sent to a local pro lab, I know some local stores have started doing that because Kodalux/Qualex didn't want their E-6 business anymore.

[craig_shearman1]

I don't know specifically who does processing for who. But around the country there are a number of wholesale labs that have contracts for grocery store processing and take in all of the film from a given chain (Giant, Safeway, Superfresh, whoever you have in the area) and probably from multiple chains in the region. Did the same for drug stores and discount stores like Wal-Mart before the stores started one-hour operations to do it themselves. I think the grocery store labs can actually do a better job than the in-store one-hour labs in many cases. That's because the wholesale labs are large industrial operations where they are processing thousands of rolls a day. The people who work there, that's all they do, and it might well be a place where they work for years and years. Because the volume is so high, it justifies things like changing the chemicals when you're supposed to and running regular test strips. And when you're running thousands of rolls and not doing those things means you've screwed up a huge number of rolls, it puts pressure on to make sure they get done. On the other hand, a one hour lab in a grocery or drug or discount store is typically run by a non-photographer who came looking for a job, any job, in the store and got assigned to photo processing. Some are good but many would just as soon be selling shoes or running the cash register. There's not always enough volume to justify chemical changes and test strips and all, and there's no lab Nazi to be looking over their shoulder and making sure it gets done by the book. And if they screw up a batch, so what -- it's maybe half a dozen customers' film, not 5,000 rolls.

[r.t. dowling]

Assuming you're in New England, it might have been Konica. They have a large processing plant in Maine that has several big supermarket customers, including Shaw's and Hannaford. The last time I had slide film processed by Konica, the slide mounts were as you described them.

[battra92]

<b>John Shriver said:</b><br>

<i>That's a fine price for Kodachrome processing -- it's gotten expensive, and of course Dwayne's did it.</i>

<p>

I agree. My guess is that Dwayne's must charge the consumer quite a bit more than what they charge other labs who send them their Kodachrome. To save a few dollars, I'll definately use the supermarket to mail them to Dwayne's for me for Kodachrome. :)

 

<i>Find out where the local pros go.</i>

I do know that the local pros go to a place that's in the county but a pain in the butt to get to. They charge, I believe, around $7.00 for a roll of E-6. While I don't mind paying this for decent fast service, I hate driving over a half hour into the middle of the city and then having to come back the next couple days to get it.

<p>

<b>R.T. Dowling said:</b><br>

<i>Assuming you're in New England, it might have been Konica. They have a large processing plant in Maine that has several big supermarket customers, including Shaw's and Hannaford. The last time I had slide film processed by Konica, the slide mounts were as you described them.</i>

<p>

It could very well be. The black and white mounts have actually sort of grown on me. I think for the most part I will stick with them for my own personal slide work that I don't need back this instant. Alas, I am but a poor college student who can't always afford his own photo work after the class work is done.

[g._armour_van_horn]

I'm sure Dwayne's charges a lot more for an individual order than they do on the wholesale side. I would expect that the cost of taking an order and billing it exceeds the cost of souping and mounting. I don't do E-6 for retail, and have no interest in setting anything up like that. I do the E-6 for the local drugstore chain (three locations) because their photo manager swings by my house at 6 am when they have any to run and drops it on the front seat of my van. I run it in with my film, increasing the turnover in my chemistry, and keep a spreadsheet on the rolls returned to them. When it's worth asking for a check, they cut one.

 

Both Gepe and Loersch make the two-colored mounts, and will sell them to anyone that wants to use them, so that's not really a clue.

 

Van

[battra92]

In checking out the envelope a little better, it had ads about Konica processing so it looks like Konica does it.