Duggal in New York - ruined 52 rolls

[tropdude]

A warning to fellow photographers:

 

Just picked up 52 rolls of Fuji Velvia 50 and the newest 100, 35mm,

36 exp films from processing and mounting (plastic) by Duggal in NYC.

 

I am nearly crying! The slides are dirty, they have small oily/greasy

droplets on it, scratched and the color/contrast balance is way off

for all of them. Just about everything went wrong in this processing -

even the mounting produced a handful of mismounted slides and a

couple slide mounts were greasy as well.

 

I know sometimes mistakes happen, but I would not even dream of

screwing up so badly and extensively. And I paid over $500 for it.

 

For ~15 years I was shooting on Velvia, have around 40,000 selected

images (formerly only two rolls of those were processed by Duggal,

those were fine) and have a number of top credits (so you know that I

can tell if a bad processing happens).

[William Kahn]

I think you should take them back and raise hell - with the management, not the flunky at the counter. It sounds like you deserve at least a partial refund.

[berk_sirman2]

I am sorry to hear that. You should get a refund, plus 52 rolls of Velvia.

 

It is always a good idea to send film to labs in smaller batches so that if the initial rolls come back damaged you can send the rest some place else.

 

Berk

[bob_lazzarini]

It's happened to me, and it's happened to other photographers.<p>

 

Make sure they don't give you their B.S. story about not being able to give you a refund,<br> and make offers they will never keep because of their selective memory.<p>

 

As been said many times before, and in many places:<br>

<i>"Money Talks, B.S. Walks"</i><p>

 

BTW, they shredded 20 rolls of 120 Extachrome for me to use as confetti!<br>

[HuskyMason1]

I have had similar experiences with Duggal although not so severe...slides with finger prints and hair on them and paying premiunm price... needless to say I have never returned... lab sloppiness is one reason I shoot more digital...sad to say getting your money back is a pyrrhic victory... feeling your frustration and hoping you get some compensation.

[ilkka_nissila]

I guess this lab isn't very good. Find another lab that does decent work. 52 rolls is a lot to be given in one batch to a lab.

 

I would also raise hell with the manager and insist on finding the people who did your processing, show them to the manager and ask for compensation.

[andre_noble4]

On a contrary note, I go into A&I (Los Angeles) all the time. Seen many times 100+ rolls of film on the counter being turned in by pros. All my (much smaller volume, infrequent) work at A&I Los Angeles has great - aside from the rare fingerprint on negative - which can be cleaned.

 

On the other hand, Duggals sound like real pretenders. Go back in there to get your money back. If they refuse, walk out calmly. Return a few days later, ask to use their "good" loupe, and sneak out with it (and a lightbox) never to return (said with tongue-in-cheek).

[discpad]

<b>Be <blink><i>very</i></blink> careful with Duggal: They conveniently "forget" committments they make (it happened to a friend of mine). Have him sign something acknowledging they owe you money; or stand there until he cuts you a check.</b>

[tropdude]

Talked to them, I am returning a set of images that are representative of the problems described, so they can see how bad job they did and we figure out the next step.

 

However, the bottom line is that the images lost all of their artistic and aesthetic values and this can not be reversed by money or by amy other means.

[alvin_wong]

<p>Thank you for sharing your story with us. This is a reminder to never put all your eggs in one basket. I occasionally take chances and give one lab an order of 15 or more rolls of film. Although I haven't gotten burned yet, I know it's only a matter of time.</p>

[leon chang]

If you shoot professionally, I would say you spend your money on darkroom equipment and process for yourself in the future. On e-Bay I�ve seen auctions where people sell complete darkrooms for less than $ 500. I can understand your anger. It happened to me severel times. In today�s society people just don�t care anymore about customer satisfaction OR they have two cheap parttime 16- year olds running the processing machines. Try to contact National Geographic. They can also develop your slides and will do a better job. I believe they are in the Washington DC area. Any photo.netters have contact details for poor ZT=

[discpad]

Leon, Duggal is one of the top labs in NYC, and many hundreds of professional photographers and studios in the region use them. This is why I found ZT's story to be distressing.

[tropdude]

I am enclosing a sample to show the above discussed bad job by Duggal.

 

The four images were taken onto two different rolls of Velvia 50, but the same lot, same lighting, same lenses, same settings, etc. - only the processing lab differs. I just changed the films in the middle of the shooting. One roll was processed by Kodak, the other by Duggal, as indicated above the slides.

 

(This image was taken by a small digital Canon P&S, direcly from the light table, so disregard the focus - in real life, all four is perfectly sharp.)

 

Result: the Kodak has proper exposure/color/contrast, the Duggal, well..., see yourself how terrible.<div></div>

[mikeseb]

My condolences on this loss. It is infuriating that the incompetence/carelessness of others

becomes your serious problems. The loss transcends mere ruined film.

 

I imagine you've already extracted what lessons there are to learn here. Good luck dealing

with their management. You deserve compensation for this, waivers and contracts aside. I

hope they'll do the right thing by you--at LEAST replace the film.

[leon chang]

Dan, don't know for how long they will stay in business if they deliver that quality. I hope it's just an incident. I personally don't know them. I do know that National Geographic does a great job.

[kelly_flanigan1]

When a power failure happens with the old AGFA we would hand crank the film thru the C41 unit, timing with a wristwatch or battery powered wallclock. When the emergency lights fail too sometimes one has to use a flashlight. In areas with flakey power this event happens sometimes. With a greener employee the importance of being ready maybe considered not important, until all hell breaks loose with a power failure. With 4x5 E6 processing the local lab died many years ago after ruining alot of film, or messing it up. We got another 4x5 Phase One scan back then for are artwork scanning. Lab problems and labs dying off have been alot more common in smaller towns, were volume is lower. It is interesting to see the problem spread to larger cities. For many podunk towns the local pro lab is Walmart or Walgreens, the local pro labs died long ago due to flakey performance. <BR><BR>I sure would rather have a lab miss a time commitment than hurry and cut corners and use ill tired chemicals or muff the film up. Accidents in film processing are not new. One of the Kodak databooks about 1953 mentioned over 10,000 rolls of film were missplaced, and/or ruined during about 1951. The wisedom then was to expose one frame with your name and address, and send out super important projects to multiple labs, or have them processed in batches. <BR><BR>Sometimes the lab failures are mixed with slight camera light leak, or bad/cooked batch of film too. <BR><BR>

[discpad]

Leon, Duggal isn't some small fly-by-night lab: They've been around since the 50's, and have a good reputation. In other words, what happened to ZT would be no different than, say, A&I hosing 52 rolls.

[discpad]

Kelly, dip & dunk processors almost always have battery backup to keep the lift/conveyor system running. BTW, Duggal has several dip * dunk machines; and in fact they invented the process many years ago.

 

 

In any case, ZT's experience is so troubling: At *first* glance, it looks as if the first developer bath was too "hot," either temperature and/or over-replenished, creating an unintentional (and unwanted) push.

 

 

The spots can come from a variety of sources, such as in the soup from a piece of film that had the emulsion peel off (old film, B&W film), sludge, etc... But in any case, for the Q-Lab program they are counted and rated as demerits.

[discpad]

This initial post appears a bit suspicious: My pal, who uses Duggal for all her work, was told last Friday that they had a "power failure" and that was the reason some of her work was late.

 

 

But also, the member "Z T" just signed up here a few days ago; has a Yahoo email address; and has no home page (website) listed.

 

 

However, Duggal is infamous for their poor treatment of their employees, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was a disgruntled employee -- Either posting here .OR. someone intentionally wrecking the job.

 

 

Z T, I invite you to call me on my NYC line at 917-463-3678; plus, I'll be up at B&H for a seminar on Monday, so I'd like to see some samples for myself: You made a very serious accusation about one of the top labs in the Photo District: If true, they should suffer the repercussions; but if false, they deserve their good name back.

 

 

Incidentally, I'm in the southern Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia and I've never personally used Duggal; plus I run my own E-6 line now, so I don't have a dog in this fight one way or the other. However, several friends of mine in NYC use them, and I sure as hell want to get to the bottom of this quickly.

[tropdude]

zoltantakacs.com

[tropdude]

Duggal is working with me to resolve the issue.

[tropdude]

Duggal offered a refund of processing costs and options to have some slides scanned. They also running some tests to see what could have been the cause.

 

Given the situation, this is a professional way to end the issue.

[discpad]

Call me at the number listed above.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Dan have you ever hand cranked film thru a processor when the AC and batteries are dead? Or how about being in total darkness hand loading loading film in LA when an earthquake hits? Flakey local "pro" labs is why many of us in smaller towns went digital in LF and MF. Z T at least got some images, not entire rolls that were destroyed. A few years back alot of big city folks would balk at the notion that the local Walmart or Walgreens is better than a pro lab. It is interesting to see the plague of pro lab problems now reach large cities 1/2 decade later. Long ago there was super quality B&W with Kodak for the instamatic even. Kodak had Kodachrome processing in many major cities; long ago they had Kodachrome processing for sheet film to about 11x14".

[discpad]

David, I spoke to Zoltan last night, and he is indeed legit: All you needed to do was punch up his website he listed above:

http://www.zoltantakacs.com

and you would see he is indeed legit. Also, as I stated above, Duggal treats their employees like crap, so *initially* (but since disproved) I (incorrectly) suspected it was a fake post.

 

 

However, Zoltan called me last night, after I pulled up his website, and indeed I now had double verification he's legit... As is his complaint.

 

 

Now, as Paul Harvey would say, here's the rest of the story: Duggal did indeed have a power outage last week. [Manhattan has 100% underground utilities, so when a transformer blows up, it takes longer to put out the fire, then pump out and ventilate the vault before ConEd can get a crew down there to replace it.] Bob Kapur, who is a manager that believes in speed, with quality be damned, farmed out Zoltan's film to Westside Labs to get it done; so it was Westside, not Duggal, that hosed the job.

 

 

Apparently, once Duggal got wind of this post here on Photo.Net, they are doing what they can to clean up the mess.