Kodachrome from Dwaynes

[fred_mueggelhopper]

About 1 month ago I shot my first Kodachrome in a long while. I bought mailers

at a good price and mailed them away to the Fairlawn address printed on the

mailer. They found their way to Dwayne's and were returned in 12 days, after

their side trip to Jersey. Dwayne's processing is much better than what I used

to get back from Fairlawn. So here is to Dwayne's for a job well done! And the

next rolls will be mailed directly to Parsons Kansas.

[robert_johnson15]

Fred, You have that address for Dwayne's instead of Fairlawn or District Photo in DC? Last roll I sent to District Photo is still sidetracked after 3 and a half weeks. I know, it's probably the post awful service's troubles! I have the one you are supposed to use for the Fuji mailers and service on them has been like 8 or 9 days. Thanks.

 

Robert Johnson

[rolfe_tessem]

I don''t have it handy, but if you call Dwayne's they will give you a Parsons, KS address to

which you should send the mailers. That should cut the turnaround time down somewhat.

 

I agree that Dwayne's does a great job.

[john_shriver]

I've been 100% satisfied with Dwayne's Kodachrome work as well.

 

Not that I ever had any serious Kodachrome processing problems, back when it was my primary film. I think the Shady Grove plant gave me one slide with a spot on it, and Fair Lawn did too. After that Shady Grove spot, I religiously sent the mailers to Rochester, presuming the mothership would do the best job.

 

I took a tour of the Rochester Kodachrome line in the summer of 1975. Not much to see, of course, the lights were out.

[charles_stobbs3]

I found Fairlawn to be very bad after a couple of tries and switched to the Kodak site in Findlay, OH which I found to be excellent, as good as Rochester or better.

[stephen sullivan]

http://www.dwaynesphoto.com/

 

And here is the direct link to the .pdf

 

http://www.dwaynesphoto.com/common/Slide%20Film%20Processing%20Order%20Form.pdf

[berk_sirman2]

Dwayne's processes my Kodachromes too now after the closure of Lausanne lab. The quality of Dwayne's processing easily matches Lausanne, which was exceptionally good. The only thing I miss is the plastic slide mounts, the cardboard mounts I get from Dwayne's feel cheap in comparison.

[r.t. dowling]

These days, I'm actually shooting more Kodachrome than I did a few years ago when all Kodachrome went to Fairlawn. I got really disgusted with Fairlawn's service and lack of quality control and gave up on Kodachrome, but Dwayne's has been doing a really fine job, and it actually ends up costing less than it did before -- $4.88/roll when sent to Dwayne's via Wal-Mart.

[fred_mueggelhopper]

Robert, the address that came back from Dwayne's with my slides is

 

Kodak Slide Processing

P.O. Box 1171

Parsons, KS 67357

[robert_johnson15]

Thanks! I just received an e-mail from them comfirming the same address. Now if I can find that roll I sent to the District Photo address a month ago, I'll be happy. Wal-Mart K-14 send out is back to 7-8 days here in Tennessee. I guess they have fixed "the problems" resulting in almost 2 week service. I picked up film on Monday that I left last Monday.

 

Robert Johnson

[tbs]

I recently turned a roll of Kodachrome in to my local photo store (Keeble & Shuchat, here in the SF Bay Area) on a Monday. Usually the turnaround is 8-10 days, since they send it, via Kodak, to Parsons KS just like everyone else. This time, however, I was stunned to get a call on Friday of the same week, telling me my slides were in. They looked fine, too.

 

I probably shouldn't count on similar things in the future, but I was still quite pleased. I can't recall such fast turnaround on K-14 since I started using it as a little kid in the 1980s!

[terence_spross1]

There is probably a variable amount of Kodachrome arriving at Dwayne's week to week, and combined with machine down time/cleaning routine maintainence there is going to be a variable delay. If I were them I would have more than one machine set-up as otherwise it would be hard to expedite their rush service available on their direct order form. Maybe they do and maybe their apparently faster service is due to recently getting another machine set-up. It would be interesting to see the numbers, anybody have the inside scoop?

I wonder, do they have to stop 35mm process to change the machine setup for movie film? They offer push process on Kodachrome, in order to do that I assume they have to splice a blank length of film to the beginning and end of a group of spliced films slated for push followed by another blank length before normal rolls are run again. I wonder if their large rolls of spliced films are spliced to each other or is the web broken after each run? If they splice to each other they don't have to stop the machine, do they run it 3 shifts? I don't want anybody getting in trouble divulging secrets though.

 

I also wonder if the amount of Kodachrome sold might actually be increasing again as processing is more readily available. While completely gone from non-photo stores, I noticed one local camera store has once again placed Kodachrome near the front counter so you don't have to ask for it (as they had it out of sight before).

 

I'd bet if everybody who wants plastic mounts would put a piece of paper in with their film "When are plastic mounts going to be offered as an option?", then they would see a demand and offer it. However, to date, I have always ordered Kodachrome unmounted via Sams club.

[tbs]

I actually prefer cardboard mounts over plastic ones. Maybe its just the traditionalist in me, but also, I can easily write on cardboard mounts. Plastic ones are a pain to lable.

[robert_johnson15]

Plastic ones also weigh more, so if you have many thousands of slide pages filed with plastic mounts, the weight can be significant. Well, it can also be quite heavy just using cardboard. I noticed that A&I will now mount your slides in plastic for $1 extra a roll. It's also harder to have the machine insert them in plastic without scratches. With cardboard, you can have fine dust everywhere. Dust blows off, but scratches are forever unless you are good at and have the time in Photoshop!

 

Robert Johnson

[tbs]

As far as the volume of Kodachrome work at Dwayne's: a newspaper article a month or so ago claimed that they were processing around 1500 rolls of Kodachrome 35mm slide film each weekday, and had hired more help for their Kodachrome lines, in order to be able to take on the 1000 or so additional rolls per day expected to start coming in from the European Kodachrome market, now that Swiss lab is closed. Hard to say just how much the actual numbers vary from day to day, but when I asked them about their volume of Kodachrome work, the lady on the phone said it sure kept them busy.

 

We may have K-14 around for a while longer; I sure hope so.