please stop knocking one hour photo

Sirius Glass · May 3, 2007

scootermm said:
what I never understood is what the point of taking work to a one hour lab is, when bothering to shoot film. I would think that, more often than not, the reasoning for shooting film is control, of output... from exposing the film, to developing film, to making a print. Yet when a lab (or outside source) comes into the picture (pun intended) you are completely losing what seems like a major part of the control and handing it over to an unknown variable - the lab or outside source.

why not just shoot digitally... Ive always felt (and this is a personal feeling) that if I was going to shoot color work Id just shoot digitally from the get go, or at the least shoot film, develop it myself and print it myself... so that all control/responsibility and results are created by my hand (or with a little help from a computer in the case of digitally)

This is not really rocket science. Some of us do not have an area that we can dedicate to darkroom facilities. Most of my processing goes to Dwanye's. When I want more than 4"x6" for 125 or 5"x5" for 120, I have several custom photo finishers who still do all optical printing that I send my work to.

Now if I could just find a filter that improves the composition ...

Steve

dmr · May 3, 2007

Roger Hicks said:
The best one-hour labs are wonderful; the worst are awful; and with change of personnel, they can change overnight. I've seen it happen!

I admit that I have most of my film processing done at Walgreens, a major drug store (chemist) here in the States. Most of the time I have just a develop only and scan to CD done, and they usually do a fair to very good job, depending on the phase of the moon.

The big issue I see is consistency. Sometimes you get somebody who really knows what he or she is doing. Most of the time you get a button-pusher who is trained to operate, but not understand the nuances of, the machine. Sometimes you get a total idiot who flunked the test to become a moron!

Worst I remember recently was when last December a roll broke off and would not wind back into the cartridge. I phoned Walgreens to see if I could just bring in the film in a light-tight canister. The 20-bopper I talked to had NO CLUE about what I was talking about. The conversation went like this. (I am cutting and pasting from a post I made on RFF back then.)

Me: Do you accept film for developing that's just loose and not in the 35mm cartridge?
She: Oh, do you mean like a memory that's not in the camera?
Me: No, regular 35mm film but loose, not in a cartridge.
She: Yeah, we can make prints from that.

I didn't risk it, so I sacrificed a new roll of film and taped the loose one on it and took it in.

Then in that chain you have inconsistency in policy and procedure. On RFF I told the keystone-cops type story of a guy I work with getting thrown out of a Walgreens for getting in an argument with a manager who refused to do a CD without prints. It was something out of a bad sitcom on TV.

Then about a year ago the SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME. The clerk refused to take an order for a DO/CD at the same store I've had it done countless times and looked me right in the eye and told me it was impossible to do a CD without prints!

These are the problems I have with the one-hour places.

eddym · May 3, 2007

Stephanie Brim said:
I had Wal-Mart cut through frames once...used them only sparingly after that.

My wife had the same problem at a local Walgreens. They cut the first strip of 35mm just one sprocket hole off... and then the rest of the roll (and the resulting prints, of course!) was off, too. What's more, they scanned the whole roll for a cd, and every single scan was off by that one sprocket hole, even from the negs that were not cut! Grrrr....

Neal · May 3, 2007

Dear Bob,

I just dropped two rolls off at CVS one hour today!

Neal Wydra

bob100684 · May 4, 2007

re: walgreens

I work at an Eckerd back home, here at college we don't have those and the Brooks stores don't have labs so I applied at a walgreens. They run an agfa Dlab at the store I was at...get this you splice the neg on a leader card, touch the screen on the printer end for what product you want IE 4x6 singles with an index print, cd and white borders. No way to color correct, no way to scan at high res in case a client wants to outsource large prints w/o sending unreliable qualex the neg, ect. I feel like there were ways to do all of the above but I was fired on my third day for "wasting chemistry" after multiple control strips showed the fixer was so toasted the best course of action was to dump and remix.

eddym · May 4, 2007

bob100684 said:
I work at an Eckerd back home, here at college we don't have those and the Brooks stores don't have labs so I applied at a walgreens. They run an agfa Dlab at the store I was at...get this you splice the neg on a leader card, touch the screen on the printer end for what product you want IE 4x6 singles with an index print, cd and white borders. No way to color correct, no way to scan at high res in case a client wants to outsource large prints w/o sending unreliable qualex the neg, ect. I feel like there were ways to do all of the above but I was fired on my third day for "wasting chemistry" after multiple control strips showed the fixer was so toasted the best course of action was to dump and remix.

No offense, but this little story is not likely to convince anyone to "stop knocking one-hour photo" labs!

bob100684 · May 4, 2007

true, i guess the point is with some equipment making a cd without prints does not seem to be possible....someone who has expieriences with dlabs should chime in though.

Bob Carnie · May 4, 2007

For proof prints I would agree that there is no better source than a minilab running volumes of chemistry turnover each day and running control strips multiple times a day as well a compentent operator.
The other side of the coin would be the film processing side.
The majority of minilabs are using roller transport to process their film. Although good for small prints our experience with this type of film processing is that the film gets scratched very easily on a roller transport. Therefore for film that we print large we never use a mini lab with roller transport.
All our film is in one shot Jobo C41 process.
One only has to process a roll of film at home in spiral tanks and have an BWC41 roll processed at a mini lab.
Put both negs in a glass carrier and enlarge to 11x14 or 16x20 . I think that you will quickly find out that the one shot non roller transport film, kicks the crap out of a mini lab roller transport film.
For colour enlargements that are from roller transport machines we only print digitally now so that the enevible scratches can be taken out in PS .
We no longer print *Roller Transport* black and white film on our enlargers because of the lack of quality of film processed this way.

film_guy · May 4, 2007

I agree, not all 1-hour-labs are bad. I've used about 4 to 5 different photo labs over the past 4 years, and I've gotten back not only some really great negatives and prints, but some negatives with so much dust and scratches on them that it's impossible to scan after. It's not the lab that's bad, but with the booming economy since a year ago it's hard for them to retain their trained staff for long. There's currently only 2 labs in the city which does real B&W processing, and even then it's very expensive. The difference in prices for C-41 film developing between pro-labs and the 1-hour labs like Superstore (Lobelaws) is close to $8-$10/roll, and sometimes I find that the quality's almost similar. Doesn't really make sense to go to the pro-labs with the huge difference in price for something similar.

Roger Hicks · May 4, 2007

film_guy said:
Doesn't really make sense to go to the pro-labs with the huge difference in price for something similar.

Unless you get a water wash...

Cheers,

R.

Changeling1 · May 4, 2007

Simon's Camera (a couple of doors down from Calumet in Hollywood) does very good work with 35mm and 120 color film. They produce good prints even from studio shots than most one hour labs don't deal with (color failure) very well. Simon's take pride in their work and have a good darkroom section in their store. Stores like this are closing left and right and deserve our support.

BrianShaw · May 4, 2007

The one-hour labs I use on occasion ought to be called two- or three-hour labs. That must be because so many people are using them, eh? In terms of quality, I've occasionally been disappointed, and occasionally been thrilled. There's just no telling...

digiconvert · May 5, 2007

I have two reasonable one hour labs within waling distance in my town in the UK.
One is ASDA/Walmart and the other is a Boots (a national chemist chain).
ASDA is slightly cheaper and I recognise the operators now - long term employees always increase my faith - if one particular operator is on I will take the film to Boots since films from this operator seem to get the personal touch with a brillo pad as they are sleeved but Boots never have that problem. The most consistent one hour lab I have found is Jessops - i'm sure they would hate to be associated with film though !

Given the mimnimal cost which includes 6x4 prints as proofs I can't knock it - it certainly doesn't justify developing my own films, prints are another matter.
Cheers Chris

Iskra 2 · May 5, 2007

Around here the minilab operators seem pretty competent ..... to the point of telling me to take my film someplace else because their machine needed some maintenance.

I don't think the lab operators are getting rich processing film and making prints, they use the service to get customers in the store so they will buy something else with a higher profit margin, like $50-60 of other things.

Newer Walmart/Target labs are OK for my SF stuff and "scratching" the "digital itch".

Regards.

bob100684 · May 5, 2007

thats exactly how most one hour labs run. Drag customers in so they'll buy stuff. But if you do an awsome job then they keep comming back and buying even more stuff because they like the store as an extension of the photo lab.

radiantdarkroom · May 8, 2007

You get what you pay for, that's it, if you have ever done your own color processing and printing it blows 1hours away.

Sirius Glass · May 8, 2007

radiantdarkroom said:
You get what you pay for, that's it, if you have ever done your own color processing and printing it blows 1hours away.

That assumes that one has the room for a dark room.

Here is an offer => I will send all my film to you and you can do all the processing for me, gratis. That would stop me from going to one hour processing facilities. Can I ship you five rolls to start today????

gr82bart · May 8, 2007

radiantdarkroom said:
You get what you pay for, that's it, if you have ever done your own color processing and printing it blows 1hours away.

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my skills! Honestly, you wouldn't want me to process your colour film. Trust me on this one.

Regards, Art.

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · May 8, 2007

I've only ever used 2 labs - one has served me well for around 100 rolls of film, the other told me they couldn't process my XP2, and that I didn't know what I was doing. It's a hit and miss affair, but if you find something good it's worth sticking with it.

fotch · May 8, 2007

radiantdarkroom said:
You get what you pay for, that's it, if you have ever done your own color processing and printing it blows 1hours away.

I was shocked when I got my own scanner and could see all the damage coming from the only local One Hour, Walmart. I have done color development years ago and intend to get back into developing color again.

Is it worth the effort? Yes, if you want quality. Why have expensive cameras and lens and they buy cheap film and marginal processing? To each their own.

ben-s · May 9, 2007

Stephanie Brim said:
I had Wal-Mart cut through frames once...used them only sparingly after that.

I've had that a couple of times.
I now ask them not to cut the negs, which is actually better for my filing anyway - they only cut strips of 4, and I need strips of 6 for my kenro files and scanner.
Strips of 4 play merry hell with filing and scanning!

please stop knocking one hour photo

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