Re: I need to vent

[Richard Rylander <rlrylander@xxxxxxx>]

"Menzel, Greg" wrote:

> Now for the interesting part.  When I got home Sunday I brought my film to
> National Camera in Burnsville, MN. The last few weeks their E-6 machine has
> been broken, so they've been sending film to Universal Color in New Hope, MN
> for E-6 processing. I have had good luck with them so far. However, on
> Sunday National Camera's E-6 machine was fixed, so they would do the
> processing themselves. "Great!", I thought to myself. Now I can pick my film
> up Monday at noon to see what kind of results I got.
>
> At noon today I went to National Camera to pick up the processed film and
> buy two rolls of the new Provia 100F film. The girl behind the counter found
> the box containing my processed film, and told me there will be no charge
> for the processing and for me to see a note inside the box. To my horror the
> note said "Dear Customer: We are sorry to report that due to a machine
> failure, your film was damaged during processing....blah blah blah..."
>
> It looks like to me they ran the film through as print film - it has a
> purplish color and everything is reverse (light is dark and dark is light)!
> The packet in which the film was placed when I brought it in for processing
> was clearly marked E-6, and anyone doing the processing should at least
> notice the E-6 marking on the roll. I doubt this was a "machine failure",
> but instead gross incompetence or carelessness on part of the processing
> technician.
>
> All I got in return was a roll of film to replace the one they ruined, and
> my next processing free of charge, for "...either 4x6 or 3.5x5 size prints."
> I took the roll of film and left, letting them keep their free processing
> coupon, since I knew I'd never go there again.

The people at National Camera are generally boneheads - try buying something
besides a point-and-shoot (you might as well go to Best Buy).  I have had much
better luck with West Photo (21 University Ave NE, Mpls).  I also do a lot of MF
processing through a little "Express Photo" shop here in Stillwater, MN - they
send non-35mm stuff to a lab in St. Cloud that seems to know what it is doing.
Richard Rylander