Re: Appologies to Kodalux!

[P3D Gregory J. Wageman <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Allan C. inquires:

>Seriously, please let us know if Kodalux returns "processed only"
>Kodachrome in good packaging condition.  Anyone else using Kodalux in
>this fashion and already knowing the answer, step up to the keyboard,
>please.

All of my K-14 film has come back in a poly sleeve and loosely coiled
inside cardboard tubes approximately three inches in diameter and about
four or five inches long.  (I have a stack of them on the dining room
table.  They look like they should be useful for something...)

My biggest complaint regarding K-14 processing was not about packaging,
but about brown, crystalline grit inside the sleeve near the ends, which
scratched the film.  As best as I could tell, the source of the grit was
the processing chemicals reacting with the tape they used to splice the
rolls together for their continuous processor.  This is just a guess;
at least, it was most prevalent there.

I have never had K-14 film processed by Fuji; I'm surprised Fuji was
able to get a license to do it from their chief competitor, Kodak.  My
last E6 batch was processed by Fuji, however, and they returned the film
in a stiff plastic sleeve loosely rolled inside a roughly cubical plastic
box that looks like it would normally have contained the mounted slides.

When Kodalux returned my E6 uncut film, they rolled it tightly with a
strip of paper inside a 35mm film container.  This film had to be hung
with weights for days to get the curl out.

The camera store (Ewarts) to which I take my film uses the "Premium"
processing services of these two companies (Fuji and Kodalux).  Perhaps
this explains the better handling mine seems (mostly) to have gotten?
I dunno.

        -Greg W.


------------------------------