P3D Qualex/Kodak processing report

[volcheck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Emil Volcheck)]

Folks,

I'd like to report on a batch of stereo slides I had developed
at Qualex/Kodak Premium Processing, Dallas.

I sent off a 24 exposure roll of Kodachrome 200 in a Kodak mailer
on October 20th, and received it yesterday, the 17th, exactly
four weeks later.

Of 18 pairs, one was pseudo and misaligned.  Two were slightly
misaligned (had some retinal rivalry in my viewer), and one was
borderline (rivalry only at the edges, perhaps a slight rotation).
The rest appeared well-mounted and were easy to view.  I don't have
experience with projection, so I can't say whether these met the
more stringent tolerances needed for projection.

The slides were in cardboard mounts, in a box with a little foam at the
top for padding, encased in a slipcover, and all that in a Tyvec envelope
send first-class.  Charge was $10.18.

As far as Qualex/Kodak Premium Processing service goes, they don't have
their record-keeping quite together.  I called this past Saturday and
again Monday to ask what had become of my roll.  Their computer indicated
only that it had been received on the 29th (9 days after I mailed it,
which seems excessive).  Both days they said they would call me back when
they tracked it down, without realizing that it had already been processed
and mailed.

My personal reaction: this is pretty good for the money!  I say let's give
them a little more business so that their stereo processing folks aren't
among the 10,000 employees who get laid off. :-|  On the other hand,
you should be able to expect all pictures to be mounted correctly.  The
next test of Qualex will be when I ask them to redo the pseudo slide.  I'm
also eager to find out about processing with other companies.

[Here's a puzzler for the list:  you loved it, back a few months ago,
when someone posted to ask whether viewing a pseudo pair upside-down gives
you proper stereo.  Tell me whether viewing a pseudo slide in reverse, from
the back, gives you true stereo. ;-) ]

This is my first roll of stereo slide film, and my second roll ever on
my Kodak stereo camera.  I'm really pleased.  Almost all of my pictures are of
good exposure, none under or overexposed, a few where the depth of field
is lacking, but never enough to create distracting stereo noise.  By this
I mean that there are no background objects sufficiently blurry to distort
depth perception and leap out as haze.  The grain of Kodachrome 200 is
noticeable in stereo but is very slight and not distracting (again I mean
that the haze due to viewing image noise in stereo is minor).  These
latter properties are more a reflection of my general picture taking ability
with a manual camera plus lightmeter than of Kodak Premium Processing.

best regards,

                                --Emil Volcheck



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End of PHOTO-3D Digest 2407
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