P3D Grrrrrr....Kodalux!

[Mark Josephson <icebox@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Ivester, Paul wrote:

> on the film cassette.  I have previously only had my "Do not 
> mount" request ignored on full frame transparencies and on Realist 
> format (which were returned in stereo mounts, and still needed to 
> remounted for reasons of accuracy).
> 

What an (unhappy) coincidence to see this story in P3D the same day that
I get back my first roll with disregarded instructions. I arrived back
from out of town today to find an envelope from Kodalux.  It had been so
long (a month) since I had sent the roll off that I had forgotten about
it.  The good people at Kodalux did not bother to read the "do not cut do
not mount" message on the outside of the envelope I sent them, and mounted
the roll (in realist  mounts, at least). This is the first time this has
happened to me in the 50+ rolls I've sent to Kodalux, and I AM LIVID!!!!  

Unfortunately, I now have first hand experience with Kodalux mounting, and 
the service I got leans heavily toward the horror stories that get posted
every time Kodak bashing is the in thing on the list.  Let me start a new
round.

The biggest problem is that two of the views have vertical creases in the
film (!!!) (both in the left view), which effectively ruins those
pictures. Two other views are scratched (more than the average Kodachrome 
proceesing scratches), most likely from the tremendous
amount of cardboard dust found on most of the slides.  Incredible.  

Then there are the nits that make life difficult.  The slides came
unnumbered, which is bad enough, but also were completely mixed up, making
it difficult to determine what shot is what in cases where I bracketed.  

About the only good thing that I can say about the slides is that there
are no obvious mounting errors.  and, luckily, one of the creased slides
was garbage from a bracketing run anyway, but not the other.  No way that
I would ever recommend this service to anyone.  Creased film?  1 damaged
slide is 1 too many, and had an irreplacable shot turned out that way, I'd
go postal.  Not recommend?  Actually, I recommend that people actively
avoid Kodalux's mounting, so that they drop the service and this never
happens again.  Anyone else have this problem besides paul?  I wonder how
common this is.

They sent an invoice for the $5 that I didn't send because I didn't ask
them to mount.  Ha ha ha.  I guess I have to wait until tomorrow to find
out how reasonable their billing problem solvers are.  

What puzzles me the most about this is how they determined that I
wanted stereo mounting.  They seem to have ignored the envelope.
I guess they must actually look at the film between developing and
mounting?  

 --
Mark Josephson  | "[US Atty] Jim Burns is putting aldermen in jail so fast, 
icebox          |  we're gonna have to go to Wisconsin to get a quorum." 
@               |   --Chicago Alderman Ed Smith (28th), 7/30/97
mcs.com         |   Note: Wisconsin is the location of "Club Fed" 
----------Icebox in effect on WHPK 88.5 FM Chicago, Wednesdays 9PM-Midnite 



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End of PHOTO-3D Digest 2675
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