Re: [photo-3d] Fear of losing stereo images in the mail

[Danny Vint <dvint@xxxxxxxx>]

Well I beg to differ, a lot depends upon the town you live in as well. Up
until I was living in Charlottesville I would have pretty well agreed that
things were pretty good with the Post Office for instance. I had never
permanently lost any mail that I sent or was sent to me until I moved
there. In the 1.5 yrs that I was there I think I lost about 4 things that I
shipped or were shipped to me.

The other piece of information I have is that I have a sister currently
working for the Post Office and my Dad is retired from there - if you want
to hear horror stories I can relate them. 

My original post was not just to warn about the carriers but all the
various handling and shippings of the images - accidents happen. Like
spilling coffee while looking at the images, or if you have kids or pets,
having one of them take an interest in an image.

I belive it was on this list that the question about registering vs
insuring came up. It is actually cheaper to insure an expensive item if you
register it. The reason why - a registered package is tracked from every
exchange that happens, it is logged whenever it is moved, because of this
the insurance is cheaper because the likely hood of theft and loss drop
dramatically. Of coarse it costs more to register an item so there is a
break even point in there somewhere.

To each his own. The question was brought up about having to mail your
images for developing. I avoid this like the plague if I have at all
possible, but this is different than having a choice to send an original vs
a good quality dupe. Now I'm not having dupe or my processing done at the
local grocery store, these are going to custom labs for processing. Sure I
might save a few bucks if I mail ordered to a discount lab, but I would
prefer to have a little better control and security for my film by being
able to walk it in and out of the lab. I also do mail order processing for
the panoramic images that I produce - not many labs have the ability to
deal with 5x7 and larger negatives, let alone to deal with 30 or 60" prints
from those images. Where I have to I use the Post Office and I hope for the
best. When I have a choice I would rather work with a local lab.

The point of the original posting was to raise the issue of loss but how do
you also enter the same image in more than one competition or have it
available to show locally? Dupes are for more than just shipping. How many
people project their images on this list? Just the simple act of project
your images degrades the color and longevity of those images.

Just some information for people to consider, as I indicated I personally
cringed when I heard that originals were being sent out. If you don't care
that an image is lost or damaged then you can ignore everything said.

..dan

At 05:08 PM 10/6/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>At 03:59 PM 10/06/2000, you wrote:
>>We all take the USPS, UPS, Federal Express and other shippers for
>>granted. After all, these systems work very well. Consider all the mail
>>and packages that are mailed daily. It is a very large number. I agree
>>with George - do not worry about it.
>
>I think you can pretty much rely on any of these carriers almost without 
>fail, providing:
>
>1) Your shipment is WELL packaged.  It's a given that items will be handled 
>roughly in the process of being moved from truck to plane to truck, 
>etc.  Make sure the package itself won't break open, and that the contents 
>won't be damaged by being bumped and jostled.
>
>2) Your labels are clear, and well secured to the package.  I usually tape 
>down a label so it's completely covered with clear plastic tape, to keep it 
>secure, and prevent it from getting smeared if the package should happen to 
>get wet.
>
>-pd
>
>
>--------
>                                 Peter Davis
>                  Funny stuff at http://www.pfdstudio.com
>                  "The artwork formerly shown as prints."
>
>
>
>

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Danny Vint
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