Target ending film send-out

I stopped by my local Target today, and saw the following sign:

"Attention Film Customers:
Effective September 10, 2010
We will no longer be offering
send-out film processing.
We are sorry for any inconvenience"


Looks like the end of the line for Target's film processing (they ended in-house processing last year). I know this isn't a big deal for most of you (including myself), but it's a blow for the consumer market.

In the Target closest to me, I'm pretty sure they still do in-house, so this is likely something that is different in each store and not chain-wide.

Like Bethe says it'll be town by town.

In another post today I commented how in many towns now only 1 or 2 labs actually do C41 processing, the rest are usually Digital input only. This is actually beneficial to the few labs still processing film as they get busier as a consequence and their whole film/print service become more viable.

All 3 of the big supermarkets where I come from in the UK ceased processing films last year, the minilabs are no longer on display and no counter just Digital kiosks. The camera shop is processing more films now than 3-4 years ago.

Ian

My local Target in Dallas, TX still does 35mm film in-house. I don't know if they do send-out, or ever did.

The Target near where I live still does 35mm film in house.

Jeff

Ian's point is right on. The more of these consumer "labs" that close, the more business goes to high quality, professional labs. A few months ago I had run some test shots on C-41 and a couple of rolls of T-Max. Since none of the shots would be keepers, and only wanting some medium res scans, I dropped them off at a Wal-mart. They sent them to Fuji, and over two weeks later the film finally came back.

It would have been better to just throw the film away. The quality of the scans and prints (which I didn't even want) were awful. I learned my lesson and all my film goes to my local pro lab, and I happily pay the price for quality.

Ian Grant said:

All 3 of the big supermarkets where I come from in the UK ceased processing films last year, the minilabs are no longer on display and no counter just Digital kiosks. The camera shop is processing more films now than 3-4 years ago.

Ian

Click to expand...

They seem to have disappeared from Tesco & Sainsburys I agree, but many Asda (UK version of Wal Mart) still have them, and they are one of the big 3 in the UK. Morrisons are 4th but I can't recollect ever seeing a processing unit in their stores. As for Asda, it never was the case that all of their stores had in-house processing facilities, and I don't imagine they will be installing new ones anywhere, but all their very big stores seem to have them. I've visited 3 of those in different parts of the country in recent weeks, and yesterday I handed a 35mm roll into their store at Farnborough, Hants. I could have had it done within an hour but it suits me to collect later this week. I hope the service continues because I've always found the quality excellent and you can get a CD scan for only 97p extra!

Obviously, Target is off target on film processing!

Steve