Ok, I preface this by saying that I know it's cheap, and I'm fine with a level of quality commensurate with that but I had the most ridiculous experience today and I really needed to vent to some other photogs that might share my frustrations.
I've been shooting a lot of half frame stuff lately and today, after returning from vacation dropped off 7 rolls of film for processing of which 3 were from half frame cameras. Now the first time I had them do a roll of half frame one of the 4 people who regularly work the "lab" told me that they didn't do half frame. Not knowing what that meant I asked him to explain and he said that they would come out two to a frame. I told him that's what I expected and that it would be fine to do it that wayhe reluctantly took my roll of film and told me to come back in a couple of hours. Surprisingly, when I returned I discovered that my film had been scanned into lovely individual frames just as if I had shot it normally. I was very pleased by this as it makes a lot more sense to me this way. I can put together diptychs if I want or leave them as individual shots. So anyway, fast forward a couple weeks or so and another roll of film through my Pen FT. Drop this one off at Costco and tell the lady working the "lab" on this day that I have a roll of half frame. She immediately goes into the "we don't do half frame" defensive posture and I VERY calmly and politely mention that I had heard that but only a couple weeks prior dropped off a roll and had it done as individual frames and that if she could do that, I would really appreciate it. After a bit of friednly discussion she seemed to talk herself into being able to figure it out and said she would give it a shot. I was again pleasantly surprised when I got back and my scans were lovely and again in nicely framed individual files. Yay! So thinking everything is humming along and getting really excited about getting my holiday photos processed I roll into Costco this morning to drop of my pile. This time, the lady that manages the "lab" is working. I figure I should let her know I had some half frame stuff for her to do and immediately I get the same "we don't do half frame" spheil. Again, I VERY calmly and politely mention that I have had two rolls processed and that the results had been superbscanned into lovely little individual files just as I would hope for. She very defensively started going on about how doing it that way might cause the machine to skip frames and that it would have problems with alignment (none of which were problems with the previous two rolls) and I said I wasn't concerned about that and that I would greatly appreciate it if she could do it that way instead of scanning them as individual frames since it had been done for me previously with excellent results. At this point she relented and said she would do it provided I promised not to make her re-scan them if there were frames missing. I said no problem as I was confident that equipment was capable of doing the right thing since I had seen the results first hand. Well, I picked up my film and you know what she did? She put them as two images in one 35mm frame, exactly what she said she was not going to do for me. And on top of that, the rolls are horribly misaligned. Exactly what wasn't a problem when the other people scanned my film as individual files and exactly what she said WOULD be a problem if she did it the way I asked her to. And of top of that, she scanned them at some garbage resolution and one roll of XP2 is actually blurry. I can't even see any grain in the damn film. I'm sure processing film is a bit of a pain for the people in the lab but you know, that's her job. And I'm consistently nice, friendly and polite and I get treated by this lady (the manager) like she's doing me a favor every time I go in therewith a couple rolls of film. I'm really tempted to complain to the store manager but I've got another couple of months before we move and I imagine getting her in trouble isn't going to help my case much. And I simply can't afford to pay for decent scans at a real lab when they're dollars per.
I've been shooting a lot of half frame stuff lately and today, after returning from vacation dropped off 7 rolls of film for processing of which 3 were from half frame cameras. Now the first time I had them do a roll of half frame one of the 4 people who regularly work the "lab" told me that they didn't do half frame. Not knowing what that meant I asked him to explain and he said that they would come out two to a frame. I told him that's what I expected and that it would be fine to do it that wayhe reluctantly took my roll of film and told me to come back in a couple of hours. Surprisingly, when I returned I discovered that my film had been scanned into lovely individual frames just as if I had shot it normally. I was very pleased by this as it makes a lot more sense to me this way. I can put together diptychs if I want or leave them as individual shots. So anyway, fast forward a couple weeks or so and another roll of film through my Pen FT. Drop this one off at Costco and tell the lady working the "lab" on this day that I have a roll of half frame. She immediately goes into the "we don't do half frame" defensive posture and I VERY calmly and politely mention that I had heard that but only a couple weeks prior dropped off a roll and had it done as individual frames and that if she could do that, I would really appreciate it. After a bit of friednly discussion she seemed to talk herself into being able to figure it out and said she would give it a shot. I was again pleasantly surprised when I got back and my scans were lovely and again in nicely framed individual files. Yay! So thinking everything is humming along and getting really excited about getting my holiday photos processed I roll into Costco this morning to drop of my pile. This time, the lady that manages the "lab" is working. I figure I should let her know I had some half frame stuff for her to do and immediately I get the same "we don't do half frame" spheil. Again, I VERY calmly and politely mention that I have had two rolls processed and that the results had been superbscanned into lovely little individual files just as I would hope for. She very defensively started going on about how doing it that way might cause the machine to skip frames and that it would have problems with alignment (none of which were problems with the previous two rolls) and I said I wasn't concerned about that and that I would greatly appreciate it if she could do it that way instead of scanning them as individual frames since it had been done for me previously with excellent results. At this point she relented and said she would do it provided I promised not to make her re-scan them if there were frames missing. I said no problem as I was confident that equipment was capable of doing the right thing since I had seen the results first hand. Well, I picked up my film and you know what she did? She put them as two images in one 35mm frame, exactly what she said she was not going to do for me. And on top of that, the rolls are horribly misaligned. Exactly what wasn't a problem when the other people scanned my film as individual files and exactly what she said WOULD be a problem if she did it the way I asked her to. And of top of that, she scanned them at some garbage resolution and one roll of XP2 is actually blurry. I can't even see any grain in the damn film. I'm sure processing film is a bit of a pain for the people in the lab but you know, that's her job. And I'm consistently nice, friendly and polite and I get treated by this lady (the manager) like she's doing me a favor every time I go in therewith a couple rolls of film. I'm really tempted to complain to the store manager but I've got another couple of months before we move and I imagine getting her in trouble isn't going to help my case much. And I simply can't afford to pay for decent scans at a real lab when they're dollars per.