Wal-Mart and no negatives.

MarkF48 · Jul 28, 2012

Visited my local Walmart (central Massachusetts) yesterday to do some other shopping and while there I stopped by the photo department. No signs about negatives not being returned and I asked the guy behind the counter and he hadn't heard about Walmart not returning negatives as of yet and this store still returned them. The dropped film used to go to Fuji Labs in New York, but now goes to a Fuji Labs in Kentucky (or maybe Tennessee) I think he said, but now a longer turn around time for this store. He was an older gentleman that stated he'd be upset if the negatives weren't returned.

randyB · Jul 28, 2012

Stopped by my local Walmart today, saw no signs about negs not being returned, asked the photo person, who has been in that dept for quite some time and she had not heard of "no negs being returned". She commented that it would probably be just a matter of time as Walmart is always looking to cut their cost. I was less than impressed with her non-caring attitude about customers negs being trashed. Our local Sam's still has a 35mm C-41 machine but not for long.

Roger Cole · Jul 28, 2012

The people who don't care probably have no idea what the negatives actually are or what they are good for. I remember even growing up in the late 60s and early 70s family often threw them out, not realizing they had any value at all. Then they'd take a print back to the drug store to "have another one struck off this one" they called it.

Once I got into photography and learned how it worked, at about age 12 (that would have been 1975) that stopped rather abruptly.

cepwin · Jul 28, 2012

LOL...Good point Roger. While I don't recall us ever tossing them they pretty much left them in the envelope and only took out the pictures themselves. The closest my Folks ever came to using a darkroom is my Mom watched someone else develop and print images. Funny thing is my Mom has done a lot of cooking and baking (she did a lot of baking when we were growing up) and so I don't think she'd have any problem doing darkroom stuff if she was so inclined.

Sirius Glass · Jul 29, 2012

My ex-mother-in-law would get the photos from the photo processor and the first thing that she would do was throw away the negatives. I explained to her why it was important to save the negatives. She told me that she knew better and that I should mind my own business. Years later after her husband had died, she was crying that she only had one photograph of her husband and that photograph was faded and worn. She told me that since I knew about photography, it was my job to fix the problem.

MarkF48 · Jul 29, 2012

I still have negatives from the 1930's (possibly earlier) that were handed down from my grandparents as well as from my parents. My own archive began in the 60's when I started shooting. I've been scanning a few of these negatives occasionally and most are as good as the day they were processed. I have really big doubts that family digital files, my own included, will survive generations of families and it's only a matter of time that treasured images are lost either from being misplaced or a failure of media they are stored on, not even to mention that some media may become extinct in the future and thus not readable by the means we presently have. My wife's father who passed away a few years ago had a computer that was going to be simply discarded, but I acquired it and found it had several hundred image files that the family did not know about and may not have had otherwise. His shoe box of photos and negatives in the closet was found and kept.

Walmart may be saving some money, but they are doing a huge disservice to those who may not care about negatives presently, but may later on when their digital vaporware files are gone.

May film live on forever!!

Photo-gear · Jul 29, 2012

It is nice to hear she is your EX-mother-in-law...

Sirius Glass said:
My ex-mother-in-law would get the photos from the photo processor and the first thing that she would do was throw away the negatives. I explained to her why it was important to save the negatives. She told me that she knew better and that I should mind my own business. Years later after her husband had died, she was crying that she only had one photograph of her husband and that photograph was faded and worn. She told me that since I knew about photography, it was my job to fix the problem.

Chan Tran · Jul 29, 2012

Photo-gear said:
It is nice to hear she is your EX-mother-in-law...

Yeah for if she were still your mother in law the thing to do was to pick up her negatives and keep them when she threw them away. You would be the real hero then.

Photo-gear · Jul 29, 2012

I hope I will never have to play such a role... It must have been a rough experience to have this person in your family.

Chan Tran said:
Yeah for if she were still your mother in law the thing to do was to pick up her negatives and keep them when she threw them away. You would be the real hero then.

Roger Cole · Jul 29, 2012

It's not APUG kosher but I've impressed a number of family by taking old photos, scanning them, "restoring" color and density, and then making ink jet prints for them. Good enough for the non-discriminating.

I also did this in the old days with some old black and white prints the negatives of which were never owned or long lost, by shooting and printing copy negs. Most often, my copies were proclaimed improvements on the original for the same reasons - restoring density and contrast were pretty easy. Getting color matching/improvement for color is a very different thing, though.

Sirius Glass · Jul 29, 2012

Photo-gear said:
It is nice to hear she is your EX-mother-in-law...

Unbelievably nicer for me! I did not get much for the trade-in on the ex, but now I have a thinner, much newer, low maintenance model with low mileage that supports my skiing, offroading and photography! And does not complain about my spending my money on things that I want.

kiku · Aug 14, 2012

Do not shop at walmart; never have, never will. They are anti labor and treat their employees less equitable than other big box stores. Howard

okto · Oct 18, 2012

NEW DATA: Just got back some B&W 120 from the Walmart on Silber & 610 in Houston. I had to call Fuji to track the envelope down, but it just turned out that the employee I spoke to the first time wasn't the sharpest crayonbig surprise.The woman I talked to at Fuji was pleasant, knowledgeable, andspoke English as a first language. She even offered to call the Walmart store and see what was what, and then called me back about thirty minutes later to let me know they'd located my envelope at the store!

Cost me $1.88, negs WERE returned, along with the 120 spool and backing paper per my request on the envelopenice surprise! The only thing I can complain about is that the negs were cut into 2-frame (6x6) strips, which doesn't work that well with Print File sleeves.

Since they were nice enough to comply with my request to return the spool and backing paper (really, I can't enthuse enough about how pleasantly surprised I am that they did this!), I'm going to ask that they not cut my negs next time.
Will report back!

tkamiya · Oct 18, 2012

I'm curious.... why did you want the backing paper and the spool back? If you need more, I have tons of them. I have no idea why I keep them myself either.

BardParker · Oct 18, 2012

Was this C-41 Chromogenic process B&W film or traditional B&W film? Just curious...

Kent

okto said:
NEW DATA: Just got back some B&W 120 from the Walmart on Silber & 610 in Houston. I had to call Fuji to track the envelope down, but it just turned out that the employee I spoke to the first time wasn't the sharpest crayonbig surprise.The woman I talked to at Fuji was pleasant, knowledgeable, andspoke English as a first language. She even offered to call the Walmart store and see what was what, and then called me back about thirty minutes later to let me know they'd located my envelope at the store!

Cost me $1.88, negs WERE returned, along with the 120 spool and backing paper per my request on the envelopenice surprise! The only thing I can complain about is that the negs were cut into 2-frame (6x6) strips, which doesn't work that well with Print File sleeves.

Since they were nice enough to comply with my request to return the spool and backing paper (really, I can't enthuse enough about how pleasantly surprised I am that they did this!), I'm going to ask that they not cut my negs next time.
Will report back!

okto · Oct 18, 2012

tkamiya said:
why did you want the backing paper and the spool back?

Backing paper for the exposure data written on it, spool because I want to make sure I always have a few on hand.

BardParker said:
Was this C-41 Chromogenic process B&W film or traditional B&W film?

Traditional silver process (an expired roll of HP5+).

pdieten · Oct 19, 2012

okto said:
Cost me $1.88, negs WERE returned, along with the 120 spool and backing paper per my request on the envelope—nice surprise! The only thing I can complain about is that the negs were cut into 2-frame (6x6) strips, which doesn't work that well with Print File sleeves.

Makes sense. The "$9.99 - no negatives returned" deal is for people who use disposable cameras and for old ladies (like my mother-in-law) who haven't given up their 35mm point-and-shoot cameras yet. 35mm color is done in the in-house minilab. Their minilabs don't wet print from negative, they just scan in a negative to digital and print from the scan. There's no sense in doing this every time somebody wants reprints; might as well just give the digital scans instead and save a step.

When somebody wants something that isn't 35mm color negative, they send it out to a real Fuji lab who will do whatever you want. I didn't know they could be trusted with spool return; I'll have to remember that the next time I send out a roll of 620. Maybe I'll get my 620 spool back. I don't know if they'll cut 120 into strips longer than 2 images though. A 3-image strip wouldn't fit into the envelope......

(long time lurker, first time commenter)

michaelbsc · Oct 19, 2012

My experience most places, in the US anyway, is that Walgreens invariably does their own in store mini-lab work. Not sure how they manage to hang on, but I don't hesitate to drop C-41 there.

The film techs always have some kind of certificates hanging up, so obviously they have *SOME* kind of training on the equipment.

I have noted this from Miami to Seattle.

I guess we're coming full circle. In the '60s the local drug store was the place in my one horse town that could get photo chemicals. (The pharmacist was who taught me to use vinegar for stop bath to save a few pennies. Important information to a young kid.)

Now we're back to the point that the drug store is becoming the premier place to get film developed.

The last film I put through WalMart was my last few rolls of Kodachrome just as Dwayne's was ending processing.

I try to avoid the place for all things in general. I'll usually go to at least 3 other places before I'll give in to the WalMart Sirens.

AgX · Oct 19, 2012

McFortner said:
They are probably recycling the negatives for the silver.

What silver? Those industrial labs process chromogenic films, and I don't know any that processes classic b&w film.

So they already got all the silver.

julhu · Oct 19, 2012

McFortner said:
They are probably recycling the negatives for the silver.

I don't think there is big money in that. They probably just want to save the postage to return the negatives and just toss them after scanning.

Mike Wilde · Oct 19, 2012

There may not be big money in the silver, but there will be money in complying with safe effluent disposal of the bleach and fix.

Negatives handling is an incremental cost. Wallyworld has made thier mark by minimusing incremental costs. Plus a CD scan being returned lets you put your artwork on it saying oder your reprints at Walmart!

SafetyBob · Oct 19, 2012

My local WalMart got rid of the big fuji film processing machine about a year or two ago. Also noticed that the old Kodak setup for digital camera folks got changed to HP equipment. Our Walgreens still has a processing machine and I think our CVS does too. I have noticed that at the Walgreens the traffic is much, much less at the photo area than it used to be.

If one hasn't started developing at home, it may be time to start it. I promise if I can do (and yes they turned out good (three times so far)), then just about anyone can. I used the powder C-41 kit. If not, I think we should make a list of the "approved" APUG labs out there that realize who we are and are willing, perhaps, to give us just the slightest bit of cost break or perhaps scanning or something else at a reduced price if we send them say 5 rolls minimum.

Bob E.

John Koehrer · Oct 19, 2012

kiku said:
Do not shop at walmart; never have, never will. They are anti labor and treat their employees less equitable than other big box stores. Howard

Haven't been in a wally world for at least twenty=five years. Besides the reasons kiku mentions, it's about the worst thing to happen to small business that I can think of.
Remember going to different stores because they handled different products? Now everything's pretty much the same from one big box to another.

EASmithV · Oct 20, 2012

Ric Trexell said:
Nor do I care to be playing around with 11 different chemicals, all at the right temperature just to develop a roll of slides.

4 chemicals. and you can get the temperature using a plastic dishtub and running sink water.

It's people talking like that that scared me away from doing my own color for the longest time.

E6 is easy, and the temperature precision has more room for flexibility than people will admit.

My dishtub still does better work than my "Pro Lab" ever did.

PentaxBronica · Oct 21, 2012

I've always processed my own B&W but have the colour stuff done by the local Boots. I may well try processing my own colour if only because it would let me shoot colour 120 film - getting that processed here involves posting it off and paying a not-inconsiderable sum for a professional service.

With most automated labs the negatives are processed without the operator having any input - the machinery deals with it, so providing that they put the right chemicals in the right holes and keep it clean you'll be fine. I have had problems with my prints being meddled with though - like the one intended to be of a statue silhouetted against the sun (which formed a halo around the head) which got turned into a statue with blown-out sky behind. Inspection of the negative showed that my technique was fine, but the lab had fiddled about.

As for disposing of negatives, what a bunch of idiots. Evidently they don't understand that negatives aren't like the husk of a coconut, they're an important part of film photography and can be kept for decades as an archive. Want more prints/bigger prints? Just get the folder out and find the frames.

Wal-Mart and no negatives.

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