Hi David:
On 18 May 2001 15:44:52 EDT, David Ratti wrote:
<snip>
> Sam -
> MY biggest complaint is that they do only 35mm and APX, but not 110.
> I had a dozen rolls I shot in Australia, and I can't get them on CD.
Somebody ought to invest in some really good scanners and in some CDR
hardware and offer such a service to the public for 110 and 120 film,
as well as for 35 mm. and APX film. There would probably be money in
it.
Sam Heywood
P.S. My biggest complaint about film processing labs is that whenever I
take a roll of 35 mm. slide film in for developing and write perfectly
clear instructions in large upper case letters, "DEVELOP ONLY. DO NOT
CUT FILM. DO NOT MOUNT SLIDES", can you guess what happens? The reason
why I don't want them to mount the slides is that the processing labs
don't know how to handle a roll of 35 mm. film having exposures made by
dual lenses on stereo frames. The only way to have the job done right
these days is to buy the special dual slide mounts and cut the film and
mount the slides yourself. First you have to get the roll of slide film
developed somewhere.
Now, have you guessed what happens when you take your film to a processing
lab and give them your perfectly clear instructions? This is what happens:
Without paying any heed to where each frame begins and ends, they cut the
film into segments having a width appropriate for a "standard" size slide.
This means that they slice through all the frames thereby ruining every
picture in the roll. Then they mount the slides in standard mounts and
return the job to the customer without even recognizing the horrid mistake
they had committed. When I take the job back to the processing lab to
complain about it, the technicians will glibly explain: "If you had wanted
to have the film developed only, we still would have to charge you the
same price. So we decided to do you the favor of mounting the slides for
free. We have a very modern lab that has machines that read the frame
numbers appearing at the bottom of the film. Because of the position of
the frame numbers seen by the machines, the machines always know exactly
where to cut. If you don't have a "normal" camera, then there is a
serious problem with it and you should get a new one that conforms to
modern specifications. BTW, what is a stereo camera? I never heard of
such a thing. I always thought that the word stereo has something to do
with listening to music."
It is absolutely astonishing to me that there exist photo lab technicians
who have never even heard of stereo photography!!!! So I wonder if they
were so unfortunate as to never have had an opportunity to look through a
Viewmaster when they were little kids. I ask them if this is the case and
they invariably answer yes. How sad!
Back in the early 1960's film processing envelopes always came with a box
that the customer could check for "stereo slides". In those days the folks
who worked in the labs always knew exactly how to handle the job.
Furthermore, they always knew how to cut and mount them just as well as if
you had done the job yourself.
-- This mail was written by user of The Arachne Browser - http://arachne.cz/
