Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Question for you photo pros....

Hey Rick-
Sorry, I haven't been around much. But I agree with everyone else!

Thanks Mark, I'm rather stoked!

Rick, you may want to take the negatives to a photography shop. Not a CVS or something of the sort. Hopefully, a photography shop will understand the sensitivity of the negatives that you are trying to get developed and handle them with more care...

Good luck man.

color film development is always done in automated machines; it does not know "Handling with care". it also has no provisions for special requests of any kind.
someone takes the film out of the can, clips it to a running metal bar in the machine's "input" side, and it is automatically taken through all the steps necessary right up to drying. during all that time, no one and nothing ever touches the film, except the chemicals in the different baths. the employee who handles the undeveloped film usually wears white cotton gloves, just in case he would touch the emulsion side of the film.

if you have doubt about the film handling by an employee, then take it to a photography shop, as dakkon said; but even that is no guarantee; accidents can happen.

i've seen hundreds of thousands of film rolls processed and only 1 or maybe 2 films were ever ruined by the machine, not by an employee.

I took in a couple of rolls yesterday to CVS, one came out great while the other didn't develope at all. The guy said it appeared the roll that didn't develope was never shot but the negatives to me look like there may be some very faint images on them. The roll that did develope was from late '88 or very early '89 and as I stated, came out excellent. So far we're shooting 50% with only 50 more rolls to go.

that's very good news.
don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions.

what's CVS ?

CVS is a drug store chain.

Rick, how did you end up with so many undeveloped rolls?

I really don't know Mark, it started while I was in the Army and was taking more pictures than there were facilities available in the remote area overseas I was stationed and it sort of snowballed from there.

Does that mean there's a snowball's chance in Florida that the film is going to be okay?