So Dwayne's Just Lost a Customer

For excellent automated scans and a very reasonable price:
North Coast Photographic Services, near San Diego.
Precision (a sponsor here)

They have the same equipment and both do a great job. You get back very high res jpgs with low compression. File size, if I remember correctly, for scan of 35mm film is about 26MB. Same service available for 120 film.

Head and shoulders above any other reasonably priced automated scan service.
 
matthewm said:
I've submitted an email to Dwayne's expressing my frustration. I'll see what happens. Honestly, I don't expect much out of them by way of refunds, etc.

On the other hand, has anyone had any experience developing C-41 at home? I'm fine with black and white as I've done it in school and now at home. In fact, I just got a whole box of chemicals and bottles from Freestyle a couple of weeks ago, but we've been moving and haven't had a chance to get our bathroom/darkroom up and running.

So, C-41. Worth the home-development? Or Walgreens?
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C-41 at home is very easy. I find it easier than bw even. My local target still does a good job with 135 at .99¢ a roll so I use them for that and process 120 at home.
 
I've never used Dwayne's, but have had more than my share of bad lab work. If you want to get it done right be prepared to pay a hefty price. Anything of value I always send out to the A&I lab in L.A., or The Black and White Lab in Az. Everything comes back perfect every time. The gal at The Black and White Lab that packs stuff is so anal she makes sure that even the rubber bands that hold the protective cardboard over your negs is put on exactly straight. But they don't do C41 films. For anything color, which is really rare, I just hand off my film to my local Walgreen's store when their regular guy is behind the counter.
 
sepiareverb said:
And you used a lab you hadn't tried for so much work why? Just wondering.
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Well, as I said in my original post, we chose to send our film out because it's more trouble to come through a busy airport and request they hand check the film. I don't trust the x-ray with my film and I demand it be hand-checked. This has caused my wife and me more problems than you can imagine.

I didn't really know of any good labs around and did some research before leaving and lots of people recommended Dwayne's. I remembered them being all over the internet for their Kodachrome processing and figured that they were worth a shot.

Live and learn, I guess. But when a company has a reputation as good as Dwayne's, you'd think you could trust them. Apparently their quality left when Kodachrome ran out.
 
raid said:
I sent Dwayne's back scans twice. They re-do the work.
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Yeah, I haven't heard back from them yet, but I'm guessing that's because of the holiday... Hopefully I'll hear something.

Honestly, though, it's not worth all the extra shipping. If I have to send it back another 2 or 3 times to get it right, that's probably going to run me an extra $20+ for shipping both ways so I'd rather just scan it myself, which is what I should have done to begin with.
 
matthewm said:
I suppose the alternative would have been to send each big lab in the country one or two rolls and see which was the best?
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Yep. But before you had these important films. I don't find Dwayne's has the best reputation for scans- anyone who shot K64 has gotten lousy scans from them as well documented here and elsewhere. Sorry you didn;t get what you want, but it seems like you were asking for it. FedEx the films home next time- simple, reliable, safe and fast.
 
sepiareverb said:
Yep. But before you had these important films. I don't find Dwayne's has the best reputation for scans- anyone who shot K64 has gotten lousy scans from them as well documented here and elsewhere. Sorry you didn;t get what you want, but it seems like you were asking for it. FedEx the films home next time- simple, reliable, safe and fast.
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Wow. Okay, you're right. I asked to have my scans screwed up. I've found many hundreds of sterling reviews about Dwayne's online and even some of them were here on RFF and APUG. But I'm the asshole here and got what I deserved.

Tell you what, I'll keep you on speed dial and since you know everything, I'll just hit you up next time I need to know anything about anything.

I posted my disappointment with Dwayne's as a way to help others make a better, more educated decision. Not so someone could tell me that I got what I was asking for by sending my stuff to a lab.
 
May I offer this? I'm not going to defend Dwaynes', except to say that it may not be 100% Dwaynes' problem.

1. Lab scans are never as good as you think they should be. All lab operations pitch to an acceptable average level (so that you have the headroom to do further adjustments).

2. I would wager that your truck picture is underexposed (or underdeveloped). The streakiness and fine film-base scratches in the picture are the kinds of things you see when you have a thin negative (the tone balance seems to indicate that as well, though it's hard to say looking just a the picture and not the neg). I'd put the money on underexposed; at least in my experience, the desert colors (and/or altitude) tend to send cameras into underexposure territory; your only way out is to compensate the exposure or push the film.

3. If you are doing b/w, skip C-41 altogether. Chromogenic b/w neg film is easy to scratch (even by the camera), can act weird with contrast filtration on the camera, and is too sensitive to minor variations in processing to be fun.

A colored stripe in a b/w scan, though, is definitely a dirty CCD on a lab scanner.

Dante
 
Dante_Stella said:
May I offer this? I'm not going to defend Dwaynes', except to say that it may not be 100% Dwaynes' problem.

1. Lab scans are never as good as you think they should be. All lab operations pitch to an acceptable average level (so that you have the headroom to do further adjustments).

2. I would wager that your truck picture is underexposed (or underdeveloped). The streakiness and fine film-base scratches in the picture are the kinds of things you see when you have a thin negative (the tone balance seems to indicate that as well, though it's hard to say looking just a the picture and not the neg). I'd put the money on underexposed; at least in my experience, the desert colors (and/or altitude) tend to send cameras into underexposure territory; your only way out is to compensate the exposure or push the film.

3. If you are doing b/w, skip C-41 altogether. Chromogenic b/w neg film is easy to scratch (even by the camera), can act weird with contrast filtration on the camera, and is too sensitive to minor variations in processing to be fun.

A colored stripe in a b/w scan, though, is definitely a dirty CCD on a lab scanner.

Dante
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Thanks for your response. I looked at my negatives with a loupe and while I can't really tell if they're underexposed or not (they look great to me), the negatives are streak-free and both of those images were shot on ISO50 film so the grain should be minimal. I'm waiting on a new AC adapter for my scanner now (lost it in the move 🙁) and will rescan these when I have it to see if they're any better.
 
dwaynes is unreliable

dwaynes is unreliable

i too experience scratched negatives and scans that displayed strong banding across the image.

i called, never got a refund. they offered to rescan, but of course the scratches were still there.

but then again, all the good professional developers are gone now....
 
matthewm said:
Tell you what, I'll keep you on speed dial and since you know everything, I'll just hit you up next time I need to know anything about anything.
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Please don't call. 😀

Another case of 'I read it online so it must be true for me' comes back to bite. Just saying- I don't think anyone should take a chance with important work in an untested lab, and that those that do get bitten often. This kind of thing happens all the time when people don't check out internet truths for themselves. Will you use Dwayne's again? No. Would you have sent all this important film to Dwayne's if you'd sent them a few test rolls first to check them out? Most likely not. Again, sorry it didn't work out.
 
http://4photolab.com in Rochester is my friend and one of the last truly pro labs left. Edgar is getting mail order film from international customers now. Always clean and proper, you talk to the lab rat himself... it is where Kodak sends their film to test.

The simple fact of the matter is that you won't get custom scans for automated scan prices. And if they are automated, there will be some mediocre results.

I just get my film processed and scan it myself.
 
Frank Version Two said:
http://4photolab.com in Rochester is my friend and one of the last truly pro labs left. Edgar is getting mail order film from international customers now. Always clean and proper, you talk to the lab rat himself... it is where Kodak sends their film to test.

The simple fact of the matter is that you won't get custom scans for automated scan prices. And if they are automated, there will be some mediocre results.

I just get my film processed and scan it myself.
Click to expand...

I second this. it's the lab I use and I am extremely pleased.
 
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