Walgreens Film Users Beware! Your Negatives will be Destroyed If....

[willie_901]

I don't understand what sort of pleasure you get from posting this sort of rubbish comment.

I wish that was a rubbish comment. When I starting making photographs again in 2005-2006, my local Walgreens scratched my negatives on a pseudo-random basis. It's not surprising that employees who ran the equipment were the key factor. Some performed proper maintenance on the development machine and were careful... others were negligent. These are not well-paid employees.

I eventually wised up and switched to a more reliable and expensive source...my local camera shop until I abandoned film altogether.

 

[GarageBoy]

If you have any other options- use a real lab-
I'll give LTI Lightside and CRC Vista all my business - they're in the imaging world, they care (esp LTI)

 

[jsrockit]

I don't understand what sort of pleasure you get from posting this sort of rubbish comment.

Yeah - I'll save you the time of writing "lighten up etc" by doing it myself. But how about you get a real sense of humor first?

Wow, where did this come from? It's not nonsense if it happens. What pleasure did you get from your biased attack against me?

 

[Vics]

My Walgreen's store still develops film in house, but they said they'd be shutting it down soon. I bought a DSLR.

 

[mani]

Wow, where did this come from? It's not nonsense if it happens. What pleasure did you get from your biased attack against me?

I just don't get the point of these sorts of totally non-constructive comments that seem to me to be proliferating on RFF. Apologies if I over-reacted. I'm just a bit jaded by the lack of constructive discussion on the forum at the moment.

 

[jsrockit]

I just don't get the point of these sorts of totally non-constructive comments that seem to me to be proliferating on RFF. Apologies if I over-reacted. I'm just a bit jaded by the lack of constructive discussion on the forum at the moment.

Ok. It may have been in the form of a poor joke, but what I said was not nonsense. I've received scratched negatives back from Walgreens and CVS. It just doesn't pay to use these places (unless you have no other choice) was the point of my comment.

 

[Skiff]

Went to my neighborhood Walgreens to pick up a roll of developed film, and when I opened the package I found nothing besides the prints but a disk with some questionable quality scans - and no negatives! When I inquired about this, I was told that Walgreens' current policy is now to send all film to a Fuji factory in South Carolina where they are developed and the negatives promptly destroyed. Digital data is then sent to the local Walgreens store where prints are made from the data. By the time you come to the Walgreens store to pick it up, your negatives have already been destroyed and there is no way to retrieve them.

BTW, no one informs the customer of this when handing the film in to Walgreens.

Looks like a 'perfect example' of the American 'lowest quality and throw away' business model.
Reminds me of my time in the US some years ago.
In the rest of the world companies would be killed if they would dare to do this.

As lots of Walgreens / Walmarts are doing this unacceptable policy for quite some time now, seems that the majority of their customers don't protest.......and so the companies just continue with that nonsense.
So dear customers, either protest, give these companies "a strong kick in the ass" and make a riot, or just change your lab service.

Or maybe just a clever lawyer could make lots of money going against that on court 😉

So what, there are more than enough excellent mail order labs even in the US.
E.g. have a look here:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137289

 

[Skiff]

Well I'm still shocked. In my opinion, there is a *big* difference between just sending out negs and having them destroyed.

Good thing I still have my local store with in-house developing for whatever I can't do myself...

Well, as you are living in Germany, you are living in the country with the best lab infrastructure worldwide.
Excellent film developing 'at every corner of the street' by the drugstore chains Rossmann and dm, and furthermore dozens of excellent professional mail order labs countrywide (lots of them with only 2 days turnaround time).
And local professional labs in the bigger cities.
Film shooters dream 🙂

 

[kuzano]

Actually Walgreens is one of the last to do this...

Actually Walgreens is one of the last to do this...

Oof. That hurt!
How can they do this? I'm stunned.

It's been happening for two years now at various processors housed in pharmacies and big box stores. Walmart does this, as do most others. I only have one big box or chain store that still gives the negs back.

It's now and "accepted" practice that we were not told was happening.

I can only now go to Fred Meyer Stores and get my negatives back. For how long? Even they don't know.

 

[kuzano]

Actually ... about Walmart....

Actually ... about Walmart....

Walmart has been doing that for years. Ridiculous waste!!!!!

If the Walmart you go to has a Fujifilm kiosk/stand, and if you put your film in their (Fujifilm) envelopes, and you clearly mark SEND OUT ONLY on the envelope and drop them in the slot of the Kiosk/stand.

My experience has been professional processing, Walmart never opens the envelope, ten day turnaround, no loss in ten years. Cheap, Cheap, Cheap.

And so far negatives have come back.

Also I do this for medium format and have the negs cut and sleeved. Never pay over $10...

Have used two Walmarts now for up to fifteen years on the "Send Out Only" program.

I think in the Midwest, Walmart trucks the film to Dwaynes.

And that's the last plus... shipped on Walmart trucks free of charge. No shipping.

 

[Dante_Stella]

Really?! Who is shooting film and entrusting it to people who are not trained to take care of it?

Dante

 

[Dante_Stella]

By the way, are you sure the negs are even being developed? Kodak's ASF (Applied Science Fiction) division developed a machine that could read exposed but not developed negatives, and the end result was to discard the negs.

Read here.

Applied Science Fiction's Digital PIC technology develops 35mm film directly into a high-resolution RGB digital format in one quick step. In the Digital PIC process, micro-amounts of a proprietary developing agent are applied to a roll of exposed but undeveloped film as it is fed through the processor's image-capture engine. The environmentally friendly Digital PIC process requires no water, generates no hazardous effluents, and makes complete silver recovery possible. Next, the Digital PIC system makes a digital record of each image. Once the image data is captured, color data and exposure settings are established on a pixel-by-pixel basis for each element of every image. Complete 24-exposure roll development is accomplished within approximately six minutes of the film being fed to the image-capture engine.

And you know that "complete silver recovery" is like "complete nutrient recovery" when you make Soylent Green.

The product has been scuttled, but that's not to say that the thinking - scan and dispose - is not there. Fuji may have brought that back.

Dante

 

[burancap]

I just don't get the point of these sorts of totally non-constructive comments that seem to me to be proliferating on RFF. Apologies if I over-reacted. I'm just a bit jaded by the lack of constructive discussion on the forum at the moment.

Constructive? Destructive is more like it.

The last (and I mean LAST) roll that went through my local Walgreen's was in all regards completely and utterly destroyed about two months ago.

I asked for a quick (1 hour) process and scan, no prints.

Three return trips and two days later ... delay after delay, I received my envelope. It was especially "thick" and I immediately knew that they had run my unrequested prints. Oh well, I paid the full bill and went to my car. I opened up the envelope to find: A roughly folded, twisted, stained, torn heap of cr@p that was my original film, a handful of prints that totaled maybe 10 of the 27 or so frames from the film, and a CD with same 10 "salvaged" images.

Not a word, not a peep, nothing. Not even a note from the processor as to what had happened. No discount, no freebie, no nothing. I vowed that day to send my remaining C41 off to Fuji. If this thread is the future, then my C41 will be used up and processed with BW process at home (or perhaps I will finally try that eBay processor).

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

Sad times. I just went to Walgreens in LA, hoping to find the 1 hour processing they were still listing on their website that morning. When i arrived, i was told that location was in the process of dismantling their processor, and they were now sending all film out. Also, that that location was the last location to have a processor (at least in LA). I believe he said it would be a 7-10 day turnaround(!) so i took my stuff to a mom and pop shop instead.

He didn't mention that negatives wouldn't be returned. That's a deal breaker and a bizarre standard to set. I can't imagine customers are 'okay' with that.

 

[KoNickon]

My local Walgreens is closed for total rebuilding, so I will be most interested to see whether film processing onsite is still offered when they reopen. I rarely if ever had reason to complain about their work, but the Fuji Frontier equipment was getting balky and something tells me it won't be replaced.

 

[pete hogan]

I prefer the enthusiastic over the reluctant. My film goes by mail to Ilford Lab in San Clemente, CA.

 

[whitecat]

Pete,
I found out that The Darkroom and the Ilford Lab are one and the same. If you go thru the Darkroom, you get the same work minus the Ilford labeled CD for a lower price. If you get prints they are on Ilford B/W paper. I have used them extensively and the results are great. I got this info from a Darkroom employee.

 

[pete hogan]

Pete,
I found out that The Darkroom and the Ilford Lab are one and the same. If you go thru the Darkroom, you get the same work minus the Ilford labeled CD for a lower price. If you get prints they are on Ilford B/W paper. I have used them extensively and the results are great. I got this info from a Darkroom employee.

Good to point that out. Glad to hear that you've had great experience with The Darkroom. They had a fine reputation, and I suppose that's why Ilford tied in with them, a strong vote of confidence. This lets both know that I appreciate their service and Ilford's interest in delivering results to us. I get processing and small scans and it's always good, QC card included. That's what I was used to with Gamma in Chicago for a long time.

 

[bhop73]

I don't understand what sort of pleasure you get from posting this sort of rubbish comment.

Yeah - I'll save you the time of writing "lighten up etc" by doing it myself. But how about you get a real sense of humor first?

I thought it was pretty funny.. it is true after all. I had some film developed at walgreens once. They gave my negs back, but they were pretty messed up.

Lighten up..etc...

 

[css9450]

I think in the Midwest, Walmart trucks the film to Dwaynes.

Target, too, I believe.

I sent my E6 slides out via Target for several years. What frustrated me was the increasingly slow turnaround time. It turned out, they were on a "route" whereby the truck (or whatever they use) used to come around daily, then it was twice a week, then once a week, then "as needed". Turnaround time was pushing 3 weeks or more!

I've had good luck on the rare occasions I've shot print film, getting it developed at Walgreens. But its been a couple years; I should go back and see if the equipment is still there!