doubs43 said:
Bill, none of the local stores such as Walgreens, Eckerts etc. will do negatives only and I really don't feel like arguing with Walgreen's manager that it CAN be done. If they want the profit difference between just negatives and prints, they get zero profit from me.
I think there's kind of a misunderstaning in this thread as to what actually happened. I didn't have to argue with a Walgreens manager at all. The manager knew what I wanted immediately, and actually went out of his way to get them done while I waited (and yes, browsed and bought other stuff in the process). It was a win-win for both of us.
🙂
There was, however, a front-line employee who I guess didn't know what the real policy was and didn't really care. My guess is that she's a part timer, perhaps rotating from store to store, and doesn't really care that much for her job or the customers. You see this attitude all the time.
I have a feeling the way that this sporadic refusal to do a DO-CD started was that the Powers That Be for Walgreens, Walmart, Target' and others intended for such things as CDs or photos on line to be an add-on, an upsell, something in addition to, and not in lieu of the regular hardcopy prints.
When Walmart came out with their photos on line a few years ago, it was most definitely an add-on to prints on their send-out second day processing. In fact, photos on line were not available with the 3" single prints, only with 4" single prints and above. This was a good service until about a year ago when they quit letting you download a whole roll hi-res as a big zip file. Even though the prints were mandatory, it was still cheaper than our local indie lab charged for a DO-CD.
Nowadays, Walmart (at least here) will do a DO-CD and I don't even know if they offer any kind of a photos on line anymore.
Target' was the only one around here who seemed to have a DO-CD as a standard service. The one store here used to be great, but when one guy quit, the consistency went bibi and they started scratching negatives. I even blamed the power-rewind on the little Olympus for this until one roll from the Pentax came back the same way.
🙁
I think the big problem with the one hour labs is inconsistency, both in technical quality and in attitude. Lately I've found that yes, Walgreens (the ones with the newer Fuji Frontier machines at least) gives very consistently good results. Walmart does seem to usually do a good job on a DO-CD. I blamed them for a roll with a streak which came off with H2O, but I'm wondering if it was something in the light trap of the cartridge that actually did it. I always use the film canisters now for the exposed film.
We as serious amateur photographers are a bit more picky and yes, demanding than the casual snapshooters, which are the usual customers of the mini-labs. Some managers and employees are happy to give us a little bit more attention, but others just care about putting in their hours or making their store's numbers come out pretty for the current period.
Oh well, so it goes ...
🙂
