What's Wrong With Costco Developing & CDs

JimOfOakCreek

JimOfOakCreek

Jazz Wine Photgraphy
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Mar 6, 2010
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No offense to you purists who develop and scan your B&W negatives but what's wrong with using Costco developing. You get a CD with JPGs as well as prints? It may not be custom processing but still good enough for amateurs like me.
 
I think many here agree with you (try a Google search) and many don't. It's one of those subjects that comes up every once in a while and tends to divide participants into two camps.

Now, it so happens that someone I know, whose family has been in the restaurant business for a long, long time, was just singing the praises of Costco for cheese and seafood earlier today. I'm beginning to feel like I should switch from BJ's.
 
For me, the downsides include low-res/high-compression JPGs (unless Costco somehow offers larger JPGs than Walgreens), pre-cooked minilab digital processing and sharpening in those JPGs, potential negative damage, and cost.

And I don't need prints of every single frame I shoot.
 
If you've ever used a custom lab, or processed your own (B&W film), you quickly see the problem w/ using Costco/Walmart/Walgreen's etc to process your film. If they do a good enough job for you, great. You're fortunate. But I didn't invest tons of money and time testing equipment, and shooting the best gear that I can afford to own, just to have it screwed up by minimally trained employees w/ only a fuzzy idea of photography. Finger prints, dust, scratches, etc. I'm sure we've all been down this road before. That doesn't make me a purist. It makes me a professional. Which has nothing to do w/ money. It means I use professional equipment, spend a lot of time learning my craft, and expect professional results. Who wouldn't?

One seldom gets a second opportunity to retake a shot, so better to have everything in your favor from the get go. Trust me, I can foul things up myself w/o any help, so IF I get the shots right, I want the rest of it to go right as well.
 
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they do

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My Costco experiences at several in the N. calif. bay area, and a couple in the pac. nw, compared with dozens of walgreens/rite aids, longs in both areas show the Costco's consistently at about a 3x larger JPG file size.

Also, pricing for develop/scan of 36 is same as 24, this was sometimes the case at the others, but not always, sometimes they'd charge more for the 36ers.

I like the quality, I can always re-scan the negatives, and the developing seems as good as my own.

regularchickens said:
For me, the downsides include low-res/high-compression JPGs (unless Costco somehow offers larger JPGs than Walgreens), pre-cooked minilab digital processing and sharpening in those JPGs, potential negative damage, and cost.

And I don't need prints of every single frame I shoot.
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I tried them for the Fuji 160 NPS color film that I shoot...sorry to say that I have moved on from Costco...I was really hoping that they would work out but I didn't like the results!!
Any B&W stuff I do at home...negs and prints...
 
Costco is not terrible if you know you just have some snaps. Anything you care about you should do yourself or send to reputable lab. The biggest issue with costco is.... costco. I hate the big box concept. It's just gross going into the building of gluttony.
 
Totally agree with Steve M. It even took me a long long time to find a pro-lab that is gentle with film and does the development fast (within an hour at no additional cost). From my experience most people down there at Costco/Wallmart are 'film butchers' and I would definitely avoid them...
 
I bet I have pushed more digital files and more negatives though Costco than any of you (maybe I'm wrong but I go there 2-3 time a week, as one is in my neighborhood). I find that their scanning of negatives is inconsistent. But if I post process (digitalize my negatives) and I do the file to be sent to them, they do an excellent print. Strangely, I also like the prints that are taken to the store and entered into their computer via a kiosk better than the ones I send over the Internet.
 
I don't shoot much color film in 35mm, but when I do, I use Costco to DVD. If I need better quality, I rescan the negatives. I ask them to cut and sleeve. Occasionally, I have scratches on negatives. For my purposes, their scanning saves me the time.
 
arseniii said:
From my experience most people down there at Costco/Wallmart are 'film butchers' and I would definitely avoid them...
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This is the kind of needless good/bad generalization I was predicting above. FYI, Walmart is out of the in-store dev business altogether. They send out to Fuji which, in turn, sends E-6 out to Dwayne's. (But you get better pricing through Walmart.)
 
I have used Costco for colour a couple of times and have been impressed with the quality and the price. Around where I live you won't get 5mb scans, except at Costco, without getting ripped off. Don't like the fact their CD's contain photo software, however. Just the scans please!

The place where I get my c41 120 developed is a 'pro shop'- negs always comes back dirty. Still, I'd rather wait 2 days than 2 weeks...
 
I'm lucky to have a Costco on my way to work w/ an experienced crew working the photo dep't. I've been pretty pleased w/ their results in recent years, but I can understand that quality could vary from store to store. I take all my color print film to Costco, and routinely get the negs printed and scanned on to CDs. If I want to make further adjustments, that's what PS is for, but for basic development, scanning and prints my experience has been that Costco is usually more than good enough.

However, Costco will only process C-41 film, so that limits you if you shoot a lot of b&w basically to XP2 and BW400cn. Both are good films within their limitations, but if you want to branch out you'll either need to DIY or find a custom lab.
 
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