Boots photo developing

rbulph

I recently took a batch of eight films to be developed at Boots. I always like to get copies on a CD too. On getting them back, half the pictures had blue lines across them, and many had white scratches and other marks. This was apparent on the CDs as well as on the prints. So I took them back to get them redone. They reprinted the photos which are now mostly OK, although quite a few have new defects and some are folded in places. As for the CDs, Boots have picked out those photos which they thought were of bad quality and redone those onto two separate CDs. So now my photos are all out of order. Plus they missed a lot of photos which had blue lines on. I shall probably go back and complain again.

Boots have been good in the past, but this is not acceptable. Can anyone recommend a reliable developer who will put photos onto CDs for you? Or maybe the time has come to switch to digital. Any recommendations for a good SLR with a good zoom lens? I have Pentax at the moment but I'm not too keen on their digital SLRs - they look a bit plastic.

deanos

Definately worth going to digital you will save loads of money and be able to put them on cd yourself, also printing costs at boots os very cheap

skippy64

Were your films APS or 35mm? If 35mm are you able to look at the negatives to see if there are any scratch marks on the film. I would guess that the negative carrier that held your film when printing & scanning for the CD was most likely dirty and that they have cleaned it since as now you have had them redone and you have recieved better results. If I were you I'd stick to my guns & go back in and ask them to rescan the films again to produce the photo CD's in the way you want, in photo sequence. Its important to point out they have not supplied your photos & CD in the way you expected and have probably received before from them

Whats your budget for a digital camera ? The best camera at the moment (IMHO) is this beauty. http://www.ukdigitalcameras.co.uk/__4_prod3_asp2_1_i4_32151_117_Sony_Cybershot_R16.html#features

I use a Canon digital for my pro work but I'm considering the Sony for my personal 'happy snaps' camera. I done some test exposures on the Sony and the quality is excellent for the price. The Zeiss lens alone is probably the best reason to buy it. Hope this helps

rbulph

Thanks skippy64

35mm. The blue lines are not on the negatives. Boots seem to be saying that they produced the new CD Roms from what was scanned in before. Some of the photos they could simply darken to hide the blue lines, but for many it wasn't possible - the lines wouldn't go away. They refused to redo the CDRoms saying the results would be no better. They offered me four free films, which I took in the end, in exasperation.

Shortly I shall have to switch to digital. There are two things that I'd really like to do with photography in the future (apart from avoiding Boots). These are (i) take good close ups of landscapes and wildlife and (ii) be able to get really big enlargements of a good quality. So I think I'll either get this camera http://www.ukdigitalcameras.co.uk/__4_prod3_asp2_1_i4_31901_123_Samsung_Digimax_PRO_8150.html which has 15* optical zoom (although it looks like it could do with some refinement and maybe a new model will come out shortly) or (if I'm feeling rich) I understand that Pentax are producing a digital medium format camera with 18MP, which would be great for big enlargements. I think I'll wait a bit and see (especially as I have some new films now). Any views on the wisdom of either choice would be welcome.

Rob

Contains_Mild_Peril

Whether digital would be more economical for you depends on a number of factors, the main one being what sort of proportion of the shots you take you would actually want prints of. If you would want a print of nearly every pic you take, then it's still likely to be cheaper to use 35mm and get photos on CD if you want digital copies.
I'm curious about these mysterious blue lines now - could you post a link to one of your dodgy Boots scans to show us?

rbulph

Contains_Mild_Peril wrote:

Whether digital would be more economical for you depends on a number of factors, the main one being what sort of proportion of the shots you take you would actually want prints of. If you would want a print of nearly every pic you take, then it's still likely to be cheaper to use 35mm and get photos on CD if you want digital copies.
I'm curious about these mysterious blue lines now - could you post a link to one of your dodgy Boots scans to show us?

Fair point. In general, I don't want to print my photos out. If I did it would be as an enlargement, which would probably be equally expensive with digital and with film. Here's a link to a photo with a blue line http://rongbuk.squarespace.com/display/ShowPicture?moduleId=730103&pictureId=445860&galleryId=36434. If you look carefully there's actually a second line on the right as well. There are a few other photos in the album with similar blue lines.