avocado8

A Little More Care in Processing, Please

I've been taking the film out of my Vivitar to the CVS on 19th & Chestnut for just about ever, and though I'm not always happy with the results, I always chalked it up to the camera or the film, not the processing. Plus, I love the woman who does the work, and I enjoy seeing her several times a week (and also not having to tell her what I want, and not having to endure the "there's still going to be a $2.50 charge for processing" spiel).

I was just thinking yesterday, however, that perhaps I should try another lab. I got such dramatically better results when I took my film to the CVS in Pittsburgh that I realized perhaps the processing at 19th Street *was* a little off. Too lazy to think about where to go instead (maybe the Walgreen's on JFK?), I dropped off my latest roll of 400CN at the CVS as usual this morning. (Oh, did I mention that I finally broke the rewind knob off the Vivitar and had to rewind with a quarter and then pop open the spool with a screwdriver? 'Nother story.)

The results I got this morning soured me on CVS for good. The scans all have water and/or chemical stains on them, which means either that the film was scanned wet, or it wasn't rinsed properly, or something else went wrong during the processing. I'm trying to see it as an interesting effect, but I can't say I'm happy about it.