Photos
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Bad Photo Labs
Lesson learnt. Don’t waste time with cheap and nasty photo labs.
All of this happened to me about a week or two ago, but I’ve only got around to writing about it now. I shot a few new rolls and thought I’d try out a little photo lab just a few hundred metres from where I live. I thought “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a local photo lab”.
HOW WRONG I WAS…
I dropped the film off, told them not to rush as I’d pick it up the next day. All seemed fine. Went in the next day to pay and receive my photos. As I was walking home I opened the packet up and started looking at my photos. ** First mistake – must always check photos before leaving store!
Looking at the photos I could tell immediately that thing just weren’t right.
With one of the rolls in particular I made a special note that I was experimenting with a few lighting effects etc and largely testing the camera. So asked them not to adjust low/high key photos for example. If something is dark, leave it dark. They said this was fine, no problem at all… Maybe I was speaking in another language because they totally ignored what I asked. When I got my photos back it seems as though the machine has tried to compensate automatically as a bunch of prints were completely off, like they’ve just pumped up the exposure compensation setting. Anyway, I don’t want to go in to any more detail, but basically I just wish if people couldn’t do something they just say it. I have absolutely no problem with that.Ok, not the end of the world right? I still have the negatives yeah?
Yes and No.
Yes as in, I do have the negatives. But no as in, they aren’t exactly “intact”.
You see, to go along with the terrible prints, I have some negatives that have been cut up collage style. The photo below is an example of what I mean.
You can see this one shot has been cut so about 1/4 is missing. Obviously I’m not going to pretend they’re ruined an amazing image but this is just one image out of a few I’ve noticed so far and I’m not happy. Honestly, I don’t know how they did this. maybe they asked the blind work experience kid to cut the negatives that day. Even still…
I don’t know what else to say beside the fact I’m never going back to this place again. I’m just glad I didn’t have anything particularly important on the film. A cautionary tale. Don’t make the same mistake as me!
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Some “B” Sides
I have been going through the restored files on an old hard drive today and found some pictures I had totally forgotten about. They are all from my Asia trip last year, mostly in Japan though. It’s a nice finding old pictures you’d forgotten about 🙂
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Olympus Trip 35: The 1 Cent Wonder
Well I just bought another film camera. This one was purchased for the exorbitant sum of 1 cent!
Yep, one cent, with a flash and a bag too. And when I won the auction the seller asked “So do you want to come and pick it up? Or should I post it?” um… I couldn’t find a 1 cent piece and it was located interstate so it was posted…
I took a quick photo of it you can see below. I also managed to find an original lens cover for it that was in the bag of accessories I bought a week or so ago, so that was a nice surprise too.The camera has a great little multi coated 4 element D.Zuiko 40mm f2.8 lens that I’ve seen produce some brilliant results. It doesn’t use any batteries but has a solar-powered selenium light meter with an automatic mode and two shutter speeds (1/200 in auto mode and 1/40 for flash sync). Everything works perfectly on it, but I need to replace a light seal as the camera is pretty old. I think its one of the earlier models, they were made from 1967- 1984. Quite a long time.
I’ve already put a roll of film in it with the dodgy light seals just for fun. I wonder if any will turn out.
Yeah, it needs a clean too…
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Melbourne in Black and White
These pictures are from the same roll I mentioned in the previous post. These were taken in Melbourne (hence the title), and I’m quite pleased with them (if you couldn’t already tell, haha).
I think I might try and sharpen these pictures up though. For example you can hardly make the persons face out in the first one, even though the print and negative contain enough detail to see his facial features very clearly. Anyway, enough complaining, its my fault that I just didn’t get the photo lab to scan them! (I didn’t expect any pictures to turn out)
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My First Roll!
Well I just got my first ever roll of film developed from my Olympus OM2n and I’m very pleased with the results. Actually, I’m just pleased with the fact that the camera even worked! I wasn’t sure if the light meter would still work after 30 years, and I wasn’t certain how well I’d changed the light seals, so I was very happy when everything seemed to work as it should.
One frustrating thing however is my film scanner. It’s just a cheap flatbed scanner and with a film negative attachment. I really need a proper one, as the one I’m using doesn’t capture anywhere near enough detail and makes the pictures looks too grainy (more than normal).
But I thought I’d post some up anyway, I’m still pleased with the results, especially considering it was my first ever go with a manual focus camera, and essentially a test roll with this new camera.These are just a few taken around my house and at dad’s studio. As I said before, the scanner just doesn’t pick up anywhere near as much detail as it should… Next time I’ll use a proper scanner.
Edit: Three photos have been corrupted so have been removed from this post.
