A word of warning re: developing photos (if you are still using film)

Aaaaahhhhh!

So I eagerly put my photos in to be developed of the Iceland trip. Until now, most of the pictures you've seen in the blog have been taken by Agnieszka on her little digital camera (the Northern lights one though is definitely mine). I was expecting my photos to be just as good as hers, and hopefully better, because they were taken on my Canon SLR.

Alas, that was not to be. You see, I have had several bad experiences of photo developing in London (the developers on the Wallington High St for one, and then the camera company which lost my photos, which used to be in the forecourt at Charing Cross), so I now only take my film to the London Camera Exchange on the Strand.

So I dutifully go into town today to put the photos in - it would take a few days but I'm not so bothered about that. However, I had some errands to run that put me down the opposite end of the Strand to the LCE, so as I headed up there, I happened upon another photographic shop (who shall remain nameless) on the Strand. Seeing that they develop films (and had a special deal on getting 7x5 for the same price as 6x4), and feeling a bit too lazy to walk the rest of the way up the road, I put my precious films in there. Alas, I now wish I hadn't.

First of all, they didn't print some of my Northern lights prints, because they were underexposed and therefore their scanner did not pick up that there was anything on them. Trust me, there is - you can see it on the negative. Secondly, the photos are SERIOUSLY washed out and grainy (you can see how bad it is from my Northern lights pics in previous blogs). The colour quality is shocking. Thirdly, they put the photos on the CD like I asked - only they're very badly pixilated (sp?). It took me some time to figure out that the pics they have in the "HIRES" folder are actually the lo-res ones, and the ones in "LORES" are actually the hi-res ones. And if that isn't bad enough, when you load the photoviewer from the CD - it defaults to the rubbishy "HIRES" ones (which are lo-res) and displays them upside-down.

I'm going to go back and complain - I could do with having my sister Melissa here for that as she helped me when I had big problems with the developers in Wallington. Or, my mate Leisa - who helped me with Vision Express (I ended up with something like 3 free sets of glasses from them because of their incompetence).

The moral of this story? Better the devil you know...

Anyway, will keep you posted on how I get on.