Many folks seem to have had bad luck with their film processing. In over 25 years of shooting with an SLR (Pentax since 1980), I don't think I've had more than 1% of my pictures messed up by a lab. I've found labs that gave consistently bad results (greenish color cast at one, dust spots at another), so I stopped using those ones. For many years, I used Qalex for my everyday 4x6s, then last year I kept getting unuseably contrasty prints.
Now I use London Drugs (only found in western Canada) for my everyday pix, and I'm fairly pleased nearly all the time. They print on Fuji Crystal Archive, and the prints are ready within hours. For enlargements, the local pro labs give good results, and aren't that expensive. Some of my photographically casual friends ask why I don't use Wal-Mart or Costco for processing, since it's cheaper. They seem to find the quality acceptable. Perhaps they actually are the voice of the masses. Sometimes they can see the difference when I point it out, but often they don't care. So many people just want to see a tiny image on the LCD screen of their digicam, or just email their happy snaps to their friends. They don't seem to care about prints anymore. That may be the real cause for the decline in film use. All the same, there's usually a line-up at London Drugs, and I sometimes see folks bringing in half-a-dozen or more 35mm films at a time. At least here in Victoria, film is still alive and well. My 2001 MZ-S, my constant companion, is loaded with 2004 film, and in 2010, when today's digital wonders are considered laughably obsolete, I'll be using it with the amazing new 2010 films. Am I in denial, living in a dream world? I sure hope not! Pat White
