Bear with me, this is a rather long-winded story. 
I sent in my favourite slide of 2001 (http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46) for a slide to print job last Tuesday. Was told by them that it'll take 3 days to do but the lady told me to come back on Saturday morning to collect. Before I was served, the customer just before me was asked to come back 30mins later to collect his prints as they weren't ready.
On Saturday, I didn't have time to go in the morning, so I went in the evening instead. Before I went, something in me told me to give them a call first, so I did. The lady seemed rather unsure of my slide to print job but finally told me to come down an hour later. To give them more time, I decided to go down much later and reached there around 6:40pm. After checking the print (10x15), I noticed a long black mark at the bottom centre of the photo, since this is obviously not on my slide, I requested a reprint. As they were closing for the day, I was told to come back the next day. (During my wait, a customer who came in to collect his photos was told to wait for 30mins, which I thought, was rather odd and coincidental after Tuesdays' "incident".).
Today, I went down at 5pm expecting to collect my photo (and half expecting to be told to wait again) and I wasn't disappointed. Not only had they not done my reprint yet, they also didn't know what was my initial complaint about. The guy at the machine talked to another lady and seemed rather unhappy about having to redo the photo (as they have to switch some components to do the slide print). While I was waiting, 3 other customers were also told to wait as their prints weren't ready yet (or rather, they just looked for the negs to do the printing when the customers arrived trying to collect their processed negs and prints).
The guy checked my slides many times, even in front of me with a loupe as the counter had a daylight corrected light panel. After being satisfied that it was his machine that gave the dirt, he proceeded to reprint my slide. In the meantime, I had also requested that he adjusted the saturation of the print for me as the earlier print had rather dull colors. When the print was finally done, I checked and noticed another black mark (line) on the face of the Barbary Sheep as well as on the leaves in the background and the right side corner. Additionally, the color saturation was also not adjusted to match that on slide. At this point, I gave up and decided not to pursue this further since I was rushing and had wasted both time and money coming down on 2 days just to collect my print. Imagine my horror when I got to my parent-in-laws place and discovered many many many fine scratches on the non-emulsion side!!! Since I did not send in a single mounted slide, the other photos on the same strip were scratched as well.
Morale of the story:
Some of you may ask, so why did I do it again this time, well, I'm a sucker for punishment, and besides, I have never asked Konota to do any slides to print job!! How else would I have known that I was going be a victim of their consistently inconsistent quailty?? :dunno:
I sent in my favourite slide of 2001 (http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46) for a slide to print job last Tuesday. Was told by them that it'll take 3 days to do but the lady told me to come back on Saturday morning to collect. Before I was served, the customer just before me was asked to come back 30mins later to collect his prints as they weren't ready.
On Saturday, I didn't have time to go in the morning, so I went in the evening instead. Before I went, something in me told me to give them a call first, so I did. The lady seemed rather unsure of my slide to print job but finally told me to come down an hour later. To give them more time, I decided to go down much later and reached there around 6:40pm. After checking the print (10x15), I noticed a long black mark at the bottom centre of the photo, since this is obviously not on my slide, I requested a reprint. As they were closing for the day, I was told to come back the next day. (During my wait, a customer who came in to collect his photos was told to wait for 30mins, which I thought, was rather odd and coincidental after Tuesdays' "incident".).
Today, I went down at 5pm expecting to collect my photo (and half expecting to be told to wait again) and I wasn't disappointed. Not only had they not done my reprint yet, they also didn't know what was my initial complaint about. The guy at the machine talked to another lady and seemed rather unhappy about having to redo the photo (as they have to switch some components to do the slide print). While I was waiting, 3 other customers were also told to wait as their prints weren't ready yet (or rather, they just looked for the negs to do the printing when the customers arrived trying to collect their processed negs and prints).
The guy checked my slides many times, even in front of me with a loupe as the counter had a daylight corrected light panel. After being satisfied that it was his machine that gave the dirt, he proceeded to reprint my slide. In the meantime, I had also requested that he adjusted the saturation of the print for me as the earlier print had rather dull colors. When the print was finally done, I checked and noticed another black mark (line) on the face of the Barbary Sheep as well as on the leaves in the background and the right side corner. Additionally, the color saturation was also not adjusted to match that on slide. At this point, I gave up and decided not to pursue this further since I was rushing and had wasted both time and money coming down on 2 days just to collect my print. Imagine my horror when I got to my parent-in-laws place and discovered many many many fine scratches on the non-emulsion side!!! Since I did not send in a single mounted slide, the other photos on the same strip were scratched as well.
Morale of the story:
- if you are looking for consistent quality, don't go to Konota, they aren't known for it. (I say this not only from my own experiences but from complaints by others who have used them as well.
- irregardless of whether you are worried that the processor might leave fingerprints on your slides (yes, that was silly me thinking that it'll be easier for them to hold a strip rather than a single slide), try to send in mounted slides (with easy to remove mounts) so that any damages will be limited to those that you have sent in.
Some of you may ask, so why did I do it again this time, well, I'm a sucker for punishment, and besides, I have never asked Konota to do any slides to print job!! How else would I have known that I was going be a victim of their consistently inconsistent quailty?? :dunno:
