Rome's closing down film development?

I was told today that Rome's is shutting down their film developing in house. Anyone else heard this? I guess I could give them a call.

The last time I went there was just before the closed down for renovations. I did notice that the customer service desk was no longer in the same spot and I didn't see any of the Photolab stuff.

Yeah it's not surprising at all. I keep reading about stores keeping their film developing going until a machine breaks down and then, instead of fixing the machine, they will just close them up.

That leaves what? Black's and Wal-Mart for in-house developing?

And I think A&P at the Churchill Plaza?

Cujo wrote:And I think A&P at the Churchill Plaza?

Nah, A&P got rid of their photo machines years ago. They will send film out like a lot of places but for in-house I'm pretty sure it's just Black's and Wal-Mart.

Black's is really expensive, but they do good work. I dropped off some rolls of film a while back and asked for them to develop negatives only... no prints and I didn't even want them to cut or sleeve the negs. I expected it to be probably $5-6 a roll but it ended up being over $8. It cost me almost $30 for 3 rolls, negs only. That was crazy. At least I saw him using white gloves and I know the negs were handled properly.

On the opposite end Wal-Mart is about $2.50 a roll, negs only. Problem is I always end up with scratches and dust. I literally walked in to pick up my negs while they were pulling them out of the machine... without gloves. She yanked them out and they dropped right on the floor. Sure enough those were my negs. I didn't even bother to complain because I know better... what are they going to do? Give me my $2.50 back? Big whoop.

Yes... Rome's was in the middle of Black's and Walmart in terms of price and quality for in house processing.

The Walmart lab is the worse I've ever seen. Once my negatives were cut through the frame! Only once, because I stopped going there after that. The only reason why I step into Walmart now is to buy Kodak BW400CN and that's if I'm desperate for it. If possible, I'll order it online. Dust, scratches and fingerprints on the negatives are guaranteed. They simply don't know what they're doing and don't care either.

Rome's was cheap. The worse processing from them was still usually better than the typical processing from the Walmart lab. A bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes I would get beautiful negatives. Usually there would be some dust and scratches. Rarely any finger prints. During the spring of last year, the negatives came back with lots of water spots, which were difficult to deal with. I got three or four bad rolls. Overall, an ok service for film tests.

Black's does do a very good job. Unfortunately they are expensive.

I think that I'll send out my test rolls from now on. The problem is, when I do test rolls its because I want to use the film for something important. I'll miss being able to see the results quickly. This will mean that I'll likely have to shoot test rolls perhaps a month in advance.

I'm now looking into processing C41 colour at home. One of my flickr contacts does this and gets nice results:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7682487@N06/

Yeah I send mine out right now, but it's a 7-to-10 day service. Sometimes I'm lucky and will send something off Tuesday and get it 2 days later on Thursday but that's not the norm. Usually I'll get it the following Tuesday or Thursday.

I have never had any big problems with the lab Camera Craft ships out to, except the time it takes. Luckily I am mostly doing my own B&W though so I don't have to wait (or at least I just have to wait until I get around to developing).

But yah, doing a test roll and waiting for it can be annoying.