Topic: A local shop for local people

[euge...]

I was in my local Snappy Snaps in bromley 2 weeks ago and noticed some 120 film for sale.I got talking to the manager and asked if he happened to have any 110 cassettes ,he had 4 and said that it came in from time to time .They still took 11o,120,e6 and kodachrome for processing.I know the branch in wardour street ,the former pro-lab heartland ,  still does this kind of stuff but it was refreshing to find a local franchise that could do this kind of thing.I havent put anything  of my own in to check the quality yet.The branch in croydon is managed by the same bloke so I think the same services are offered. I appreciate that this will only be relevant to those in south/south east london  but at least its heartening to find out about more  rather than less services. 

[Heather]

... While my local snappy snaps manager is an ... 
Took a roll of film from my finetta 88 camera in. It does not have a sprocket counter so the spacing on the frames is very uneven. Come back an hour later after warning the tech guy about it, find half of the photos not printed correctly at all. Because they couldn't be arsed to make sure they were apparently. I also told them to not cut the negatives (had Boots claim they handcut all negatives on a finetta roll of film before and they cut right through the damned middle of a frame. Never again.)
7 hours later by the end of the day they did finally get me decent prints but the manager practically had a go at me and made it sound like I was being difficult because I didn't want them to chop the roll into 4 frame strips! Eeesh.
I'm sure the ones that are like pro labs in central london are good just not the ones here in the outer fringes of london (the other nearest one to me said to take my 120 to central london snappy snaps, they basically refused and made it sound like they're no good at it!)

[sapata]

I had trouble at snappy as well with my neg processing. I went to boots once just to have my neg processing and I asked the guy if the'd do slide films he repplyed "what's this ?" 
Jessops is crap and I refuse to go back to that place even if it's the last place on earth that deals with photography.
I usually take my films to be processed at Metro www.metroimaging.com (or .co.uk can't remember..), they have a god service and I never had any problems.

[Ken B: eyes, I just do eyes.]

There is a Snappy Snaps at Clapham Junction across the road from the train station and they do a good job, they do 120 neg onsite anything 120 they can't do they send up the road to Putney to a lab there that does everything well and fairly cheap as well.

I guess the owner being an Aussie, just shows who you have to get to get anything done right ;-)

[Karl]

taking things a bit further off the path...I bought a decent volume of film from fujilab.co.uk last weeek. Good prices and reasonable delivery time. It's a lovely feeling to stare at a pile of neopan 400 and 160c 

[CamerAsian]

For hard-to-get films etc, also check out the Frugal Photographer http://www.frugalphotographer.com/index.htm

[Ed Wenn]

Any of you people who are London-based and are already travelling to a specific part of town to use a certain lab, can I take a moment to most heartily recommend Darkside situtated less than a 5 min walk from Old St tube.

A friend used to work there and he introduced me to the place about 3 years ago. He's since moved to another town, but I've not used any other lab else since. They don't do E6 in-house and the place they farm out to charges a lot, but they will xpro your slide film and they cater for everything else. No issues with badly cut negs either. All hand done. It's a pro lab used on and off by Martin Parr, Simon Norfolk, Magnum in the UK and a host of other names and Anthony, the owner, is incredibly knowledgeable about the business. Since landing a job outside London I don't get down there as often as I used to and I'd like to think others here can fill in for me    So check it out if you get a chance.

[Ken B: eyes, I just do eyes.]

Ed,

In the name of the good ship "HMS Filmwasters" I will drag my sorry, sinning arse down there and check it out.

cheers

Ken

[Ed Wenn]

Good stuff, Ken. Look out for Anthony, the owner, and say hi from me. He's a tall guy with blond frizzy hair. A real pro and a lovely bloke.