Austin Camera & Imaging — Attraction in Austin

I never leave reviews but i was extremely disappointed with my service today, and want to say why you should instead take your business to Precision Camera or Holland if you're a film photographer. This is long, so I added a TLDR at the bottom.

I recently finished a trip and had 9 rolls to develop, so I took 5 to Precision camera and 4 to Austin camera. 1 roll from each batch didn't take and was blank. Precision camera offered to fully refund me for the scanning costs of that one roll with no problem (what I've encountered at every photolab that I've ever been to - pretty standard practice). When I asked the person working at Austin camera if there's any way that they could refund the scanning costs, the person working seemed really upset that they had to deal with a customer and told me they don't do refunds but I could get a partial credit to spend at their store. Considering I never received the service that I paid for, I feel like it's kind of insane to hold my money like that. Imagine if you ordered a camera from them, it never came, and instead of giving you your money back they said that you had to instead buy a different camera from them (and pay for any price difference). PLUS, the credit they gave me didn't include tax, so it couldn't even cover the price of the service I was supposed to get in the first place. I was pretty surprised that a smaller store like Austin camera was not only extremely unhelpful, but pretty standoffish at the same time. I wasn't upset when I came in or anything, and I politely asked if they offered refunds and the person working there acted like I couldn't have been dumber for asking. Like I get it, sometimes customers suck and especially in retail it can be alot, but I'm just trying to get my money back for a service I never received.

Additionally, the quality of the scans coming from Austin camera were much worse. I don't know if they scan them in-house or use someone else, but many of the shots I got back were not centered on the frame at all - they'd have the edges from 2 frames in one scan (Pic of one example included in this review), so I'll have to get that roll re-scanned anyways. Pretty unusable. I didn't even bring that up when I went, because if they refuse to refund me for a service they didn't do at all, I imagine they'd absolutely refuse to do anything about a service they did poorly. Before this incident, I had taken probably 40 rolls of film to Precision camera without any incident at all as far as the scans go.

TLDR: In my experience, Austin Camera is worse (both in customer service, as well as scan quality) than Precision Camera. They refused to refund me for a service I never received from them, and some of the scans that I DID receive were pretty poorly aligned as well. I hate to say this because I really do want to like a small business like Austin Camera, but they were just worse in every...

The place is poorly kept, but I usually don't care about the image (in this case, the odor) of a business. I reserve judgement for the service. The people here should realize they're a service-based business. I visited twice, and both times a young lady reluctantly got up from her pressing computer work to help me out, the nuisance of a customer that I was, after 5 minutes of my awkward straining over the counter, trying to see the lenses and bodies they had available for sale. She clearly got annoyed after I asked her to pull two lenses from the counter so I could see what models they were. She told me that all of their lenses were updated online and to look at them before asking for any more. I took her advice and researched them over the next couple of days. I returned asked for two lenses by name, according to the current listing online, and she let me know they didn't have them. In short, this place couldn't care less about me as a beginner, and they let me know it. So I went and spent $1000 at Precision and will continue my business there as I grow in the field. This place will go out of business when their current customer base dies off of old age in the...

I came here after discovering they were the only repair shop to work on Mamiya RB67s in my area. I was experiencing some light leaks on my negatives that I hadn’t seen before. I figured the light seals needed to be replaced so I took it in to get looked at. I was told my camera was in perfect working condition and was sent on my way. Lo and behold I shoot a roll, develop and scan and there are light leaks just as before. I take it to the shop, show them the negatives and again told they will take a look at it. 2nd time I get the same answer, my camera is in perfect working condition. They even gave me instructions on how to operate the camera as if I didn’t know how to operate my own camera. Obviously it there’s a problem when I knew there was a clear point in time when light leaks were occurring on my negatives. Suffice to say I took it to another shop in my hometown and easily fixed first time around. My first suspicions were correct and such a common issue and a rather easy fix that they were not competent enough...