robis Lakewood Camera + The Print Refinery — Attraction in Lakewood

Originally I had reviewed Robi's after about a half year of having color film developed, and sometimes scanned and printed by them. My first qualm with Robi's was when I brought in a roll of film to be developed, and it was lost and I was given someone else's developed film. This was righted by their searching for the film, as well as presenting me with a gift card for free developing and prints, as well as a new roll of color film. Later, I shot my first roll of black and white film, and brought it in for processing. I decided to order two sets of prints so that I could give some to my family, as I went on the trip with them. Upon returning to the store to pick up my pictures and film, I learned (very rudely) that I was told when I dropped the film off that the prints were more expensive because they had to put in time to correct dust from scanning (I was not). This brought my price to roughly 40 dollars... For one roll of film and two sets of prints, which I only got because I had been wronged in the first place and had been given a gift card that I was told would cover the development and one set of prints. Begrudgingly, my girlfriend was with me and paid for the prints, as I had brought only the gift card with me and had no other way to pay. Following this, I decided to try my hand at developing myself, and started to develop black and white, as well as color. This went well and it was nearly 6 months later when I had to leave for college, and was developing film I wanted to take with me, so that I did not need to have it hand checked when I dropped my last bottle of D76 and it shattered, so I called Robi's and asked specifically for D76, not replenisher. Upon driving the roughly 45 minutes to the store, I found out that the person I had talked to on the phone was wrong, and they only had replenisher. I was very upset, and my past experiences with Robi's had only added to the disappointment I was feeling. At this point, I would ONLY use Robi's as a last resort when needing a quick turn around time on color negative developing and printing. They have atleast a one week turnaround (in my experience) with black and white, and I will not be using them for this ever again, and would advise against anyone else...

Back in March, I picked up a new DSLR and needed lenses. I went to the store once where there was somebody actually there and they gave me a price that was much higher than advertised at Nikon. Later on come to find out that they gave me the wrong price. I ended up buying my lens through Nikon and I had gone back several times for different lenses. Each time either there was nobody available, or they didn’t have the product I was looking for. Looking for the tripod I ran into the same thing as well as the camera bags and straps. By the time I finished purchasing things from one online store and two other, not so local camera shops in PNW, I decided to pick up a mirror camera to go with my kit. They did not have the mirror less camera I was looking for which was a very popular one and I wanted it That day, so I had to go somewhere else. Today I was looking for a lens, since I bought the last four lenses for the mirrorless camera in Seattle, I was really hoping to get one that was closer and this shop is literally seven minutes away. I have been calling them six times so far and it keeps rolling back to the recording where you ask for sales. I’ve been calling since 2:00 PM and they’re not closed until early this evening. So, once again right before the holiday I’m going to have to drive all the way up to Seattle or to Kenmore to pick up a Lens that I may or may not be able to get From Robi’s Lakewood camera. Honestly, it’s very frustrating and back in the day when I used to work with film cameras, This was the best place to go. I guess as times have changed, so has the availability of product and...

If I could give a zero, I would. Took in 2 photos to be restored. First, they told me one picture could be restored but it would be dark and the other photo was an easy restoration. I was informed it would take a week for someone to call me regarding the details. I was assured that both photos would be ready by the holidays which was perfect because they were being sent to relatives for Christmas.

Waited for three weeks and didn’t receive a call. I went in, they had a hard time even finding the photos then they weren’t even ready. I was told they needed another week to actually do the restoration work. After a week, they called and we picked up the photos. There were a number of glaring issues. The people in the photos didn’t look like themselves whatsoever. Colors had been changed, facial features had abnormal shapes, it was a mess. I was upset and wanted them to redo the work because it was substandard workmanship. They agreed to redo it and I had to wait another week. Once again, we picked up the photos and the quality was negligible. The issues of the initial restoration were still present. In addition to still being horrible restoration attempts, the holidays were upon us so I had no time to send them out even if I wanted to do so. I do not recommend this place of business. If they couldn’t do the work, they could have told me but instead they wasted my...