West Photo — Local services in Minneapolis

The short version: I am going to give them one star, not because of the quality of their work. But, because I find courtesy and respect toward the customer the first and foremost pillar of a business, and West Photo failed to deliver on that.

Now, the long version: I hope, by the end of it, you'd understand the significance of the matter for me and appreciate my frustration with West Photo.

I am an amateur photographer. I am not particularly amazing. However, photography has played a special role in my life over the past 5 years, helping me get through a tough time.

Ever since I picked it up as a hobby, my wife has been a huge inspiration. She has been there with me every step of the way, on all my landscape photography trips, waiting patiently¬--for hours at times--for me to get the shot that I was content with. Her encouragement has been the main reason I never gave up on it.

So, when it came to our 10th anniversary, it seemed like a nice idea to print one of my shots for which we’d spent hours, as a token of appreciation, and as a reminder--to myself--how lucky I have been! So, I decided to order a large print of the best shot of one of our most joyful photography trips.

And .. I decided to keep this as a surprise! So, I chose one of my shots and decided to work on it secretly. For a couple of days, I’d sneak out of bed at 5 am, before work, so that I could spend an hour or so working on it. Until I was happy with the results.

As for the print, I had one previous experience with West Photo, and, quite frankly, it was smooth and professional: I’d ordered a large print online and, in an hour, I received the notification that it was ready for pick up. In addition, they are located nearby. So, at 8am on Friday, I ordered a rather large print online, assuming it would be ready by the evening so that I could pick it up, sneak it in, and have it ready for our anniversary on Sunday.

As you have guessed, the notification never came! I decided to wait .. until Saturday afternoon, before sneaking out, making an excuse about having to finish some work. I called them, asking about the print, assuming I must had missed the notification. But, after talking to three different people, I was told that they do not make prints over the weekends! After telling them that I had ordered the print on Friday, and it was meant as a special gift, the gentleman at the other end of the line told me that they were busy, and it could not be done!

I am not sure whether it would have helped to ask and talk to the manager. But, at this point, I was too frustrated to be able to waste another 15 minutes. I drove to the FedEx store in Roseville, also with which I had worked before, where the gentleman helped me and assured me that the print was going to be ready in a couple of hours.

Now, it is about an hour since I’ve left FedEx. I am writing this while waiting in a nearby coffee shop. It is the day before our 10th anniversary, and my wonderful wife might be thinking to herself that my work is more important than spending time with her, while being courteous enough not to call me every hour about why I am...

I would not recommend getting film developed at this location. Fast Foto in Bloomington offers a superior product 10x over.

I want to like this place, its in a great location and its a small business in MSP. I have developed film here twice and both times I have had some issues.

The Old Service Methodology: The method by which they communicate with the customer is archaic. The first time I dropped off my own flash drive and they took the film and just said "come back in a week!" , I came back and they claimed they couldn't copy my files over to my flash drive. The employee said it must have been my flash drive and I can pay $5 for the fee of their storage (a whopping 55MBs) and another $13 for their own flash drive. The real issue was that it was an NTFS partitioned drive and I had to coach the employee through re-formatting it to FAT32, I get it these scanners are old and probably run on old hardware but immediately blaming me and my device wasn't great.

The second time I went in I thought I would try and pay the $5 fee to receive them via email, for connivence, however I gave them my email and they again said "come back in a week!", I came back in and changed my mind and brought my own device to save $5 and was told they'd let it slide but thats the fee for storage (again around 55MBs). I don't understand the advantage of offering email as an option if I still have to wait to receive them and get to pay more.

The cherry on top of this is that both times the scans metadata showed the scans were completed the day after I dropped off my film but there was no communication from West Photo that they were completed and I could come pick them up. A text or an email that they are done would go a long way for the customer. You would get a faster turn around shipping your film to thedarkroom.com

The Quality: I have had 3 rolls developed between two different cameras. The first time all my scans had a big horizontal yellow line through them, I chocked it up to my old point and shoot and carried on. I did take that same camera to Fast Foto on my next roll and the yellow line was not present. However I did want to give West Photo another shot so I gave them two more rolls, both from different point and shoots. I got my scans back and both rolls clearly have large specs of dust from the scanner. It seems they don't take care of the scanner and the quality suffers as a result. See my photos attached to this review.

The Alternatives: Like I've mentioned in this post I've used Fast Foto in between my two stints with West Photo. I believe they offer a superior product. You drop off your film and within hours they have them on their web platform for you to download with no $5 fee to store less than 100MB of files. The scans are higher quality, cheaper and more convenient even if you live in Minneapolis proper the drive to the burbs is worth it.

I have attached two photos, They're from different rolls and different cameras to rule out a bad...

I've been in West Photo once. I am in no way tied to them.

I find some of the comments posted here ... well...

The thing about the internet is that you only get one side of what happened when things go "bad".

Like the comment about $200 more on the light meter. Let's see... first of all, do you need the assistance of someone who knows how to use it? If you do, pay more for the service. They have overhead. Here's a fact of life: You will always find it for less on the internet. They are under no obligation to match the price. There's no guarantee that the unit for $200 less is brand new and never been touched. I don't know and you don't either. Like I said, if you need the service, be prepared to pay more.

Let's talk about rude, shall we? It appears some of the staff could have a attitude based on the posts here. It could also be that the customer comes in and expects the sales person to kiss their a$$. Match internet prices.Then there is the "What's the difference between Canon and Nikon?" Let me tell you what I think is going on. It's a 2 hour answer. And at the end of the two hours the customer walks and goes to the next camera store and gets the next sales person's opinion.

I've owned both. It's as individual a decision as picking a spouse. Try both cameras. Hold them, feel them.. see which feels and works best in your hands. I can understand you not liking their answer, but the reality is it's the wrong question. I worked in a pro camera store as a 20 year old. I don't believe rude is right, but I won't sit here and blame West either. This is a pro store and some sales people just get tired of making time investments in amateurs that never pay off.

I am a photojournalist that started in a camera store in Miami. I also have a ton of experience in retail. I suspect if you go into West and make it clear you want to build a long term relationship you'll do just fine. If you're a amateur that shops the web and expects the same price locally, do everyone a favor and shop the web or waste time at Ritz. When you finally give up in frustration because you don't know how to use the products that you bought on the web, then maybe you'll put value in places like West.

BTW, when I do use a camera store for "mail order", the guy I use charges me more. And he is worth every single penny. Expertise is worth a LOT to me. Some of you will never...