Overexposed Slides

[cleary71]

I recently got back from vacation where I took 10 rolls of slide photos. I drop 5 rolls (2 Velvia 50 and 3 Velvia 100) off to 2 seperate labs. The first 5 that I got back from the 1st lab looked great, but the second 5 looked very overexposed. The Velvia 50 looks extremely worse then the 100. I was wondering if someone could explain how slide film is developed. Does the developing change for each ISO rating? Is there anything that can be done at this point to save them? I am close to torching the 50, because the dark greens look almost florescent green. Needless to say it has completely ruined my day. Thanks!

 

[BernieSC]

When labs process slides the film is processed simular to neg film they have one timed process the film goes through there is no adjustment on the processing time depending on the asa unless you specifically tell them and they have the ability to push process which is changing the developing time and the only reason you would have that done is if you shot the film at a different asa than the film is rated. If you shot the film at the asa the film was produced for then their process should have been fine. From your description it sounds to me like thier process may have caused the film to come out like it did. If you shot all the film at the correct asa and that many rolls came out bad then it sounds like something the lab did. There are many reasons that could cause that if the lab was at fault. weak or contamadated chemicals. The E-6 process for slide film is simular to c-41 process for negative film so its possible they processed it by mistake through c-41 process.

Did you ask them what they thought was the problem and you might either get an honest answer or sorry to say but many labs will blame the film or the photographer to hide their mistake.

Also my question is why didn't you just have all the film done at the same lab?

 

[cleary71]

I was just sampling the two labs to see which one I thought looked better, I guess I found out the hard way.