Got back new roll from Walmart (Dwayne's)

[Mike Buckles]

Took one of my 10 year old Kodachrome rolls I shot a few months ago into Walmart a week and a half ago...wasn't going to get it developed because I discovered afterwards I had horribly overexposed it...but since we were having that earlier debate over the dirt ridden film, i figured, for 5.00, what the heck. I got back the film tonight, and...perfect...no goo, no dirt, looking very clean...just a tiny bit of dirt at first few seconds, no big surprise there. My faith in Dwayne's is back! Only thing, they put a white leader on it, and my projector would not take it...had to snip it off. I may send off a few rolls to Kodak too, but at least I know I can send off a roll to Dwayne's and be satisfied! I guess the chemist came back from maternity leave! Mike

[cameraguy]

I can tell you that with Kodak I find about 25% of the time the leader breaks off the first time the film goes into the projector. I guess I keep forgetting to just re-splice before I put it into the projector.

I also get some spotting/dirt the first 10 frames of so on most rolls from Kodak. Plus they are known to unexplicably cut off a foot or two of footage from either end. I would never shoot anything really important in the first or last 5 feet.

[Alex]

I've talked about the "five and five" rule in the past.

Be careful for the first and last five feet of every cartridge. Some people who can't believer there is only 2 minutes and 30 seconds on a cartridge at 24 FPS just shudder when you tell them that rule!