Camera Oasis

What do Walgreens and CVS drug stores do with the film negatives that aren't returned? Mystery solved. But hardly satisfying. . I've probed this since my Aug. 2016 post . When I asked Walgreens why they don't return negatives with photofinishing orders, a manager called me. He explained that his store sends all film processing orders to District Photo, a Maryland wholesale lab. They send nothing back to the stores -- prints or negs, he said. Image files scanned from negatives are transmitted to the store, where prints are produced and the files are written to a CD. This led me to District Photo, where a polite woman named Ruth informed me that District's contract with Walgreens specifies no return of negatives. That's at Walgreens' request.  District retains the negatives for 30 days, then destroys them. So, Walgreens says it's District's issue. District says Walgreens tells them not to return the negatives. Amid the online finger-pointin

I ran across a Nikon N2020 in a thrift store last week. It would make a great doorstop, or maybe a prop in a war movie. By dw_ross from Springfield, VA, USA (20121213_1371) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],  via Wikimedia Commons The bottom plate was partially unscrewed. A thin patina of dust covered its surface. You couldn't read half of the control labels on the body. Nikon made many rugged 35mm single-lens reflex cameras. The N2020 wasn't one of them, despite being the company's first autofocus SLR model. I'm a long-time Nikon SLR owner. But I let it go. Some owners baby their cameras. Others toss them in a backpack and neglect them. And there's no hard-and-fast rule about which holds up better. SLR cameras of the 1970s and 80s were built with metal frames, but plastic soon took over. If you find a $10 Nikon in a thrift store, it's likely to need more than a dusting off and a fresh battery. Compact point-and-shoots are a