Problems with developed 35mm photos from Walgreen's. What's the cause?

I went to Walgreen's to get a set of 36 photos developed and they came out weird. Some have white lines on the right and some have white lines on the left. Some came out normal like the picture on the bottom. Is this a developing issue or a camera issue? I'm using a Nikon Fe. Please help.

Sorry to hear about your problems with these photos. Don't forget that the first person you can and should talk to when you get questionable images back from a lab is your lab tech. In some cases, they may be able to offer advice or at least just their opinion. This provides useful feedback to the staff to help them help improve your photos.

In this particular case, however, the lab is not the problem but rather it's your Nikon FE which needs new light seals.

The FE is an excellent 35mm SLR and I own one also. However, these cameras were made in the late 1970's and need to be serviced every couple of decades to keep working at their peak. What are you seeing are places on the film where light was allowed into the camera and overexposed the film in places where it sat for a while, probably under direct sunlight.

Have a look at these examples of light leaked photos on Flickr:

You'll notice that there are many ways that leaks can register on film and that a few here resemble your examples.

I also see a black vertical bar on the right end of two of these prints. That could be a result of incorrect printing/scanning and you could talk to your lab about that.

As far as the leaks go, you can either read online about how to replace the light seals yourself, which is fairly simple but just takes time and patience, or you could hand your FE over to a camera repair shop to replace them for around $30. Since your camera mustn't have been serviced in a long time, it may be worth having a shop do the work so they can recommend any other repairs and do a proper cleaning also. A complete Clean Lube and Adjust of a 35mm SLR usually costs between $60 and $200 and will basically make your camera work like new for another several decades.

http://www.garryscamera.com/

I'm sorry that your photos didn't turn out as you'd hoped. They look very nice though and I hope you aren't terribly discouraged!

Please email me at JohnnyMartyr@Hotmail.com if you have any other questions or check out my work at JohnnyMartyr.com.

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