Vista + CRC Imaging Group

Have tried not all, but a handful of film developers in NYC and have found Vista to be the best so far. Their customer service is nutty — the place can get crowded, but I’m always thoroughly pleased at their tenacity under duress.
Their prices are a touch high, but that’s probably because of their Flatiron address. As far as their lab services go, I think I’m happy. I get the occasional spotty negative, but since I scan my own film, I don’t have trouble fixing these minor things.
What I like is that they turn out my orders quick, they know my name and I feel like they’re on my side unlike so many other labs in the city.

They do a good job of processing film.

This is my go-​to lab for DECADES! Neal and his pro team (with a family touch) has always done it right for me (sometime irregardless of my own mistakes) they made sure I was happy with the end product.
They’ve survived all these years because they’ve done it right… we professionals knows who we can depend on!!!
Gen Nishino

First of all, I would rate it ZERO star, but it’s not an option.
I didn’t expect anything when I came to the lab, I just decided to give it a try and it’s quite near my office. I sent my first 110 film roll to Lomography to develop and scan and they charged me $ 16 total, which I thought it was quite pricey. So I switched to Vista, they charged me $ 18 but it’s nearer to my work. So it’s ok to try.
1^st time: When I dropped off the roll, they said it would be ready in 4 hours and I could come pick up my negatives. I was quite surprised as I didn’t expect them to be that fast. So it says on the receipt 3:45pm and the staff told me to pick up at 4pm. I went there to pick it up around 5pm, they said the machine was broken and I had to wait for another hour which I did. I came back again after and hour and they kept postponing, so i decided to go home and pick up the next day.
2^nd time: So I came pick it up the next day, I had them scanned and emailed the photos to me, so they told me my stuff would be ready by 6pm on the next day and they will email the scans to me or i can pick it up at the store. Luckily I never went to the store and went straight home, then I gave them a call after 7pm and they said it’s not ready yet that’s why I haven’t got my scans in the email (??? I didn’t expect that kinda answer, as if I should expect delays and I haven’t received anything meaning nothing is ready). They didn’t even apologize for being late. They’ve lost my trust. I would rate ZERO out of anything for their service.
So, my advice to you is: unless you are not in a rush, this might be the place for you to spend sometime, walking around, take photos of the flat iron building… I haven’t received the scans yet so I have no comments about the quality of the scans, but I wouldn’t trust anything they say from now on because of their bad customer service. They can’t even do the basic thing like calling customer about any delay. If you do decide to go there to have things done, please give them a call first, other wise there’s high chance you would waste your time coming back and forth.

the worst and most unprofessional company i have ever dealt with in 15 years
this is the first bad review i give in my life
they billed me for over $ 1000 more for the print than we agreed on
they let me wait for 2 weeks past death line that we agreed on for the print
then they hang the peace croaked and scratched up
horrible experience and i lost my biggest client because of it

Will not be going here again. Dropped a 35 mm film roll off and every photo had a bright purple line through them. Very bummed.

Been using this guys service for a couple of months already; processed several batches of both b&w and color, as well as several different formats, and overall, the experience kept turning worst and worst as I kept coming back…
1) First batch of b&w’s 4 out of 30 4×5 negatives were slightly scratched; nothing deadly but enough to alter my OCD side.
2) Second batch I sent of 4×5 color negatives, came out with SEVERE scratches diagonally across 10 out the 10 negatives I had processed.
But hey, if you are willing to sacrifice quality over time, this guys will have your film butcherly processed in 4hours.
Shame that the few places there are still left to have color film processed provide such a flakey service. (Processing own b&w’s at school from now on: «if you want things done right…»)

Dropped off one roll of 35 mm and was told I could pick it up the next day at 5pm. The next day they called me to say that it would not be done until the following day so I dropped off an additional roll and said I would come back the next day to pick up both. I show up on the third day and they tell me that my second roll was blank. No explanation, they gave me a box of film with no emulsion on it at all. I have no idea if this was even my film, it had no markings on it. They still charged me for it. The first roll of film was developed and then put inside the print file before it was even dry (the roll that took an extra day) So the contact proof sheet has water marks all over half the images and the film was stuck in it so I had to destroy the print file to get it out as well as rewashing the negatives. I would give them the benefit of the doubt that the second roll could have been defective from the factory if the other aspects of their service were acceptable but that was not the case. I would not recommend them to anyone for development.

Always do a good job for me with develop/​scan. Good, fast, and afforable. What more can you ask for.

I’ve been coming here since I was a student at Parsons. Today, I bring all my clients here and have all my fine photo prints printed here… excellent work! Consistent quality!

Great service! I am always pleased with my film processing. Thank you!

This is one of the best (if not the best) photography labs in NYC.
I ended here last year after a horrible experience with Manhattan Color Lab just a couple of blocks away.
So far I haven’t had any problem with my film. They are fast, kind, and they know how to do their job.
If there is something I could change, it would be the price of processing a roll of 35 mm C41. You can develop it at any pharmacy for about $ 2.50, and Vista charges you $ 8. I know it’s a pro lab, but they are using the same minilab machine to do this than any other drug store or supermarket.
So, I take all my slide color film here, specially 120 and I also develop negative film in 120 here.
Good and fast service, very good schedule, they are open on Saturdays too.

This place really took care of me quickly. Talk to Jesus he is great, very knowledgeable and friendly. I did a photo mosaic on a digital C class print that they mounted. It turned out awesome and they did it for me in less than 24 hours. I was very impressed. There prices are very good as well.

Just had 7 Rolls of 120 and 5 rolls of 220 developed. They did a great job, consistent, not so much as scratch on the whole lot. Excellent price on the whole job.

yes, they are not the most organized place in town — I have 3 or 4 separate accounts under various spellings of my name there BUT they go so far out of their way to help students and hobbyists that I could have 10 names for all I care. These guys have gone above and beyond on many occasions including free messenger delivery of prints and reprinting when my results were not what I needed due to MY miscommunication. They are patient and helpful when you need it and super fast!

2.5 stars…
I hadn’t broke out my Hassy since college but on a recent trip to Yosemite there wasn’t a chance I was going to not shoot film. The problem was, were should I bring my film? I didn’t want to go somewhere that also sold film and did one hour processing, I wanted a pro lab. It’s generally understood that Duggal is the «best» lab in the city but there’s no shortage of bad reviews and pissed off customers because of their bad service so I wanted to go somewhere with a better track record. I called around to different labs and it turns out that processing and contact sheets are competitively priced among the labs in the city. It’s generally the printing and scanning that varies quite a bit from lab to lab. CRC charges $ 7 to process 120 or $ 17.50 for process and a contact sheet. They also offer 20% discounts to students, pros, or just about anyone in the know.
Everyone I saw working here were Mexican and were very nice, helpful, and fairly knowledgeable. The processing was done on time but it didn’t come without its kinks. When I went to pick up my film (5 rolls), it took 2 people several frantic minutes to find my film because the guy who took my film spelt my last name (which I told him it was E-​M-​O-​N-​D) BOEMOND. Not paying attention to what you’re doing continued because even if Boemond was my last name it was further screwed up when each of my film rolls and contact sheets were labeled BOEMPND. Good thing I checked my film there before leaving because as I was about to go I realized that they only gave me 4 of my 5 rolls back so I had to get them to go find the rest of my order. Superficial bullshit aside the contact sheets were a little soft and had tons of dust and one of my rolls of film had a very thin scratch running through it.
Call me crazy but when I go to a lab that is supposed to be of a pro-​level I’m expecting a better attention to detail and more care to be taken on every level. Had I not gotten some great back up shots with my digital I would have been a lot more pissed.

After dealing with another lab for about a year and having mixed results, I’ve been nothing but satisfied since using CRC. I appreciate that they packaged my 120 negatives and contact sheets up nicely and everything has been perfect. Since I haven’t used them for anything other than processing negatives, I can’t give them 5 stars, but if/​when I do, I’ll write an update.

Over the past few months I have been doing a bit of lab hoping and figured I would give crc a try. I had worked for a few photographers years ago that would swear by them but there must have been some major changes since the switch to digital. To start things off it took them 20 minutes to find my film. Always a good sign and great feeling not knowing where your film is. I quickly looked at the film on the light box to check the exposures and then left to do some scanning.
Majority of the labs in the city can develop film correctly and most of them do dip and dunk. Price isn’t a factor for me and I find that most places are pretty much the same. That being said the fact that they would return film as dirty and as beat up as it was is shocking. As most labs are I am sure they are trying to hang onto as many film customers as possible in addition to pushing every other medium (prints/​mounts/​digital processing/​etc) not to mention there are tons of other competent labs in that area.
With all of that I have never had film come back with as much dust, creases, and even water/​chemical stains. It looked like a high school student had developed it.
I had been going to print space for awhile but found that their turnaround time and cleanliness became an issue once they lost the 2^nd floor.
Since then I have been going to PRIMARY in the lower east side. They always do immaculate work and the only reason I decided to check out some other places was to save on the travel time/​messenger.
Maybe it was a fluke and I just got them on a really bad day, really really bad. Whatever the case if your going to give them a try I would stick with just a few test rolls and nothing of importance.
I personally would just stay far away.

I go there regularly to process my film. Never had any complain about their work. I was pretty happy when they started remembering me. I rented their scanning system once. The machine is good, Imacon, but I kinda felt uneasy to work in there. There were kid & a bunch of Hip Hop people next to me while I’m scanning my private negatives.
I tried their scanning, coz I was a little high that day & he said only $ 3 per 4×5 film. So I said ok. I was disappointed to find out that they only scan them at 350 dpi. So for a 4×5 film, I got a jpg smaller than 1800×1400 px!!! What’s the use of that?

Just visited here for the first time to get a roll of 120 black and white and a roll of 35 mm slide film for cross processing — I found the prices very reasonable (total for both was about 12 bucks for develop only). The turnaround was equally impressive, as I dropped off at lunchtime and was told the rolls would be ready to pick up at 5pm. Nice! Speaking as someone who’s made a little study of figuring out which lab has the best prices for particular types of processing, I can say that CRC /​Vista Imaging Group (whichever name you call this place) seems to have the best deal for pro cross processing in NYC. Most places will rachet the price for doing what is essentially the exact same thing as a standard C-​41 roll. Nice work CRC!