I shot a roll of film to test exposure using some new lights. Not really caring about the quality of the negatives I took it to the hack next to my office. This guy has taken negative mishandling to an art form. I one time watched him scrape a piece of gunk off a negative with his fingernail. When scanning the negative, I was thrilled to se that he surpassed his usual level of incompetence. Indeed the scratches were deeper and more abundant but not only that, he's now adding (free of charge) extra flecks of crap and whole galaxy-like smears of foreign matter. Astounding! Now the thing that troubles me is that the film is Kodak Portra NC 160 which I have shot many times before and I have never seen grain (or noise) that apparent with this film. Even the shots I took in full sunlight show pronounced grain/noise. Now perhaps my scanner has suddenly decided to introduce excessive noise but I rather suspect that the lab owner has decided to stretch the life of his chemical. So my question is this: If the processing chemicals are past their lifetime, will the film exhibit pronounced grain? Greg
