Photographic Depot - La Grange, Illinois

Scott M

I have 4x6 photos printed regularly at the Photographic Depot. I appreciate that they process my order quickly and the print quality is always superb. Joe is great, and you can tell he is so passionate about photography, cameras, and printing. Despite them being more expensive than Walgreen's, the quality and service more than makes up for it.

Beata Knurowski

HORRIBLE COSTOMER SERVICE!!!!!
If I could give this business 0 stars I would!
I am a college student who is learning photography and film processing. I called this company to ask about film developing costs, depending on the film I use. The customer rep did not even give me 5 min of his time. He was unprofessional and very rude. He was getting mad at my simple questions. He ended the phone call saying, "Listen up girl, If you are looking to save money, don't shoot film." and proceeded to hang up.

I will take my business else where. If you guys know good businesses that develops films in the Chicago Area, please recommend them to me. Thank you

Nicky D

Great place, friendly service, very knowledgeable, great prices. I always take my 35mm film rolls here to get developed and printed, great results! #1 camera/printing/developing store on my list.

Edit: 1.5 years later

I still go to this place semi regularly, I get my film developed here, 35mm and 120. I still bring my film in, and I used to get my negatives back in 2-3 days but now it seems like they're slowing down with processing film. My usual wait time is about a week minimum.

I recently bought a Canon AE-1 from Photo Graphic Depot and Joe was very informative and patient on showing me how to use the camera. I was well informed and ready to use the camera right after Joe showed me.

Joe is the best.

Linze Rice

I just had a horrible experience here. I had four disposable cameras developed through them, and when I called for info and dropped them off, the couple running the store was very nice and friendly. When I got the pictures back, I realized that some were missing. I figured that this was due to the quality of the photo not being good, but back in the day we would get those back with the rest. Since they were delivered via Dropbox, I just wanted to call and make sure they had just been bad quality and not mistakenly lost. I made this call on the worst day of my life when we are also putting our dog down. Unfortunately, the owner, Joe, was extremely rude and defensive as if I had offended him or accused him of something. He was extremely condescending and talked to me as if I should know better or that I was an idiot. I was very taken aback by this, and was doubly hurt considering what else I was going through. I went in shortly thereafter to get my negatives, and I told him then, calmly, that he had hurt my feelings and asked what I had done to offend him for him to talk to me that way. He said he was just annoyed because he gets that question a lot and that it was Monday morning. He mocked me by pretending to “be calm” and “meditate” and was very mean-spirited, even though he knew what I was going through. He said “hope your life gets better” mockingly. It was extremely Cruel, and I didn’t understand why he would do that. Thankfully another customer stepped in to comfort me and he said that Joe was “not usually like that.” I truly hope he finds the help he needs if he is so bothered by his customers asking a common question that he would mock and speak down to them in such a painful time.

Monica Carriedo

Owner is a good,
friendly and knowledgeable man, but the customer has to do all the work while in the shop…create an account or go to the website and navigate the whole process- upload photo, select size, crop and so forth. The only thing owner has to do is receive the order, not very helpful for folks who don’t know their way around. There’s no real customer service involved. I wouldn’t go back. Elmhurst has a place on Spring road that’s outstanding.

Thien-Kim Dinh

I’ve been coming here for a couple years now to get my film developed and scanned. The staff are helpful and friendly, and the prices are normal/reasonable. I’ll continue to come here and I recommend this place!

Ian Buckner

I went in late March 2023 to get 3 rolls developed. Two of the rolls were my aunt's from years ago when she was still alive.

When I dropped them off, they informed me that their machinery was getting fixed and it would take about 10 days. No big deal.

Cut to 3 weeks later, I call to check on the status of my film. The man starts looking around and it's clear they don't know where my film is or where it went. He asks for my contact information and told me they would "call around".

This was about a week ago, radio silence. Not happy.

Lucas Dul

I have been going to the Photographic Depot for a few years now, and was very impressed with the owner. He seemed to be very knowledgeable in topic of photography, and a pleasure to talk to. With that thought in mind, I brought a valuable limited edition camera in for repair, in hopes that he too held the same regard for equipment that I did. The camera was of personal importance, an expensive investment, and worth a lot. It also worked flawlessly before I sent it in, I just needed an LCD connection repaired. The repair tech could not have done a worse job. He replaced the minor part I asked to, but not before damaging the leatherette with holes and tears, damaging the plastic components with tools, scratching the dials, chipping the lens mount, denting my shutter, and screwing up the light meter so it no longer properly reads, or fires at the right speed. He also took one of my parts, and though I've contacted them twice about it, it has been a few weeks and I've heard nothing. Not to mention that it took two months. I was told I couldn't get any sort of refund for the work, as policy was he needed to fix his mistakes. Seeing the absolute horrible care he took of my camera, I would not let him touch it again if I were being paid. I took it to a friend to have the leatherette redone, only to find more internal tooling damage. I am beyond disappointed, as this camera cannot be reasonably replaced. The complete disregard for quality work and care really surprised me. Suffice to say I won't be taking my business there anymore, and I recommend that if you care about your equipment, especially the valuable sort, stay away from their repair tech.