[Leica] Kodachrome print help

["D . K." <tekapo@golden.net>]

I have been shooting B&W exclusively with my M6 for 15 years and in the
past six months decided to start experimenting with color. I've been
shooting Kodachrome 200 and 64. After viewing many test slides via a
projector, I decided upon Kodachrome 64, and have been doing a lot of
shooting with this slide film and extremely pleased with the chromes. For
the first time however, I have just gone to a professional lab, supposedly
the best in the city (Lumichrom in Breslau, just outside Kitchener), to get
some 8X10 prints. After spending $250, they look like crap, very dull and
flat, with low contrast. Was I ever disappointed. I'd been told that
Kodachrome prints go more contrasty, so I was very surprised by the
results. Now, this lab produced the prints with an interneg. I'm now
looking at getting some Cibachromes done, but I'll have to courier the
slides to Montreal and I'm wary about dropping another $300 if the quality
is shit. Is there any method where the print quality can match the beauty
of the chromes? I'm dying to know, because if it's not possible, my days of
color are over and it's back to shooting B&W exclusively. (On a worse
related nore, my slides were returned to me with greasy fingerprints on
them. Unbelievable.)

Dave Fisher
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
tekapo@golden.net