ERA 100 - the second roll

I just accessed isaac.chen's site and asked him if ERA 100 is available in 120. If it isn't, I wonder why not...

Anyway, I'm going to buy his 10 roll pack 135-36 for something like $15 plus $8 shipping.
 
I ordered 50 rolls of ERA from Isaac and got 50 rolls of Lucky. I don't think it was a mistake because supposedly the ERA factory has stopped production for some years. Isaac is playing some kind of bait/switch and now I am waiting for some sort of "special offer" to make this "mistake" work out.
 
Ouch, that's disappointing. I hope it was a real mistake, and you get the film you paid for. I want to think it must be a mistake - I don't think he would have 99.9% positive feedback if he made a habit of doing that. Please let us know the outcome.
 
Interesting co-incidence here as I myself put in an order for 50 rolls of ERA100 (I was given a "special" non eBay-fee price of AU$129, that's just over AU$2.50 a roll) figuring that for that price how can one go wrong?

After reading Rayt's post I shot Issak off another message clearly stating that I want ERA and not Lucky, so we will see how things go - I'll post when the film arrives.
Incidentaly Rayt, if I were you I'd pressure him to exchange the Lucky for ERA even if you have to pay the shipping.. could at least be worth a try.
I haven't been much of a fan of Lucky either to be honest - but at least they still beat digital! :D

ImageShack doesn't seem to be working too well for me right now (and my DSL in general) so I can't post any examples of my ERA shots taken so far but I've been pleasantly surprised with the film. I think with just the right developer and development process it could turn out to be great film for the money. :)
 
ChrisN said:
Ouch, that's disappointing. I hope it was a real mistake, and you get the film you paid for. I want to think it must be a mistake - I don't think he would have 99.9% positive feedback if he made a habit of doing that. Please let us know the outcome.
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Isaac asked me the send back the Lucky film and said he would reimburse me for the shipping. I am sure it was an honest mistake. Buy from this guy; he is ok.
 
Rayt said:
Isaac asked me the send back the Lucky film and said he would reimburse me for the shipping. I am sure it was an honest mistake. Buy from this guy; he is ok.
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this is who i get all my film from...of course, he's more local to me :p
 
Rayt said:
No. Lucky is a different brand and not as good as Era. Era is partly owned by Kodak.
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Not quite. Kodak stepped into china a few years ago and bought a stake in a few film companies there (Shantou, the maker of ERA100, among them). They also got the government to close a few that elected to 'reject' Kodaks advances. Since then most "partnerships" seem to have fallen apart.

currently, Kodak has no relationship with ERA and the ERA100 emulsion has nothing to do with their prior relationship. Kodak does have a stake in Lucky (and the SHD line is one of the results of that) but rumor is that relationship is on the rocks.

I have a writeup on Shantou ERA100 here. There are some examples (dev'd in Rodinal) and gratuitous shots of my twin boys there :p
 
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Rayt said:
Isaac asked me the send back the Lucky film and said he would reimburse me for the shipping. I am sure it was an honest mistake. Buy from this guy; he is ok.
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Thanks for the follow-up, Ray. That's good news. So there was no indication of the supply drying up any time soon?
 
My wife is from Beijing. I had her ask her sister (who still lives there) how much she can find it for locally. She just reported back that she can get it for me for at a price that might be about $1.40 or so per roll after shipping. I'm thinking of having her ship me about 200 rolls. Save me about $80 vs. getting it from our Taiwanese friend.
 
If any of you remember Bill Mattock, he sold Era 100 in 36's. I bought about 25 rolls from him. I like the film. I have about 3 rolls left.
 
tedwhite said:
I just accessed isaac.chen's site and asked him if ERA 100 is available in 120. If it isn't, I wonder why not...

Anyway, I'm going to buy his 10 roll pack 135-36 for something like $15 plus $8 shipping.
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it's not. only 35mm, 4x5, 8x10, and 7x17.

for 120 try Shanghai GP3. I got some from Issac a few weeks ago and am evaluating it now.
 
Odd. I got an answer back from Isaac, who said it is not available in 120.
 
tedwhite said:
Odd. I got an answer back from Isaac, who said it is not available in 120.
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it's not and never will be as far as I know. only 35mm and some cut sheet sizes. for 120 you can try Shanghai GP3. it's similar to ERA100 and better then lucky SHD100
 
Here's a shot I took the other day using ERA 100 developed in D76 stock for 8 minutes. I'm really pleased with the look of this film especially for the money. :)

scan0072qy7.jpg
 
Nothing wrong with that at all, is there? I think you judged the exposure pretty well, too, retaining visible detail in the shadows on the trunks.

What else was on the roll?
 
I still have 19 of the twenty rolls I ordered. I'm planning on ordering another fifty rolls of the 35, and five or so boxes of the 4x5. And throw a couple of boxes of 8x10 in there, too, in fill up some space in the shipping carton.

I wonder what his price would be for 1000 rolls? If we got fifteen or twenty people on this forum together, that would be no problem to split that much up.
 
Good idea, but you would probably have to do it on a regional basis, to avoid excessive postage costs. I suspect I'd get stung with import duties if I started to play with those sort of quantities!

I notice Isaac also offers SAL (Sea Air Land) postage for the larger quantities. Has anyone any experience with this? Is it reliable?
 
ChrisN said:
Nothing wrong with that at all, is there? I think you judged the exposure pretty well, too, retaining visible detail in the shadows on the trunks.

What else was on the roll?
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Cheers ChrisN. :)

I use my Sekonic handheld meter in incident mode so there's sometimes a little guesswork involved (shooting into the sun, and so forth) but I make a point of bracketing on promising shots just in case.
That image was taken from the top of mount Buninyong, a few k's out from central Ballarat.


Here's another from the same roll of one of the local chuchers in the area, only the light isn't so good in this shot.

scan0072yy3.jpg
 
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