Germany (maybe Europe in general?) seems to be a lot more accepting of film.
Hi Clive,
yes, Germany is "film shooters paradise" (and in general photography is very popular here; we have more than 20 print photo magazines here for example).
Germany has one of the best (if not the best) film infrastructures worldwide. It is very easy and cheap to get your E6 and C-41 (and BW) films processed. Dozens of professional labs are doing it here, and all drugstore chains are offering it.
Therefore with more than 3500 drugstore chain shops here in Germany we have more than 3500 places where we can give our films for development.
So, if you visit Germany and you want to have your E6/C41 films developed for extremely low costs, you cant get this service everywhere. Just go to a Rossmann, dm or Müller drugstore chain shop. Development costs are very low: 2,55€ at Rossmann (both E6 and C41), and 0,95€ / 1,95€ at dm for E6 / C41.
The reason for these extremely low costs is the lab infrastructure in Germany: Besides all the professional labs with dip and dunk processing we have five big lab companies with about eight big industrial scale mass volume labs, which are developing several million films p.a., and making several billion prints on traditional RA-4 silverhalide paper p.a. (most of the prints are meanwhile from digital files). They are making the development and prints for the drugstore chains, and also for photo shops (brick and mortar).
Furthermore in Germany are more than ten specialised online distributors for film photography. The biggest of them like Macodirect and Fotoimpex are also doing international business and shipping to other countries.
And there is a new print magazine for film photography only, the "PhotoKlassik"
www.photoklassik.de.
As for your questions:
AgfaPhoto CT Precisa is 36exp., as all 35mm slide films.
Consumer colour negative film is offered here in 24exp. and 36exp. Both Kodak and Fuji.
You can get the whole Fuji Superia line here: 200, 400, 800 and 1600.
Kodak Gold (and "Farbwelt", a German/Austrian packaging of Gold) and Ultramaxx are offered, too. Some online shops are selling Kodak ColorPlus as well.
The drugstore chains are offering ISO 200 and 400 house brand color negative film, which is all from Fujifilm. Both 24exp. and 36exp.
The prices of these housebrand film is extremely low: For example a 3-pack of Rossmann ISO 400 36exp is 2,65€, so only 88 Cent for one film!
The cheapest RA-4 prints are 1 (!!) Cent in 9x13cm.
A Kodak Gold 200 36exp. at Rossmann drugstores for example cost 3,79€. And Kodak BW 400 CN is available at Rossmann drugstores, and the AgfaPhoto BW films are offered at the dm drugstores.
For prices of all the professional films just look at
www.macodirect.de
www.fotoimpex.de
www.nordfoto.de
Cheers, Jan
