Buying out of date or discount film

[sf]

I am looking for a cheaper source of film, is buying discount film or out of date film generally a safe thing to do?

How about from Prophotomarket and Filmclub and other Eboy discount retailers?

My idea, ultimately, is to buy a nice brick of cheap c-41 and send it down to California to be processed in massive orders. Well, massive to me - like 40 rolls at a time. 40 x 220. A place in LA develops negs for less than 1/3 of the cost here in Seattle. Makes sense to ship it down there (both ways). . .

or does it? Too risky to trust the post?

I don't know. Anyone with input on the best way to save money, I am all ears (eyes).

-George

 

[kaiyen]

medium format film is always pretty expensive to process. Are you talking about A&I? They're quite good, but it can take like 2 weeks to get your film back. Sending that many rolls would take longer.

I buy expired film all the time, but try to stick to b&w unless I get some insane deal on some color stuff. So I bought a bulk roll of velvia for $13 that expired in 1998, and it's worked fine. That was worth the risk. But otherwise I try to stick to b&w.

I have bought from filmclub and collect888, both prominent film sellers on ebay. I have had a good experience or two with the former, and one rather bad one with the latter. Others will disagree. In the end, it seems like you get your film, it just takes a long time sometimes.

allan

 

[David Goldfarb]

I've had pretty good results with A&I. I recommend them.

Another good source for past date, cold stored film is freestylephoto.biz. I've bought a fair amount of LF and MF Fuji color transparency from them, and it's all been pretty good--mostly Astia and MS 100/1000 of recent vintage. Go to the "specials" menu, then click on "clearance" to find the film deals.