Going to London - General questions

[nightlight]

Hi there,

I will be moving to London very soon and I wanted to have a sense of prices in London when it comes to photograpy stuff. If there's anyone out there who lives or who's lived in London, I'd appreciate if you could tell me approximately:

1. how much is a roll of TX400, Slides( say Velvia 100)
2. how much does it cost to process B/W and +ve slide film
3. how much it costs to do a 5R BW print
4. a good place to do the above (I'll be working close to Canary Wharf).

I appreciate any info I could get 🙂

thanks!
Clarel

 

[kully]

Mail-order is your friend - www.7dayshop.com - for film anyway.

Being in London you'll be able to get the more obscure films and your chemicals &c. from Silverprint.

B&W developing - get a kit and you'll have recouped your costs after six rolls, the cheapest B&W dev service I've found is £5 mailorder.

 

[telenous]

Same here. 7dayshop.com for buying film. Developing B&W by mail order at £5.00 with Fujilab Processing. Developing slide at £3.50 with 7dayshop.com. Developing at my local Snappy Snaps (Oxford) £5.50 for B&W, £2.99 for C-41 (But they give me a friendly discount for being a customer). Truprint is also very cheap (around £5.50 for developing C-41 and scanning on CD but I wouldn't recommend them for anything but holiday snaps).

 

[nightlight]

thanks a lot for the quick replies. I've checked the sites of both 7dayshop and silverprint and they look promising...

would you have an idea of how much a development kit would cost for b&w ? I've never attempted any development - i'm sure there are a lot of threads on how to do this - and I'd like to know approximately how much the initial kit would cost from say, silverprint? Do they sell a kit containing all that I'd need?

thanks
Clarel

 

[kully]

How long are you here for? eBay will net you everything you need for ~£20-40. Jessops were having a clearout of their darkroom stuff over the summer too.

 

[nightlight]

hey kully, thanks for the info. Indeed processing oneself seems to be the way to go.

I'm transferring to the UK on a work assignment so it should be a while.

 

[zuikologist]

I understand Asda (supermarket) have a good reputation for C41 dev, print and scan for low prices (not used myself). 7dayshop are very good for Fuji/Kodak film at low prices.

 

[markinlondon]

Hi there,

I will be moving to London very soon and I wanted to have a sense of prices in London when it comes to photograpy stuff. If there's anyone out there who lives or who's lived in London, I'd appreciate if you could tell me approximately:

1. how much is a roll of TX400, Slides( say Velvia 100)
2. how much does it cost to process B/W and +ve slide film
3. how much it costs to do a 5R BW print
4. a good place to do the above (I'll be working close to Canary Wharf).

I appreciate any info I could get 🙂

thanks!
Clarel

Hi, Clare and welcome in advance to London. WRT your questions, speaking as a local.
1. Film is pricy from shops. Jessops are best avoided these days IMO. Silverprint are about the cheapest actual shop for film and usually have many specials you only find out about in the shop. Otherwise mail order it is.
2. Darkroom kit is very cheap used from Mr. Cad in Croydon. Half my darkroom kit has come from them at not much more than Evilbay prices.
3 & 4. Can't comment as I develop and print my own b&w.

 

[jamiewakeham]

Nova Darkroom in Warwick are very, very good - but I can see that the proxi ity of Mr Cad may well be a factor.

Telenous - Oxford Snappy Snaps do you C41 dev for £2.99? Ye Gods, I need to suck up to them more!

Jamie

 

[kully]

Ask at your local Snappy snaps, in Reading they charge £2.60/24 hours and £3.60 1 hour for dev only.

 

[Xmas]

Clare

I procured most of my darkroom kit from cardboard boxes at back of seedy photo shops, prices rather better than e-bay.

Patterson multi tanks
Watson tear drop day light cassette loaders.
Thermometers
safe lights
liquid measures

I visit once a fornight or so and the box always has something new.

They will try and sell me enlargers, view cameras and similar, but I don't have the space, if you will have an auto then I'll pm location of my favored cardboard boxes. They are not cheap for modern/antique cameras, where there is clearly a sharp market, but they dispair of selling black plastic.

I dont know how they continue to exist commercially, though they cannot be offering a lot of monsey to the former owners of whet I buy.

Film and other consumables are prettty expensive in UK.

 

[markinlondon]

Sadly, in London (I'm only speaking for North East London really) we search in vain for seedy old photo shops. I'm willing to bet I couldn't buy a roll of Tri-x within a three mile radius of my house in Walthamstow although I could buy HP5 if I wanted to pay about £4.99 a roll.
I really miss the old school camera shops, my theory is that the digital compact camera market is killing them. "Customers" go to the local shop for a demo and then buy it £10 cheaper on line.

 

[Terao]

I've used these guys http://www.primary-colour.com/ a lot (they used to be the only UK dev for Agfa Scala). Not cheap but excellent quality - a real pro shop. Stock film as well. They're close to Old Street tube, not too far from the Wharf...

 

[nightlight]

thanks everyone for the replies! Once I'm there I'll definitely check my own dev kit.

cheers!

 

[Toby]

I've used these guys http://www.primary-colour.com/ a lot (they used to be the only UK dev for Agfa Scala). Not cheap but excellent quality - a real pro shop. Stock film as well. They're close to Old Street tube, not too far from the Wharf...

I use Genesis their sister lab in Fulham their C41 line makes a 400 film look like a 100 film compared to most amateur labs. Their B&W developing is also very good but Ilford seems to come out better than Kodak or Fuji. I think they share some lines / services so I guess primary colour must be just as good.

 

[mandarin]

Alas I live there

Alas I live there

Not cheap, but good for processing: http://www.peak-imaging.co.uk/

Buy Amateur Photographer magazine when you land, check out the ads and you'll find a decent supplier of film at much better than high street rates. (Mail order + internet is the way to go baby.)

Cheers

M