Ordering Bulk Film from abroad?

[Steinberg2010]

I'm curious about buying a bulk roll of tri-x from the States (I live in UK). Will I have problems with X-rays in shipping?

Maybe someone who has done this before could offer their experience?

Cheers,

S

 

[wotalegend]

I can only speak from the Australian experience. I have no idea of the practices of UK Customs. I have bought many orders of film, up to ISO 3200, from Freestyle in the US and from eBay sellers all over the place including China. I have never seen any effect on any of the film which could possibly have been caused by x-rays. With the proviso that I gave at the top, I would say that you have nothing to worry about.

 

[johannielscom]

Macodirect.de in Germany have Tri-X on this page. No bulk film though.

No risk on scanning, no customs, fast shipping.

EDIT: They still have Plus-X too!

 

[kully]

I've ordered from Freestyle before and not had any problems. The box was marked that it contained photographic material.

 

[Steinberg2010]

Cool, thanks! I might be tempted to give it a go then in a couple of weeks.

S

 

[kully]

Remember to factor in the cost of duty + VAT in the price you pay (about 27% extra).

 

[Coldkennels]

I bought some slightly expired XP2 in bulk from the States a while back. Despite the expiry + the shipping, it appears to be fine, so I'd say you should just go for it.

 

[alistair.o]

I'm curious about buying a bulk roll of tri-x from the States (I live in UK). Will I have problems with X-rays in shipping?

Maybe someone who has done this before could offer their experience?

Cheers,

S

Hi, yes I've done this from Freestyle (same as kully) As he said, factor in the customs etc (they collect before delivery, so there is no escape). Here is a breakdown (as at early 2011):-

I have been scouting around over the last couple of months looking for the best buy of Kodak Tri-X 400 (35mm). Arista Premium 400 = Tri-X 400.

So, I checked out Freestyle and bought from them 200 ft (2 bulk cans) of the stuff. I realised that the cost shown in dollars and the end cost to me here was going to be chalk and cheese but here is how it went (delivery tomorrow)

Arista Premium 400 x 2 Cans = $34.99 each : Total $69.98 + $39.16 shipping :

Grand Total $109.14 (£70.81 / USD AT 0.64879/GBP )

So, not too bad thus far considering Kodak Tri-X 400 is £52 per 100ft (average)

Now the extras from HM Revenue & Customs (notification received today):

Customs Duty = £0.00
Excise Duty = £0.00
Import VAT = £12.61
Clearance Fee i.e. ParcelForce) - £8.00

Grand Total of £ 20.61

So altogether it has cost £91.42 for 40 rolls (approx) of Kodak Tri-X = £2.29 per roll.

Incidentally: Freestyle dispatched on 31st Jan - film to be delivered 10th Feb.

Hope this helps.

Al

 

[lorriman]

Here's a quick summary of duty/vat import to the UK :


All charges are on the combined goods+shipping except in one case (noted below).


*You don't pay any duty if the duty would come less than £9 (same when travelling) which with a typical 7% duty rate is approx £135 maximum, including shipping of course. But you still pay VAT.


*HMRC confuse the issue but saying "some items of £135 or less won't be charged duty" but actually it's just the £9 rule and depends on the duty rate.


* But you will be charged VAT + handling (postoffice £8, parcel force £13.50 express service else £8)


*Goods less than £18 (excluding shipping): no VAT or duty or handling fee (which is how 7dayshop do it, but government seeking to reduce this to £15).


(*when travelling but not shipping : flat rate of duty at 2.5% until £270 -or a little higher for some items- after which normal duty rates according to product type apply. If it comes to less than £9 you don't pay duty.)


So a £120 item + £14 shipping there's probably no duty only VAT, so:


134*vat+handling =


134 * 1.20 + 8 = 168 = 26% increase, as kully said.


That percentage goes up on lower value items because that £8 handling fee becomes more significant.


But if the item is over £135 with duty of 7% (duty rates are typically between 5-9%) :


135 x1.07 *1.2 +8 = 181 = 34% increase


That's suddenly an extra £13 for going £1 over £134. (But check exact values for duty as i am using approximates).


This is all done on the total package not the individual items. So you may want to split an order if the extra shipping comes to less than £13 (unlikely).


With the economic slow-down customs have have a higher tendency to process your item so it's best to incorporate all this in to your calculations and treat an item that slips though as a bonus. I don't know what the rate of slip-through is and some people are reporting no slip-throughs, so probably there's no point in trying to factor this in.


You have to ring an 0845 number to find out the actual duty rate. Some independent websites may provide rates but I haven't looked in to it.


References :


http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/arriving/arrivingnoneu.htm#4


http://www.dhl.co.uk/en/express/shipping/customs_support/duties_taxes.html


http://www.parcelforce.com/portal/pw/content1?mediaId=load105042&catId=4800016


http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/tax-and-duty.htm#1

 

[lorriman]

Probably worth mentioning is that one needs to factor in other items such as bank currency charges (paypal at 5%) and surface mail losses (notionally at 5%) and returns (notionally 5%). So on top of customs and duty a surface item will have a 15% extra cost.

So alaister.o's 'tri-x' is really about £2.80 (recalced for 18 rolls per 100ft) assuming he incuded currency charges. That stuff may be near the end of it's life (my legacy pro expired within 4 months) so that means refrigeration which has it's own cost (divide space taken by cost of fridge plus electricity) and isn't negligible.

So overall it's still more expensive than Clumnet's fresh tri-x of 2009 at £2.60; I wish I had got more. Still, it's a decent and worthwhile saving.

 

[tlitody]

I'm curious about buying a bulk roll of tri-x from the States (I live in UK). Will I have problems with X-rays in shipping?

Maybe someone who has done this before could offer their experience?

Cheers,

S

Unless you have a special need for bulk roll I think you will get film a damn sight cheaper from 7day shop.

 

[Coldkennels]

Unless you have a special need for bulk roll I think you will get film a damn sight cheaper from 7day shop.

7dayshop IS pretty cheap, but if you can get a good deal on bulk rolls you can get it for much, much cheaper. I'm averaging about £2 per 36exp roll of XP2 from my bulk rolls - 7dayshop's never been that cheap!

 

[rxmd]

I'm curious about buying a bulk roll of tri-x from the States (I live in UK). Will I have problems with X-rays in shipping?

Maybe someone who has done this before could offer their experience?

I've ordered bulk rolls of Kodak E100D slide film (actually movie short ends of 5285) from the US to Germany without any problems. I did pay customs but I still end up at about €1 per roll of slide film.

 

[Coldkennels]

I've ordered bulk rolls of Kodak E100D slide film (actually movie short ends of 5285) from the US to Germany without any problems. I did pay customs but I still end up at about €1 per roll of slide film.

... Now that's one hell of a deal. Dare I ask where you found such a steal?

 

[Keith]

I've bought a lot of film from Freestyle after the last two or three years and never had a problem!

We are very fortunate here in Oz ... photographic stuff attracts no extra charges if it comes in at under $1000.00 AUD which is the tax threshhold for all privately imported goods. A bunch of grumpy/greedy retailers who think they're getting shafted by internet sales tried to lobby the government to lower the threshhold. The government to their credit ignored them!

I buy exclusively from OS and that won't change ... our dollar has been very strong for some time now but film prices are exactly the same or dearer as they were when it was worth seventy cents US. Try $12.00 per roll for HP5 and $10.00 per roll for Tri-X ... or Velvia at $20.00 per roll. 😱

 

[rxmd]

I've ordered bulk rolls of Kodak E100D slide film (actually movie short ends of 5285) from the US to Germany without any problems. I did pay customs but I still end up at about €1 per roll of slide film.

... Now that's one hell of a deal. Dare I ask where you found such a steal?

Actually it was found for me 🙂

Movie stock can be expensive if you buy the full roll, but during film productions you always have leftover parts from a roll of film that are too short to respool and reuse them commercially, so they get sold off as "short ends" to amateurs. I had read somewhere about Kodak 5285 (Ektachrome 100D cut for 35mm film cameras) and called a German movie stock dealer whether they had any short ends of 5285. A few days later they called me back and said they had two almost-full rolls in L.A., for which they offered a very good price.

Film sold as 35mm movie stock is generally sold cheaper than film for 35mm photography, even though both are practically identical - the difference is in the perforation (movie stock has differently-shaped holes) but that makes no difference for film cameras. The only tricky thing is that bulk film loaders accept only 100' rolls on spools, while movie film is spooled on longer rolls with cores. However there are some 35mm movie cameras that only take shorter rolls (the Eyemo, for example). So I paid a little extra (20 EUR in total) to have the 750-something feet of movie film spooled on eight Eyemo spools. The whole operation cost around 150 EUR, including three-day delivery via Fedex. It's really quite amazing.

So if you want to get cheap film, movie short ends are the best option you can get. The only thing is you're a bit limited in your choice of film. Kodak slide film is of course nice, but otherwise it's a bit narrow. In black and white there isn't much beyond Double-X (Kodak 5222). There are very nice colour negative films, too, but they use a different process that leaves junk in C-41 development machines, so it probably works only if you do your own processing - never tried it myself, though. Fuji has 35mm movie film, too, but I think they're all for other processes, too.