Where are you guys buying your film from these days?

i got a ‘payboo’ credit card from bh several months ago. it has already saved me hundreds living in CA where tax is 10%. it doesnt work in all states but it gives you a discount on your entire order equivalent to tax collected
 
Garland Camera and Repair in Garland, Tx. They have a good selection of B&W, transparency, and color print film. PRICY!, but less expensive than the mail order sources when shipping is considered.
 
Phil_F_NM said:
I don't use a bulk loader, I just load cassettes straight from 400ft cans in the dark. I have just over a 6'1" arm span, so I'll pull out that amount of film, nip it off with scissors, then load it into the cartridge. It was a good enough method for Tom A., so it's definitely good enough for me. He's the one that taught me not to bother with the extra step of bulk loaders unless I already had a 100ft length ready to go into a Watson. It's still quicker and less prone to scratches just stretching my arms out though.
Leica made a bulk loader that held a 400ft length, but these are rare as hen's teeth. These days, one could find an old 400ft film cartridge for a MP camera and adapt it to become the supply for a bulk loader pretty easily. I've been meaning to do this for years. I digress. Emulsion I prefer is Eastman 5222, aka Double X.
Phil Forrest
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Keep it simple! I love it. Thanks for the extra info!
 
B&H for me most of the time, last year I had a membership with a third party which offered free shipping on some Adorama items, so I would get some of my film through them, but generally B&H has cheaper shipping if I have to pay for it. Amazon is a bad idea for most film, sometimes they have decent deals on some of the more common color films but I have never found them to be relaible for B&W.
 
In the past, I have bought fom Freestyle, B&H Adorama, and Precision Camera (Austin). We have a local art supply store (MC Art Supplies) that has started carrying a small selection of Ilford B&W film, paper, and chemicals and Kodak color films that are a little more expensive than bigger retailers, but sell at 10-15% off from time to time. Since I don't shoot high volume in 120 or with slower films in 35mm, I like to buy those locally now. I don't worry about deals so much since I have standardized on my stocks/shooting/development.
 
For C41 color - I usually use Fujicolor 200 or Supieria, because both are cheap and seem to work well enough with the Negative Lab Pro plugin for LR.

If I'm in a hurry, I'll do eBay, which is $5.34 a roll before state sales tax with free shipping. If I'm in need of photo chemicals, then I use Freestylephoto - which works out to about $4.00 a roll before shipping here in the US.
 
100 foot rolls are the way to go. What does seem to be often out of stock are DX-coded empty film cassettes. They go quick. I wish more C41 color film came in 100 feet. Also, at-home scans of color negatives, for me, are really difficult and time-consuming to correct in PS. I wish there was software like the Kodak and Fuji commercial scanners had built-in that made all of those corrections automatically. ColorPerfect works "ok" but still requires more work.
 
Having Tri-X, HP5+ and the likes got insanely expensive, especially here in Norway, I now vow myself to shooting nothing but Fomapan film. It is not Tri-X or HP5+, but it is more than good enough for my style (if I have one..). Check out the prices.
 
I buy a 100' roll of monochrome from B&H every couple of years. Even with the postage to New Zealand, the price per roll is better than I can get here.
 
I am in Europe which has a peculiar situation in that most color film is out of stock.
My last purchase was a brick of Delta 120 from Fotoimpex. To stock up and test along the HP5 I have. Germany lowered VAT 3% and Ilford still has decent pricing.
I should have grabbed one pack of Ektar, which I did not, as price increases will come and the freezer works well on the meantime.
Our photo club does a group order once every two months to one of the main German distributors, Maco or Fotoimpex.


Ko.Fe. said:
Color is waste of money on film. It became as the waste after optical printing with chemicals was gone. Nor I was ever impressed with FuijFilm colors (in the opposite) and Kodak expensive film colors are so-so.
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I would not say blatantly so, there is still a different rendering in color film compared to digital. However, I do have that debate myself. Color is $$$ and nowadays goes hybrid workflow, ADD as the audio guys would describe.

Not too abundant in resources, I grabbed a couple propacks of 120 Provia 100F before it jumped from 6€ a roll to the current price in the last Fuji increase. Portra 400 I have a pack left for some summer shooting. There is still something special about a medium format color frame.

35mm I am more conflicted, it is about the occasional snapshoot look roll. That said, I do not shoot that much nowadays and a couple rolls in can go a decently long way.

About paper, with a twist: There is a bunch of old Orwo paper in my photo club that no one uses, and that Liths great. Por the price of chemistry one gets prints. I am amazed at how well kept that 30 year old paper is, still prints normally with low fog.

Or yes, back to topic, C41 negs can be lith printed! :D
 
Andrea Taurisano said:
Having Tri-X, HP5+ and the likes got insanely expensive, especially here in Norway, I now vow myself to shooting nothing but Fomapan film. It is not Tri-X or HP5+, but it is more than good enough for my style (if I have one..). Check out the prices.
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Yep, me too. I usually have a couple rolls of HP5 as well since it pushes well, but the majority of the time it's Foma 100 or 400 (lately, 200 is hard to find).
 
I would not say blatantly so, there is still a different rendering in color film compared to digital. However, I do have that debate myself. Color is $$$ and nowadays goes hybrid workflow, ADD as the audio guys would describe.



I agree. I love reading KoFe's posts but he's a "tad' opinionated. I can't get the look I get with 120 Portra 400 in another way.

I usually buy B&H, sometimes Amazon. My lab sells film also and I may try them next time.
 
Color

Color

I have to agree with Ko.Fe on this one. I tried color processing in the past - seemed way too exacting for me and that’s without getting into the cost. When I do color, I do digital. Otherwise I stick to monochrome emulsions.
 
KenR said:
I have to agree with Ko.Fe on this one. I tried color processing in the past - seemed way too exacting for me and that’s without getting into the cost. When I do color, I do digital. Otherwise I stick to monochrome emulsions.
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Have you ever thought maybe your skills are not up to post processing color negative? As (I'm sure) maybe isn't/aren't Ko.Fe.: so, if they are not, don't make statements like you have professed in the above post.

There are many fine photographers that know what they are doing either in the dark room or with hybrid post processing that get very subtle results that make both incompetent hybrid post processers and out of the box DSLR or Mirrorless JEPGs look just exactly like ever other digital photographer. Or those who have just bought his/her new camera.

I'm not saying the digital isn't a great advance but it still takes skill to post process.
 
twvancamp said:
Keep it simple! I love it. Thanks for the extra info!
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Forgot to mention. I have Kodak 50D and FujiFilm 250D. Kodak 50D is expired something like 20 years ago from now and FF 250D more than ten years ago. Cinefilm colors are odd to say at least. I have them developed in C-41 and ECN2 kits. I like those cinefilms as BW.
It means they are processed in BW chemicals and printed under enlarger on regular BW darkroom paper.

Three prints scans stitched as one:



Kodak went total nuts on cinefilm pricing not so long time ago:
https://www.kodak.com/content/produ...Motion-Picture-Products-Price-Catalog-CND.pdf (CAD, not USD).

But where are some old short and not so ends coming for sale once in while. Less on eBay now, but might be still on photo forums.
 
charjohncarter said:
As (I'm sure) maybe isn't/aren't Ko.Fe.: so, if they are not, don't make statements like you have professed in the above post.

.
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Not sure what are you pushing here. :)

I processed E-6, C-41, ECN-2 films. I even did this odd process known in cinematography for cross processing of ECN-2 film in BW chemicals and ECN-2 kits. exAPUG "Kodak Engineer" helped me on this one.

Color film processing is no biggy. Just keep temp steady and keep it clean overall.

This is why I came with remark about current labs been run, processes by people with lack of dignity.
 
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