Where to buy and develop film in India?

[-vin-]

I'll be in India in august, and I'd like not to take with me too much film (exp. high ISO one, to avoid problems with the airport scanners...). I'll be in Mumbai in the first days, then later in Gujarat and in Delhi.

Could anybody suggest a place or two where I'll be able to find b/w and colour negative film at a reasonable price? It would also be interesting to find a good lab to develop all my negs before coming back home...

Thank you!

 

[payasam]

Colour negative film up to ASA 400 is available everywhere. You'd do well to bring B&W with you, as also faster emulsions. C-41 processing is not a problem in any town or city, though some labs handle materials rather roughly.

 

[Leica All Day]

I know of an excellent place to develop black and white film in Delhi, it was recommended to me by a friend who lives/works there, he is the head editor for AFP and took me to the lab, I developed over 80 rolls of tri-x and a small amount of slide and color film as well....it was a little expensive (for India), but much cheaper than San Francisco or Italy where I was headed to next, and the quality was amazing...actually, the prints that he made for me are on my

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22072877@N05/

...anyways, it was definetely worth it......and there is also a great photo store to buy film in central Delhi as well.....now, if I could just remember where these places are...I will send out an email to my friend and start looking at maps/notes from India and see what I can find.....as far as Mumbai (Bombay) goes, there is a really good photo store close to the Victoria train station, once again, I can find it, I just need to search a little......I can't speak for labs in Mumbai because I developed everything in Delhi, but I did do a tour of the photo stores in Mumbai and I was impressed.......one more thing...I had my shutter break on my m6ttl in Calcuta and someone on pnet recommended a Leica repair man in Mumbai, I called him from Calcuta and he told me to come on by....long story short, he did an excellent job on my camera and his shop looked very professional with Leica advertisements and the proper Leica tools....that and he repaired my camera in 24 hours...I found out later that he is on the Leica website for repairs/services (I think)...anyways...I need a little time to dig this info up (it is 2:10 a.m. in Bangkok now)..but I will get back to you and let you know about the lab and stores and where they are.......I love India.....
cheers, michael

 

[-vin-]

Colour negative film up to ASA 400 is available everywhere. You'd do well to bring B&W with you, as also faster emulsions. C-41 processing is not a problem in any town or city, though some labs handle materials rather roughly.

it's not easy to find special films there, right?

 

[-vin-]

I know of an excellent place to develop black and white film in Delhi, it was recommended to me by a friend who lives/works there, he is the head editor for AFP and took me to the lab, I developed over 80 rolls of tri-x and a small amount of slide and color film as well....it was a little expensive (for India), but much cheaper than San Francisco or Italy where I was headed to next, and the quality was amazing...actually, the prints that he made for me are on my

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22072877@N05/

...anyways, it was definetely worth it......and there is also a great photo store to buy film in central Delhi as well.....now, if I could just remember where these places are...I will send out an email to my friend and start looking at maps/notes from India and see what I can find.....as far as Mumbai (Bombay) goes, there is a really good photo store close to the Victoria train station, once again, I can find it, I just need to search a little......I can't speak for labs in Mumbai because I developed everything in Delhi, but I did do a tour of the photo stores in Mumbai and I was impressed.......one more thing...I had my shutter break on my m6ttl in Calcuta and someone on pnet recommended a Leica repair man in Mumbai, I called him from Calcuta and he told me to come on by....long story short, he did an excellent job on my camera and his shop looked very professional with Leica advertisements and the proper Leica tools....that and he repaired my camera in 24 hours...I found out later that he is on the Leica website for repairs/services (I think)...anyways...I need a little time to dig this info up (it is 2:10 a.m. in Bangkok now)..but I will get back to you and let you know about the lab and stores and where they are.......I love India.....
cheers, michael

great stuff there, Michael! really great.

and also your suggestions are encouraging: i hope you'll be able to help me find those labs. i don't want my film to pass through the scanners.
but take all the time you need to find addresses and so on.

thank you!

 

[manfromh]

the carry-on scanners wont hurt your film. Last year I had tri-x go through 5 scans. Some of the films were pushed to 1600 and 3200 (after the 2nd scan), if that makes any difference. So even if you wont find any labs, its safe to bring them on the plane (but only with carry-on)

 

[jonmanjiro]

the carry-on scanners wont hurt your film. Last year I had tri-x go through 5 scans. Some of the films were pushed to 1600 and 3200 (after the 2nd scan), if that makes any difference. So even if you wont find any labs, its safe to bring them on the plane (but only with carry-on)

I had no problems for years with airport x-rays, however after experiencing fogging on all the ISO 1600 film I took on a three week trip to Thailand/Laos six months ago, I'm now much more careful. On that trip, I hand carried my film, and it went through X-ray machines maybe 6 or 7 times. My ISO 100 and ISO 400 film was fine though, and that's all I take when travelling now. If it was me, I would buy any film faster than ISO 400 locally and get it developed locally too. YMMV.