70mm and 65mm film availability in Europe/Germany?

PercyMcfly

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I am hoping to shoot mote „medium format“ but am put off by the price.

As i saw that some people shoot motion picture film(65mm) with 70mm backs, i was wondering what the availability of 400ft and 1000ft rolls is in germany/europe.

When i contacted Kodak today, they told me that motion picture film is only being sold to motion picture productions, not to individuals.
I saw that they sold it until October 2024 according to some people on the internet.

Where would one get their hands on the good motion picture film by Kodak now? Am i just too late to join the party?
 
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xkaes

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I can't help you out much, except to say that I know a lot of people are using 65mm and 70mm film. I don't use the stuff myself, but a lot of people -- especially in the US -- are buying it, SOMEWHERE, and cutting it down to 120 size. The only reason I know this is because I sell 65mm & 70mm film slitters.

 
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PercyMcfly

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I am just wondering if anyone is able to buy the film any longer, as Kodak doesn‘t seem to sell to anyone but motion picture projects at the moment.

I find other film stocks(Rollei, Fomapan, Ilford) in 35mm readily available, but 70 and 65mm seems out of my reach at the moment.(Maybe i just don‘t know where to look..)
 

bernard_L

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Currently only found from sellers in India. Agfa Aviphot aerial photo emulsion. Or wait for the annual Ilford/Harman special format sale (probably not especially cheap). Fairly high contrast. Proper development is discussed there:
 

OrientPoint

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OrientPoint

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Also, on Ebay you can sometimes find very very expired Sovereign Film in 70mm. I've gotten really good results from this, despite it being more than 50 years out of date. It's on a nice thick base and has astonishingly low fog for such old film:


Not sure if this can is any good, but I've gotten it from multiple sources and never had a problem. This listing is on the high side, but you can try bargaining...
 
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PercyMcfly

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I sent an email to kodak to confirm.. unfortunately it‘s true, no motion picture film is being sold anymore, outside of motion picture projects..
 

koltin

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I have a few thousand feet of 500T and 250D 65mm left but I'm predicting it'll be gobbled up soon online. It's a total shame to not be able to restock as I used to at Hollywood Kodak , I absolutely adore these emulsions. @PercyMcfly they have a department that calls you and goes over the details of the project your using the 35mm/65mm on after completing the form.
 
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PercyMcfly

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www.shoot70mm.com is another store-front for https://mercuryworks.store/

I'm probably going to be in the market for some 70mm Mercury Murnau 100 BW in the near future. Once a certain camera arrives next week.

I am thinking about first spooling 120 film from it and then, later on, building a 70mm back for my Plaubel Makina III R.. Should be a fun project.

I would really love to buy a 1000ft roll of 65mm Vision3 250D.. Crazy to think that i‘m just a few months too late to buy it directly from Kodak..
 
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PercyMcfly

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I am wondering if resellers like these are part of the reason kodak made this decision..
 
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I am wondering if resellers like these are part of the reason kodak made this decision..

I'm based in the US, so in a sense it's easy for me to do this.

Right now I have some amount of all 4 Vision stocks(50D, 250D, 200T, 500T) out in the freezer, along with some Mercury Marnau. I actually have two rolls of that-I'd bought a 50ft roll back in the fall, then bought 100ft this week when I saw it back in stock.

In addition to this, I have 1 1/2 rolls of Rollei 400 Pro that I bought in 2019 from a seller in Poland from the last batch of this made, 4x 100ft rolls of Plus-X Aero out of India(the current stock on Ebay seems fine-there are several threads here about it, and I've shot ~30ft of it), a 100ft roll of Portra 160NC, one of Kodak VPS, and a few other odd emulsions here and there. I've mostly been shooting these in a couple of Hasselblad A70 backs, but just yesterday I had a box arrive from Mercury that contained a 70mm insert for my Pentax 645N.

In any case, most of my 70mm gear, both film and supplies, is a mix of various Ebay sources(for most of the older films) and a whole lot from Mercury.

I've chatted with Zach from Mercury a decent bit, and he has indicated that he is fully transparent about what he's doing and remains on good terms with Kodak.

He has stated here, on Facebook, and I think a few other venues that ongoing availability of 65mm stock at least through him/Mercury is not a concern. The only stock that's a potentially in jeopardy is 200T, and that's related to whether or not Kodak makes more of it, not any restriction on selling it. The roll I have from Mercury was made in 2016, and Zach has said that this was the last run of 200T(or at least in 65mm). He's down to just a little bit and is only selling it in packages.

I'm not sure where other sources like Film Photography Project stand on future availability. For what it's worth, I did buy 2x 50ft rolls of 50D from them a while back. They will save you ~$40 on a 50ft roll compared to buying from Mercury(the math shifts a bit if you buy 100ft, as you're looking at ~$220 from FPP and $260 from Mercury for that amount). With that said, Mercury spools their 65mm on custom bulk rolls that are modeled after Kodak 70mm rolls, where FPP sells it rolled on a core. 65mm from Mercury comes ready to drop in a Watson or Mercury bulk loader, where FPP will need a bit more creativity and gets a bit unwieldy once you untape the rolll. It's manageable, but just something to think about. I've found so little use for 50D that I've lived with it-I'll continue buying 250D and 500T from Mercury as I need them.

Just as a bit of math too on 65mm, if one wants to shoot Vision films in medium format, the only other source I know is Cinestill. Cinestill charges $13.99-16.99 for the various Vision emulsions, and I consider their product technically inferior since it lacks the Remjet anti-halation later.

Mercury recommends 13ft of 65mm film in a cartridge, and I've found that this gets me 60-65 exposures in a Hasselblad A70 back. We'll call it 60, since that's exactly 5 times what is possible on a 120 roll in a Hasselblad A12 back. A 50ft roll of film from Mercury is $159, which is good for 3 full 13 ft. rolls with quite a bit left over. That's equivalent to 15 rolls of 120, or really more like 19 rolls. That works out to ~$8.50 per equivalent amout of 120. Jump up to a $259 100ft roll from Mercury and you get 38 rolls of 120(really 38 1/2). That makes it $6.84 per equivalent 120 roll. I don't think I've seen fresh 120 color that cheap since about 2010. The least expensive color offering I'm aware of is Gold 200, which before the price hike was around $9/roll, and as much as I love it as an inexpensive, reliable emulsion, it's a generation behind the Vision films. The current Portra films, if I'm not mistaken, are based on the Vision3 technology, but I think the last of those I bought back in December were like $60-70 for a 5-roll box.
 
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