Film Bargains in Australia...

Hi,

I've been searching and probing and nosing around, but I can't seem to find any good source of cheap b&w film in australia... It would help if I had the resources to buy in bulk, but that's not always possible.

Ordering online from overseas seemed like a good plan, but the shipping is a killer. J and C want $24USD to ship 10 rolls of film.

Where do the rest of the Aussies in this forum get their film stocks? I shoot in 35mm and 120 predominantly.

Evarn,

I am in Sydney and I tend to "do the rounds" at the more serious photographic dealers to sniff out the bargains: sometimes slightly out-dated and short-dated films can be found at considerable discounts. Vanbar is a good start, sometimes they have short-dated Maco at good prices. I also go to Foto Riesel at times and clean out their short-dated ones too. Sometimes the "less serious" dealers can be a good source too for b/w films are not fast sellers so they might want to cut prices so as to move them.

Good luck!

PM chiller. I know he uses Efke, but I don't know where he buys it. He is in Adelaide.

Try Newdark located near Newcastle NSW. URL: www.newdark.com.au

Hi, I buy my Ilford and Tri-X films from ebay, a fellow called Steven Menteith, goes by the user name of aflip. Usualy costs around $70.00 for 10 rolls. Cheers, Tony

I use Robert White in the UK for my film - the savings more than make up for a small shipping fee (and "doing the rounds" would probably cost as much with the price of petrol now!).

You might also investigate the cost of a bulk loader, or consider joining your local club if they already own one for use by the club members.

Cheers,
Graeme

I'm lucky enough to get to travel to the US and Europe for my work. When I (or one of my work colleagues) go to the US we always bring back a backpack full of film. I usually end up paying about $4 AUD per roll for HP5/FP4 in 35mm or 120.

or 35mm, use bulk rolls... lots cheaper! I get 20 30exp rolls out of a 30m Roll, which are about $65 last time I bought one (Just checked Vanbar and WOW, Ilford has gone up a fair bit... FP4 & HP5 now $80 and D400 $90 now. Plus_X/Tri-X listed at $62 and TMAX100/400 at $65 ). The 1st roll pays for the bulk loader.

For 120, your up a creek without a paddle! I bought some from J&C last year when they had their free postage special (worked out to be about $2.25/roll), and it's ok but dries extremely curly (lengthwise). This is ok when enlarging a frame, but I do my proof sheets under glass and it's a pain to get the strips so they'll stay put enough to get the glass on them (I use a pice of cardboard to holf them down while arranging the next one)

Recently I switched over to Fuji Neopan 400 as my standard 35mm film.

In Australia it is impossible to buy any Neopan in bulk, it's just not imported, buying in bulk really saves.

I have purchased twice from Megaperls in Japan.

Dead Link Removed

One of the really nice aspects of their website is that you can click on Australian currency and everything is shown in $AUD.

I just checked the site and a 30m bulk roll of Neopan 400 or 100 asa film is $53.73 AUD which is $26.12 a can cheaper than Ilford's like products which I just cross referenced on an Australian website. I used HP5+ as a comparison.

In short, even though Fuji put the price of their films up earlier this year, purchasing direct from the above site, gets you a landed price, for a very good quality film, cheaper than buying comparable product in Melbourne, or pretty much anywhere in Australia.

I would of course welcome anyone who can point me in the right direction for a cheaper price.

In case you are not sure what 30m gives you, you will get about 18½ rolls of 36 exposure film for every 30m of film.

Mick.

Thanks to everyone for the info. Mick, that shop in Japan looks great..

From my research it looks like bulk loading will save my heaps in the long run, but that's seemingly only an option with 35mm, for 120 rollfilm i'll have to just keep finding cheap stocks as they come up.



Ivan

evarn said:

Thanks to everyone for the info. Mick, that shop in Japan looks great..

From my research it looks like bulk loading will save my heaps in the long run, but that's seemingly only an option with 35mm, for 120 rollfilm i'll have to just keep finding cheap stocks as they come up.



Ivan

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Like most here in Australia I battle with little or no film supply. I recently stayed with a friend in the US and had the chance to try firsthand the JandC 100 120 roll film. It is very inexpensive and if you are not shooting a non repeatable commercial job the results are as good as most black and white films. I shot exclusively APX100 while away but for curiosity had JandC send some of the 120 -- 100 iso to me. It was consistent,developed without any problems and travelled back to Australia in my hand luggage through Xray without issue. The only way really to get film in from overseas is to buy a significant amount and cold store it. As 5x4 film is very hard to get here I had 600 sheets of Efke 100 sent to me again from JandC and even though the postage was high it worked out at a very good cost.

I also tried Freestyle's Arista Edu Ultra 100 in 120 roll but like many others I found that emulsion had faults. This film is or was a Foma product. The one roll I had good success with had the most beautiful tonality. I would imagine the suspect emulsion has long since been replaced so that would also be a worthwhile one to consider.

PM me if you need any other information.