High cost of shipping liquid chems (just me complaining)

First off, if this is the wrong forum for this question or rant, then feel free to move it. I thought about the ethics forum, but the color chems seemed most appropriate.

It's time for me to re-order some e-6 chems. I use the fuji hunt pro6 chems and they are great. the 1st developer and color developer go the fastest and I use the fixer for both color and B&W since it is cheap and works very well. anyway......

it is almost equal cost for shipping as the cost of the chems now! 50% cost to ship the developers and almost twice the cost to ship the fixer than it costs. the fixer concentrate to make 20 liters costs about $20 with shipping at $40. buy it in bulk, concentrate to make 100 liters is $57 with shipping at $235. ouch. and I would guess that shipping is only going to get more obscene based on the new union contract that the UPS drivers signed. gone are the days of reasonable shipping costs.

there are so many reason to stop shooting film, rising film costs, camera repair costs and add to that now chem shipping costs;. I have about lifetime supply of slide film in the freezer. it just kills me (sorry for the bad attempt at humor) that shipping is really making me take a second look at my hobby. The fuji pro6 chems are only available, at least I have not found another retailer selling them and Fuji over the years has not replied to my emails asking where I could buy them, at one retailer. they are on the east coast and I am on the west, so shipping is going to be a lot. I will not go back to the 3 bath lits that I can get at freestyle. thats just me being a hard head (for our italian speaking friends my grandfather called me testa dura my whole life). I have the same issues shipping wine, my other expensive bad habit, and the costs to ship wine has gotten out of control as well.

so shipping liquids is getting expensive, very expensive and will not be any cheaper. if the chems had a long shelf life, then I would buy in bulk, take the high cost and move along. its just human nature to bitch, rant and complain, cause you know, its a good way to let off some steam.

thanks for letting me vent this. anyway, what to do about the high shipping costs?

John

I don’t have an answer to your problem but agree the shipping prices have gotten outrageous. I can have a boat shipped on Amazon prime for free with 2 day shipping but it would cost $30 to send a small box to the east coast. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything changing. My suspicion is every package we send is subsidizing the low margin, high volume shipping done by large online retailers.

jimjimjimjim said:

I don’t have an answer to your problem but agree the shipping prices have gotten outrageous. I can have a boat shipped on Amazon prime for free with 2 day shipping but it would cost $30 to send a small box to the east coast. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything changing. My suspicion is every package we send is subsidizing the low margin, high volume shipping done by large online retailers.

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Can I ask what your experience difference was with the 3 bath vs 6 bath kits? I’ve always used the 3 bath and have been happy with results. I’ve read a lot of people arguing both ways about pros and cons but would love to hear your thoughts seeing that you used both and are willing to pay the exorbitant shipping for the 6 bath

Who is charging the high shipping rates? Do they have any competition?

Just as one stocks up on film, since both film and chemicals will only increase in price, stock up on the chemicals at the same time. Better yet avoid the shipping cost, take a road trip to you photo supply pusher and load up the car.

faberryman said:

Who is charging the high shipping rates? Do they have any competition?

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well, its the prices that the retailer charges and it looks like they are not subsidizing the costs, not that they should. but now that almost all liquid chems are classified as hazmut, it appears the only shipper that will ship is UPS. so my guess is the retailer is charging the actual shipping costs. it is what it is

jimjimjimjim said:

Can I ask what your experience difference was with the 3 bath vs 6 bath kits? I’ve always used the 3 bath and have been happy with results. I’ve read a lot of people arguing both ways about pros and cons but would love to hear your thoughts seeing that you used both and are willing to pay the exorbitant shipping for the 6 bath

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well, to my eyes, the 6 bath process appears to:
be sharper

have better contrast

better color rendition and truer saturation

higher apparent D-max

clearer and brighter whites

I feel, but have no proof, that the results will be longer lived. that they wont fade or develop fixewr issues in future years

has a MUCH longer shelf life, both mixed and in concentrates. some of my original 6 bath chems, the reversal bath, pre bleach conditioner, fixer and bleach are all at least 4 years old and showing no signs of age giving poor results. with replenishment, 1st and color developer lasted over 2 years in original concentrates when I needed to buy more for usage.

Lower costs per liter. yeh the initial costs are much higher as min quantity is 20L, but they last a lot longer then the BLIX kits. of course that is assuming you shoot enough slide film to make it worth the higher volume.

once I transisitioned over to the 6 bath kits about 10+ years ago, I now shoot a lot more slide film. I even broke down a year ago and got my hasselblad PCP-80 fixed (talk about a painful cost!)

john

Sirius Glass said:

Just as one stocks up on film, since both film and chemicals will only increase in price, stock up on the chemicals at the same time. Better yet avoid the shipping cost, take a road trip to you photo supply pusher and load up the car.

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I signed up for a week long class in Outer Montana at Photographers' Formulary https://stores.photoformulary.com/ to allow me to buy lots of liquid and dry chemicals for my darkroom. I drove up and back with my largest vehicle to that I could carry everything I bought. What I saved in shipping covered a large portion of the gas. Also the class was worth the cost.

destroya said:

well, to my eyes, the 6 bath process appears to:
be sharper

have better contrast

better color rendition and truer saturation

higher apparent D-max

clearer and brighter whites

I feel, but have no proof, that the results will be longer lived. that they wont fade or develop fixewr issues in future years

has a MUCH longer shelf life, both mixed and in concentrates. some of my original 6 bath chems, the reversal bath, pre bleach conditioner, fixer and bleach are all at least 4 years old and showing no signs of age giving poor results. with replenishment, 1st and color developer lasted over 2 years in original concentrates when I needed to buy more for usage.

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There are some advantages to 7 bath vs. 3 bath E-6 processing, but "better contrast", "sharper", "higher Dmax" sounds like a myth. BLIX bathes, especially poor ones, can leave you with a bit higher Dmin, I grant you that, and if there is indeed silver left behind, longevity of slides may suffer. Obviously a BLIX will not match the shelf life of bleach and fixer. All the other properties most likely have reasons outside the bleach&fixer vs. BLIX discussion and should therefore not be attributed to 3 vs. 7 bath.

Amazon ships for free because Amazon has a truck (under contract from Amazon) driving by your address every day.

The cost of transportation has shot up over the past decade. Shippers have to price accordingly.

Being in Canada, what I hate: customs and brokerage fees (aka, a license to steal - basically holding your stuff for ransom - perpetrated by UPS, mainly).