Is Your Local Photography Shop Running Out of Film - Paper - Chemicals ?

Agulliver · Dec 8, 2021

My local shop (Luton Camera Repairs) had a delivery of 135 Color Plus and Gold but I think they may have sold out. Still plenty of Ilford B&W film in 135 and 120 last time I visited, which was last week. They stock a small range of Ilford B&W paper and chemicals, I checked because I might try and do some printing over the Christmas period. Their stock of paper and chemicals is what it usually is.

They appear to have sold a lot of used film cameras, the turnover is quite fast.

Paul Howell · Dec 8, 2021

Tempe (AZ) Camera has plenty of black and white film and paper, but are out of Kodacolor Gold 200 and 400, told me a shipment was due in a few days. They do or did have Ektar and Porta on hand. Ultrafine has not had any Ultrafine extrema in almost a year, Freestyle is out many color films and seem to sell very quickly. I bought Fuji 100 and 800 from Freestyle.

Nicholas Lindan · Dec 8, 2021

It's not that our local photography stores have run out of supplies but that we have run out of the local photography stores themselves.

benjiboy · Dec 8, 2021

michael_r said:
My local store has an ok stock of paper, though the selection is smaller than usual. Lots of Ilford chemicals and a good amount of Kodak liquid chemicals but totally sold out of Kodak powder chemicals. I was there just this past weekend and all those Kodak boxes that hold the packets of powder chemicals were empty. It had only been two weeks since I was last there and over those two weeks, everything disappeared.

My local professional dealers have very little film, liquid chemicals, or printing paper, they say that " the majority of our customers are pros, and only shoot digital", and that was before the Covid 19 pandemic supply shortages.
Retail stores have to stock what sells, and in the current state of the market stocking large quantities of perishable items makes no economic sense.

Alex Benjamin · Dec 8, 2021

momus said:
Don't worry, film is dead anyway. Seems it actually died some time ago, but as usual I'm the last to know. But I'm definitely, pretty sure that an old internet article mentioned that film died back in 2008, 2009, sometime around then. It was just a small article, sort of an after thought, tacked between a chip dip recipe and 8mm videos of women smoking.

Paul McCartney died in 1966.

If film died in 2008 and can keep up the way he did after death, we'll be OK for a while.

Bikerider · Dec 8, 2021

Tom Kershaw said:
I'm slightly surprised by how many online / mail-order outlets there are for supplies here, there must be a certain level of demand. I suppose what we don't have in general in the current climate are many opportunities to go somewhere more local and pick up items "off the shelf" - unless you happen to live near a larger supplier with a showroom / store.

I was slightly (and pleasantly) surprised to find the WEX has a reasonable supply of Film and paper at reasonable prices. Best of all is a 5 ltr size of Ilford Multigrade for less than £20. I have not paid that since the 1990's. It has a very good shelf life especially when it is decanted and then stored in glass bottles so I may indulge. Paper sizes are limited as is the variety of B&W film, but it is another source should you get stuck.

As WEX are a company with a number of branches country wide (12 at present) so there may be one local(ish) to where you live. I went to the one in Newcastle to buy a replacement Epson V600 flatbed scanner (cheapest I could find in the country) and there was an island display stand with paper and chemicals which is where I saw the MG developer. This is listed company wide stock, but interestingly the manager is an ardent film photographer. I was quite impressed.

Update as of 9th Dec. Their website isn't the easiest to navigate and some items could be easier to find. (I Used the search bar instead of the lists of items.) but their selection of sizes of printing paper are larger than I first thought. Not only that, they have a good selection of bulk 35mm and various 120 films. They also sell colour printing paper in cut sheets and bulk rolls. There may be other gems that I have not found. This may be a new venture for WEX and we should use them or or we'll loose them if it doesn't take off.

Sirius Glass · Dec 8, 2021

Nicholas Lindan said:
It's not that our local photography stores have run out of supplies but that we have run out of the local photography stores themselves.

Tom Kershaw · Dec 8, 2021

Bikerider said:
As WEX are a company with a number of branches country wide (12 at present) so there may be one local(ish) to where you live. I went to the one in Newcastle to buy a replacement Epson V600 flatbed scanner (cheapest I could find in the country) and there was an island display stand with paper and chemicals which is where I saw the MG developer. This is listed company wide stock, but interestingly the manager is an ardent film photographer. I was quite impressed.

Perhaps I should look at WEX again, their Norwich branch is within reasonable distance; I haven't been there for a while (before Covid) and stock may well have changed since.

pentaxuser · Dec 8, 2021

Tom Kershaw said:
Perhaps I should look at WEX again, their Norwich branch is within reasonable distance; I haven't been there for a while (before Covid) and stock may well have changed since.

I had a quick look at WEX as a result of a thread on FADU and the prices looked pretty competitive so yes if there is one in your area I think it would be worth a visit. OK it costs in travel expenses and we often wrongly ignore fuel and depreciation in personal travel but these days if you live withing a few miles and your car is an older model you don't have to spend much on postage to outweigh the travel cost

pentaxuser

Bikerider · Dec 9, 2021

Having an outlet of any description, but ordering on line then waiting 2-3 days for the item to arrive may not serve your purpose. I live about 12 miles away from the Newcastle WEX and if I need something quickly, it would make sense to drive there. The inner city motorway from the north side of the Tyne Bridge takes me to within one mile of the shop.

CMoore · Dec 11, 2021

Anon Ymous said:
I don't have a local shop, so...

Yeah, we are much more likely to have a "Local Music Store" than any kind of local camera store.
Both are hard to find these days.......

Anon Ymous · Dec 12, 2021

CMoore said:
Yeah, we are much more likely to have a "Local Music Store" than any kind of local camera store.
Both are hard to find these days.......

There are 2 stores selling musical instruments in my town, or at least there were up until the pandemic broke out. I don't think we ever had a store selling paper, chemicals and darkroom gear, only some film.

Nodda Duma · Dec 12, 2021

jnantz said:
That was the CEO of Eastman Kodak and it was around 2005

Bummer .. must be all the chumps hoarding or the chumps hoarding before the hoarders

Hunt Drug in Melrose MA also does internet sales.

it did. a large portion of the internet is augmented or virtual reality, why do you think FB changed their name ?

you have another sort of local store with a growing selection of film, paper, and chems up in Amherst NH. It has darkrooms, workshops, a gallery, and studio, too. All focused on analog photography.

photoretro.biz

removed account4 · Dec 12, 2021

Nodda Duma said:
you have another sort of local store with a growing selection of film, paper, and chems up in Amherst NH. It has darkrooms, workshops, a gallery, and studio, too. All focused on analog photography.

photoretro.biz

thanks for the poke, I gotta get up there!

Molli · Dec 12, 2021

Nodda Duma said:
you have another sort of local store with a growing selection of film, paper, and chems up in Amherst NH. It has darkrooms, workshops, a gallery, and studio, too. All focused on analog photography.

photoretro.biz

Fantastic to see the expansion of your business, Jason! Well done.

Just a note on your Welcome/About page at photoretro.biz, it seems autocorrect may have taken a crack at your brand name and changed Pictoriographica to Photographica here:

"Photo Retro is the commercial branch of Pictoriographica LLC, which specializes in the manufacture of obsolete photographic media and accessories. Photographica started in 2017 making and selling handmade photographic glass plate negatives, also known as dry plates. J Lane Dry Plates are shipped and sold across the globe, and with the growth of global interest in shooting dry plates needed to expand out of the owner's basement. You can visit www.pictoriographica.com for more info. We chose this commercial space because it was ideally set up not only to support both Pictoriographica's short-term manufacturing growth, but also provided the opportunity to set up a destination for local film photographers to come and explore the media."

(Just in case you wanted to avoid any confusion - although possibly I'm the only person on the planet who reads 'About Me' pages and manuals!

Nodda Duma · Dec 12, 2021

Dangit! Autocorrects >:O

I’ll fix that in a few

George Mann · Dec 12, 2021

Alex Benjamin said:
Paul McCartney died in 1966.

And it's too bad that they never officially admitted to it.

Sirius Glass · Dec 12, 2021

Alex Benjamin said:
Paul McCartney died in 1966.

Did he know? Was he told?

George Mann · Dec 12, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
Did he know? Was he told?

You are going to have to see the evidence for yourself.

Alex Benjamin · Dec 12, 2021

George Mann said:
You are going to have to see the evidence for yourself.

Yup. Everybody should go down that rabbit hole at least once. Just too much fun.

#TheWalrusWasPaul

Sirius Glass · Dec 12, 2021

George Mann said:
You are going to have to see the evidence for yourself.

So I have to take the album cover, soak it in water, and then what as I play the record backwards? It would have helped if I had paid more attention at the time. I was more into real life.

George Mann · Dec 13, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
So I have to take the album cover, soak it in water, and then what as I play the record backwards? It would have helped if I had paid more attention at the time. I was more into real life.

A deep internet search would be sufficient.

TheGreatGasMaskMan · Dec 30, 2021

My camera store has had difficulty keeping its kodak 35mm color films in stock. they actually ordered a ton of Lomography 35mm cn film just so they could have something.

Duceman · Dec 30, 2021

My "local photography shop"... which used to have several stores in this metropolitan area of >2M people, is now down to a single store and their entire black/white developing area is down to a single shelf (10 years ago they at least had a separate room, albeit in the back, where there was still a healthy selection of products). However, the last time I was in, I was able to pick up some chemical products, and at checkout, the guy mentioned how it was good to see someone still doing their own development, and that they were having a hard time keeping their film stock on the shelf because of a recent resurgence in film photography.

Alex Benjamin · Dec 30, 2021

michael_r said:
My local store has an ok stock of paper, though the selection is smaller than usual. Lots of Ilford chemicals and a good amount of Kodak liquid chemicals but totally sold out of Kodak powder chemicals. I was there just this past weekend and all those Kodak boxes that hold the packets of powder chemicals were empty. It had only been two weeks since I was last there and over those two weeks everything disappeared.

Montreal seems to be going through a film photography craze, with lots of people getting into developing. Couldn't find any Ilfostop yesterday in the two stores I tried.

Contrary to what I've been reading in this thread, there is no lack of local photography stores here. Photo Service and Le Studio Argentique have all the basic needs, and there is the well-trusted Argentix that ships the more difficult stuff to find in a day. What saddens me is the downfall of what used to be L. L Lozeau ever since it was bought by Henry's. They always had a pretty snobbish attitude towards film in the 2000s, but at least you could find all the stuff you needed without having to deal with the superior and condescending "digital is the future/nobody does film anymore" attitude of some of the vendors. Now, store is empty, it's just pathetic.

Is Your Local Photography Shop Running Out of Film - Paper - Chemicals ?

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