Kodak Vision3 35mm supplier in Europe (not UK)?

Azkaltia · May 30, 2021

Film ain't cheap

removedacct2 · May 31, 2021

Azkaltia said:
Interesting that you pay "only" £45.24 in duty/taxes. They list it at at £61.92 for me. Les joies du Brexit I guess.

here in Norway we have never been in the EU empire, so you can figure how much les conneries au sujet du Brexit m'ont laissé de marbre, et la propande gigantesque de la Groß Kommission pour annuler une fois de plus, un référendum, mais sans succès cette fois-ci.

The Ebay listing you linked to, if I go ahead to buy on Ebay i get this: £57,39 of fees for £125 of item price, VAT is computed not on the item price but on the combined value item price+shipping cost. You ask me, norwegian treasury are a bunch of ****, but what can I do?

it would be more expensive if I don't buy on Ebay, because Ebay did register on the norwegian VOEC (Vat on E-commerce) portal, so VAT is collected and reverted to norwegian treasury without additional manual "processing fees" ie. 199NOK or 299NOK depending the amount (in this case it would be 199kr) from norwegian customs, and without a given courrier own "processing fees for customs declaration"... So Ebay is still the best. And in the case of Frame24 listings on Ebay, shipment is cheap, £19.42.

Alternatives are to find some private sale and the seller agreeing to mark the parcel as "gift" (even with declared value, so long it's under 3000kr, no vat added).

Now, some extra fun: I buy film and chemicals (except Foma I have a local cheap importer) from Fotoimpex or Maco. but they have not registered on the norwegian VOEC system and don't give a toss about the ridiculous small norwegian market.I dodge norwegian treasury by using an address in Sweden, I live less than a hour by car from the border and the gas I spent is lesser than the "processing fee". Well I pay Fotoimpex or Maco the swedish VAT, but it's lesser. And even if it was the same I still have the pleasure of showing the finger to norwegian treasury. Well, being cautious to drive on the secondary forest road after office hours so to not meet a random car of norwegian customs hiding on the side of the forest, in which case i would pay as a bonus an extra fine.

think of it: smuggler in the dark forest in order to feed my photographic addiction

Azkaltia · Jun 1, 2021

antonio_b said:
think of it: smuggler in the dark forest in order to feed my photographic addiction

That's awesome and kind of silly that you have to go through all those hoops to avoid those extra duties!! Makes for a good smuggling story though

The trouble with Vision 3 film is that it's a niche product used by a niche industry (actual film movies) and shot by niche hobbyists/amateurs/people-with-too-much-money. On the bright side, unlike Fuji, I know Kodak isn't counting on me to keep making cine-film.

removedacct2 · Jun 8, 2021

Azkaltia said:
The trouble with Vision 3 film is that it's a niche product used by a niche industry (actual film movies) and shot by niche hobbyists/amateurs/people-with-too-much-money. On the bright side, unlike Fuji, I know Kodak isn't counting on me to keep making cine-film.

here with 6 millions population there's not much market for the WHOLE film business. It's all a niche. Means a shop wanting to make a living with this, relatively to huge cost and level of life here, has to add a significant amount to retail prices. Basically in the end it costs twice the price of same stuff bought in Germany, and for chemicals sometimes 3x more. In order to keep you laughing: if I order from one of the four shops available in the whole of Norway, domestic postal fee is 150kr, if I order from Fotoimpex or Maco in Germany, fee is ... ~100kr. Fun eh? international fee from Germany to Norway cheaper than domestic norwegian fee... Shipment is almost as fast too.

more fun:
I use C41 kits with bleacher and fixer, instead of blix. Two manufacturers in Europe for kits up to 5 liters: Fuji in Belgium and a german company for the in-house brand Compard sold by Maco (Hans O. Mahn). And of the two, only Compard does sell the components separately. In a kit dev has shorter life than bleacher and fixer, so either buy another kit in order to have fresh dev, or buy only the A,B,C,D Compard parts to mix new dev.
BUT, Maco reads the EU/IATA regulation forbidding regular postal air freight of hazardous stuff in an exaggerated way, for them outside EU means air freight. Which is not the case: postal parcels to Norway, to Switzerland are surface logistics (lorry, train, ferry). But Maco are stubborn on this and will not ship the Compard chemicals to Norway.
That's when I use my swedish address by the border.
Good, excepted that now with the COVID, I can't drive over the border....
The other day I bought few sets at once of A,B,C,D parts to make fresh C41 dev and had them shipped to sister who lives in France, ie. EU, and she will forward to me.
Scheiße Maco!

cmacd123 · Jun 8, 2021

antonio_b said:
in-house brand Compard sold

Hard to keep track, but If I remember "Compard" is one of the spin offs from the former VEB ORWO.

removedacct2 · Jun 8, 2021

cmacd123 said:
Hard to keep track, but If I remember "Compard" is one of the spin offs from the former VEB ORWO.

yes something like this I think. Still there's another german manufacturer in this branch, the one I can't recall, for colour chemicals...
The bottles of Compard c41 parts i have are labelled with a "Compard KG" name, in a town of the greater Hamburg, Geesthacht. But this is just a wholesale dealer/reseller of photographic material, Maco are Hans O. Mahn also located in Hamburg area and also resellers. Don't know if there's a relation between these two entities.
The stuff under the Compard name is also sold under Rollei/Digibase names .... Digibase had many avatars.
Not sure about production of chemicals from FilmoTec/Orwo, but the belgium factory of Agfa-Gevaert near Antwerpen was kept, and manufactures films for resellers. Maybe chemicals too.
The other german player in film manufacturing is Inoviscoat (coating ...), they don't do development chemicals i think.

the blix kits seem to have become dominant, but I really prefer the bleach and fix ones. The selling point about blix kits being easier because one step less, is a bit silly. C41 is easy anyway, easier than BW in fact. it is just about a bit more time when using separate bleach and fix.

I was about to mix my own C41 from powders, but well if we don't buy kits and ready made chemicals this niche would disappear. Small german manufacturers have the advantage that they are real economy and not financial toys for speculators like big groups are. See Kodak: it got killed because Wall Street, otherwise as privately owned business in smaller scale they could keep going well in the niche market.

cmacd123 · Jun 8, 2021

antonio_b said:
Not sure about production of chemicals from FilmoTec/Orwo,

their were about 3 or 4 forwarding companies that rose out of the Ashes of VEB-ORWO filmotec is totally another firm. And VEB ORWO itself was very distant from the west german and belgian AGFA folks after WWII
.

Azkaltia · Jun 11, 2021

antonio_b said:
C41 is easy anyway, easier than BW in fact.

I'm not sure about that, B&W is rather more tolerant of lax technique and more or less temperature irrelevant. It's just that the color kits are furnished with instructions whereas B&W is a bit more DIY friendly.

Azkaltia · Jun 11, 2021

antonio_b said:
Maco are Hans O. Mahn also located in Hamburg area and also resellers.

There are a number of large film related resellers in the Hamburg area, Nordfoto come to mind too.

AgX · Jun 11, 2021

cmacd123 said:
Hard to keep track, but If I remember "Compard" is one of the spin offs from the former VEB ORWO.

No. Not related at all.

AgX · Jun 11, 2021

cmacd123 said:
Just for fun, call up Kodak and see what they want for a roll direct

Kodak explicetely state to sell directly only within the USA and Canada.
For the rest of the world they refer to their foreign representatives.

cmacd123 · Jun 11, 2021

AgX said:
Kodak explicetely state to sell directly only within the USA and Canada.
For the rest of the world they refer to their foreign representatives.

Gotcha, so ask the representative that handles your country.

removedacct2 · Jun 12, 2021

Azkaltia said:
There are a number of large film related resellers in the Hamburg area, Nordfoto come to mind too.

yes, Nordfoto in Norderstedt. The name stood with me long ago when going to Hamburg, because it's already the danish form "sted" instead of the more hochdeutsch "sta(d)t" .. anyway Norderstedt is the place of... Tetenal.

Nordefoto have a nice choice of chemicals, because they also sell the Fuji minilab packages but they don't ship to Norway, so in this case I have to use Sweden. See not easy, yet I am lucky, am still in Yurop.

all these Hans O. Mahn, Nordfoto, Compard/Rollei/Digibase do sell Fuji or Tetenal. In was trying to recall what other german company manufactures C41 chemicals, besides Tetenal. And now I recall a name: Calbe, town of same name. That's in Brandenburg or Anhalt, so a conversion of DDR kombinats factories. I guess Calbe survived by focusing on other industrial branches using pigments, but they may have kept manufacturing of C41 despite the decline of the 2000's.

we can hope Tetenal will keep going after the resurrection of couple years ago. The bankruptcy and salvaging by former employees reminds of Rollei, and the other way around the Rollei brand used now on some film stock was bought by Hans O. Mahn ie. Maco (and CO KG too maybe).

Tetenal kits use blix, they don't sell bleach and fix, that' s why I suspect the Compard/Digibase/Rollei stuff may be repackaged Fuji or Calbe.

Kodak Vision3 35mm supplier in Europe (not UK)?

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