Package of film arrived

First off, this is not an advertisement. I don't work for B&H or even like them very much, but I took delivery on 20 roles of 120 B&W film tonight so I'm in a pretty good mood. It makes me sad to not patronize local camera shops but the price differences are just too great. I got 10 roles of HP5+ 400 for $3.89 a roll and 10 rolls of T-Max 400 for $4.09 a roll. Local stores charge between $5 and $6 a roll! Does anyone else have leads on competitively priced film sources? If so, I'm all ears!!

I also patronize B&H. It's just so convenient (and fast!) to have film delivered to my door in two days! Having said that, I do buy some B&W film locally, but I primarily shoot color slide and there's just not that many places to get it locally, and B&H's prices are significantly lower than locally.

Of course this means I order a minimum of 5 rolls from them to spread the shipping cost out over multiple rolls (which the wife finds aggravating when I "could shoot digital" but I can't project a digital file with my present equipment).

I always check both B&H and Adorama. They mostly have the same prices, but one my be a little cheaper, or offer free shipping on the product I'm looking for.

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5 rolls?!?! When I make an order I can only justify the shipping if it's over 25 rolls. Normally buy 50 at a time. Roberts in Indy will do 10%off if buying 10 or more rolls. I sometimes do that, but it's still more then bh

Freestyle Photo in Los Angeles (http://freestylephoto.biz/) has the lowest prices on b/w 35mm I've seen anywhere. I shoot 20 rolls/month of their Arista Premium branded film, which I suspect is re-wrapped Tri-X.

Reasonable shipping, and 3-4 day delivery.

kbrede said:

I always check both B&H and Adorama. They mostly have the same prices, but one my be a little cheaper, or offer free shipping on the product I'm looking for.

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+1. I patronize both on a regular basis. Both offer excellent service, unmatched selection and of course great prices. I generally alternate between the two, generally ordering $500.00 - $800.00 (35mm/120 formats PanF Plus/FP4 Plus/HP5 Plus/Tri-X and, until last year E100G/VS) at a shot to write down the costs of shipping.

Freestyle Photo looks interesting, especially the Arista EDU line. I'll be in L.A. in a few weeks so maybe I'll pay them a visit.

I'm lucky to have a rather local Calumet Photo, who are even open weekends now, and have retail prices just slightly higher than B&H or Adorama. Perfectly glad to buy film there. Yeah, the state gets a sales tax cut, but that's only fair.

I picked up a bunch of Arista EDU Ultra when I was in Hollywood and I've pretty happy with it so far. Been using HC-110. I'm pretty sure it's just repackaged Fomapan 400. Made in Czech Republic and the negatives have a blue tint just like Foma. At that price I can't complain at all! I don't know how much shipping would cost but I'll definitely be picking up more if and when I'm in SoCal!