shipping boxes for exposed 4x5 film?

[mikeklensch]

I'm just now getting my feet wet in 4x5 photography. And until the day finally arrives when I'll be able to set up my own darkroom, I'm going to have to ship out my film to be developed.

I live in a very remote location, and all of my film processing will need to be done by mail as there are no pro labs within 1,000 miles of my home. So I need something in which to store and ship my exposed film. Some empty film boxes would have been great, but there are no labs in my area to try and scrounge a few up.

So I was wondering if there are any boxes made for this purpose that I might be able to buy. I've never seen anything like this listed, but thought you all might know of something either intended, or unintended for this purpose that might work.

Thanks for any ideas,
Mike

 

[reellis67]

Keep all of you 4x5 film boxes and use those. I regularly send my 4x5 E-6 film across the country (Florida to Los Angeles) for developing and it always comes back safe and sound. If you place labels on each of the three 'halves' with your mailing address and a note requesting return with the developed film they will return them to you and you can use them over and over.

At one point you could buy boxes like these from Freestyle and J and C Photo (now defunct), but I don't know if Freestyle still sell them or not - it might be worth a call. If they don't you may be able to ask around (I may have a few somewhere myself even, I'll check when I get home from work)

- Randy

- Randy

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

There might be some people around here or on the LF forum who can send you some spares for the price of shipping. This came up a few months ago and I sent out some boxes to people who needed them, so I don't have any to give away myself at the moment, or I'd offer.

 

[Mike Wilde]

I have spares

I have about 12-14 boxes of the 50 sheet sizes. found in trash - were once used to send sample transparencies around to ad agencies. With careful use of a knife these could be thinned out down to something under 20cm thick (if there is a USPS equivalent limitation of Canada Post) to let you send them out as letter rate, rather than parcel post rate. PM me - if there are you or others. I recently mailed mooseontheloose some.

 

[mikeklensch]

Thank you Randy, David and Mike for the advice and offers. For now I'll see if I can call a couple of the labs in my state and see if they have any that they would be willing to ship to me. If not, I may be bugging you again to see if you can put a couple in the mail for me ;-) I really appreciate the offers.

Best,
Mike