Slide film availability

I've just returned to film after a three year gap. Can anyone tell me if slide film is still readily available (UK) and are there just as many labs processing and mounting the stuff.

It most certainly is available although perhaps less so 'off the shelf '. I buy Fujichrome Velvia mailorder from Calumet or MX2. I use Peak Imaging in Sheffield for processing.

Mail order is a good way to get variety that is not as accessable retail.

If you want to buy in a shop, Jessops will stock Fuji and Kodachrome,

Boots sell Fuji (With and Without Process paid) and Kodachrome

You will of course be paying a premium over mail order, but sometimes you've just got to pay the extra for grab-n-go convenience.

If you want E6 slide in 120 format, you would be better going mail order, as the high street retailers will have to special order it

After reading that the total annual sales volume of Kodachrome is likely less than 20000 rolls, I was surprised to find 6 of them in my local, not particularly large, Boots today - all with 09/2009 expiry date. To keep them company were Fuji Sensia and Boots own brand slide films, plus Ilford HP5+, XP2, Kodak BW400CN and a good selection of C-41 including Portra.

If only I hadn't just ordered Kodachrome online, I would have supported their positive attitude by cleaning out their stock of K64!

Ian

Boots in most towns have better stocks of film than the majority of the smaller Jessops shops, which is quite ironic.

Quite a few UK labs have ceased processing E6, but they still offer the service outsourcing the processing to other labs. In addition processing may not take place every day, obviously this varies depending on the area. But I know my local lab well and they stopped their E6 line about 4 or 5 years ago, they send E6 to Birmingham to a lab I've been using for 30+ years, this lab now only processes E6 on a Monday, Wednesday & Friday. In the past there was a 2 hour service throughout the day.

E6 volumes are way down, but luckily not nearly as low as Kodachrome's.

Ian

Ian

Ian Grant said:

[...]

E6 volumes are way down, but luckily not nearly as low as Kodachrome's.

Click to expand...

That is oh-so-telling, an ill portent of what the future holds.
What becomes of the broken hearted who do not want digital?

Last I heard on Kodachrome was roughly 1000 rolls a day being processed through Dwayne's. That would represent a world-wide volume, and that was about a year ago. So you can still buy and shoot Kodachrome, though the processing is only through one location.

Kodak have not introduced much in new E-6 emulsions, with E100G, E100GX, and slightly improved E100VS being the only changes in recent years. Fuji have re-introduced Velvia 50, brought out improved Astia 100F, and introduced Provia 400X. So the range of selection and new products is quite good. Processing labs might be a different situation.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

Assuming that Dwayne's were processing 1000 rolls of Kodachrome film a day they'd process an entire years production, 20,000 rolls in under a month. However they will be processing what's left of the Kodachrome movie film as well, but it's going to be a constantly shrinking volume.

Ian

I find this 20,000/year figure really unlikely.

Do we have any other source other than one unreferenced, unattributed mention in an AP article?

As someone who works for the media, can I formally state that if it ain't a quote and it ain't referenced, then there's also a good chance it ain't true! Does anyone have a concrete reference to support this figure?


I mean, Boots alone have 2,500 stores. All the stores I've ever been in tend to have half a dozen rolls (normally on a 3-for-2 - wahey.) Whenever I buy KC there, they don't look at me like I'm mad or have to dig out a price by hand, the stuff is readily available and replenished after it's sold.


So lets say only half of Boots stores stock it, and each has half a dozen rolls. That would mean a third of the world's annual production was sat on the shelves of Boots in the UK at any given time...

Tim, that article seems to be based on facts and must have originated from someone in the know. Ron (PE) was tipped off about the article a week before it was published.

Presumably Kodak manufactured considerably more Kodachrome up until about 3 or 4 years ago, but the facts are they closed every Kodak owned Kodachrome processing facility around 2007 and all the private lines in the US have closed except Dwayne's. That's a huge drop in processing capacity and much of the film available now has expiry dates in 2009 indicating it was probably made 2 or 3 years ago. Add on top of that Kodachrome ceased to be imported in many countries a few months before the processing lines closed, so production figures of 20,000 rolls is quite believable.

Ian

Ian Grant said:

Tim, that article seems to be based on facts and must have originated from someone in the know. Ron (PE) was tipped off about the article a week before it was published.

Click to expand...

I'm not saying it's flat out wrong, I'd just like to see something more concrete than an unattributed reference in a wire story. Perhaps it is true, but I'm afraid I've built a very healthy scepticism for what appears on the wires!


The reference in the story is "Eastman Kodak Co. now makes the slide and motion-picture film in just one 35mm format, and production runs — in which a master sheet nearly a mile long is cut up into more than 20,000 rolls — fall at least a year apart."


That's about as far from being an unadulterated statement of the truth as it's possible to get. If someone wrote an article along the lines of

"Intel now manufacture Core2Duo processors in just one size, 65nm, and production runs - in which a master wafer is cut up into more than 20 chips - fall a week apart" noone would surmise that Intel only make 20 chips a week.

Just because A master sheet is cut up into more than (how many?) 20,000 rolls doesn't actually state only one master sheet is cut up. That reads more like a paranthetical statement to explain how they produce film rather than a statement "only 20,000 rolls are produced per year."



Like I say, I'm not saying it's not true. In fact, in my gut I suspect maybe it is. But that article seems to have merited gospel status rather too easily, and will now be quoted willy nilly as 'proof' of the death of Kodachrome long after the time noone can actually find the damn thing.

In fact, doubtless it's on Noddypedia already...