Best place to buy/process film?

[Gary Schulz]

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I am working on resurrecting my uncle's IIIc and I was wondering if anybody could point me in the right direction for the best place to buy BW and color 35mm film.  It has been literally decades since I purchased film and it is no longer available at the local drug store so I was curious where people find it cost effectively in the states.  I am located in Chicago but I presume it has become more of a mail-order item these days.

 

Advice appreciated...

Gary

[spydrxx]

The new Central Camera downtown (the vintage store burned down a couple of years ago) woul be a good place to start.

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[Gary Schulz]

2 hours ago, spydrxx said:

The new Central Camera downtown (the vintage store burned down a couple of years ago) woul be a good place to start.

I guess they have been selling cameras in Chicago since the 19th century so it would be interesting to pay them a visit.  I think the last time I was there was in the 1980's!  It can be an interesting experience to spend time in one of those old camera shops in either NYC or Chicago.  Very nostalgic...

Thanks for the reminder.

[TomB_tx]

There is still a camera store in Austin, but with traffic I usually buy film from FreeStyle as they also sell all needed processing chemistry, etc. I've been sending color processing to Dwayne's in Kansas, as they do a good job, but it takes 2-3 weeks, and postage each way is ~$5, so I guess I should try the Austin store, or add C41 & E6 processing at home. I used to process color some 50 years ago...

[Stuart Richardson]

35mm black and white is not that difficult to do, so you don't necessarily need a huge lab. I would support whatever is local to you. Just give them a try. If they don't do the job, then look further afield. Most small labs are labors of love at this point. Good to help them out if you can, rather than support one of the more corporate giants. The exception might be E6, as that does benefit from a larger dip and dunk facility with a lot of turnover and daily testing.

As for film, it is quite expensive these days, so again, local is nice if it works. If not, Freestyle and B&H usually have the largest selection. Kodak Tmax 400 is an incredibly good and versatile film since it was updated in the early 2000s. Probably the best black and white film we will ever see. It is expensive, but in my mind it is worth it. Ilford has a good selection of films and a long record of support too. Fuji makes great films but their support is faltering and they always seem on the verge of getting out of the business altogether. Their only current b&w film is made by Ilford to their spec after they shut down their last B&W coating lab in Japan. Personally I would avoid anything not made by the big three. Film is expensive at this point, and with 35mm any coating problems or dust are magnified. Kodak and Fuji tend to have the best, cleanest product, but since Fuji is now made by Ilford, that honor goes to Kodak alone. Ilford is good, but not immune to coating issues or a bit of dust/weird grain. Kodak is still unmatched in coating quality in my experience...at least now that Fuji is out of the game for b&w.

For color negative, Gold 200 is Kodak's solution to rising color costs. It is a high quality C41 film at a substantially reduced cost from Portra, their pro film. Fuji has some good color negative as well.

In E6, Provia was/is fantastic and my personal favorite since E100G was discontinued, but it is hard to find these days and is always on the verge of being discontinued. Kodak offers E100 now for slides, and it is a very good film. A bit more contrasty, but still excellent.

[Gary Schulz]

Thank you.  Appreciate the excellent advice.  Good to have film recommendations as well!

 

Gary

[kivis]

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I used a film lab in Kentucky. the name escapes me.

[mark_s90]

the problem with film developing is that COLOR can be processed at home with a few unpleasant truths to understand. 

 

1. alot of the chemicals contain compounds containing something called CYANIDE.. C 41 fixer has 3 ingredient compounds containing CYANIDE. 

2. TEMPERATURE is critical and most people resort to water baths via soup warming buckets

Black and white is easy to do, there are people on certain forums who cannot spell their own name, but can wiggle out a roll of black and white film in a patterson tank. 

 

Alot of places are scams. In 2019-2020 there was a mail order black and white developing lab that was exposed as nothing more then some dude in a garage with a patterson tank charging 20$ per roll of 35mm film.

 

Alot of companies are bare bones and have no concept of what they are doing. I have personally experienced several mail in labs in the USA that send it to a lab and they all charge ya 6.00$ a roll of black and white, while the best labs charge you 18-25 per roll. 

 

 

[earleygallery]

50 minutes ago, mark_s90 said:

 

Alot of places are scams. In 2019-2020 there was a mail order black and white developing lab that was exposed as nothing more then some dude in a garage with a patterson tank charging 20$ per roll of 35mm film

 

How is that a scam? Assuming they actually processed the film and sent it back that is. 

[Anbaric]

1 hour ago, mark_s90 said:

1. alot of the chemicals contain compounds containing something called CYANIDE.. C 41 fixer has 3 ingredient compounds containing CYANIDE.

[citation needed]

[mark_s90]

https://tinker.koraks.nl/photography/color-me-purple-some-color-developer-formulas-including-c41-and-ra4/

 

ECP-ECN (handmadefilm.org)

 

A deeper dive into CineStill Simplified Cs2 chemistry: ECN-2 + CINESTILL = ? - EMULSIVE

 

to simplify, cyanide compounds are used to remove the silver image from the negative after the dye clouds have been formed and set. 

[david strachan]

Yes, sometimes called "light in a bottle", which could dissolved the black stuff and lighten areas, quite specifically remarkable...had to be used judiciously..could really make a print. Careful disposal a necessity I used it a lot on my various b&w prints

Active ingredient: potassium cyanide

..

[mark_s90]

14 hours ago, earleygallery said:

How is that a scam? Assuming they actually processed the film and sent it back that is. 

When the scandal first broke, the person doing it had been selling the image that it was an ACTUAL minilab system, and things were carefully and scientifically calibrated and temperature regulated.  It turned out it was just a dude with a paterson tank with a wash tub in his garage. 

Alot of people had started getting issues one month and were finding animal hair stuck to negatives they recieved back.  

[Anbaric]

13 hours ago, mark_s90 said:

https://tinker.koraks.nl/photography/color-me-purple-some-color-developer-formulas-including-c41-and-ra4/

 

ECP-ECN (handmadefilm.org)

 

A deeper dive into CineStill Simplified Cs2 chemistry: ECN-2 + CINESTILL = ? - EMULSIVE

 

to simplify, cyanide compounds are used to remove the silver image from the negative after the dye clouds have been formed and set. 

Those links talk about a compound called potassium ferricyanide as a component of the ECN-2 process rather than C41. Potassium ferricyanide is very different to what we normally think of as 'cyanide', which usually means a simple salt like potassium cyanide, or hydrogen cyanide. Salts like potassium cyanide are acutely toxic because the cyanide ion is easily released. That isn't true for potassium ferricyanide, which is just classed as an irritant. If we had a use for potassium cyanide in the lab, we'd keep it locked away and use it very carefully with appropriate protection and a fume hood. If we needed potassium ferricyanide, we'd just keep it on the shelf and in most cases use normal precautions - this is something you can buy it by the kilogram from eBay or Amazon.

You can however get cyanide from ferricyanide by reacting it with a strong mineral acid, hence the prominent warning in the first link about the homebrew ECN-2 process that uses sulphuric acid as a stop bath. But that's an unusual thing to attempt. Mainstream C41 processing moved away from ferricyanide decades ago and switched to compounds like ammonium ferric EDTA or PDTA, though you might find it in a homebrew formula or a kit based on one (I think the much maligned kit from Flic uses it). C41 also normally uses acetic acid rather than sulphuric acid. If you buy a kit, follow the instructions carefully. If you use homebrew formulas, make sure you know what you are doing.

[david strachan]

Yes, my mistake.  Should have called the chemical potassium ferricyanide, not potassium cyanide...my apologies.

...

[Einst_Stein]

Buy film:           B&H, Freestyle photo, https://filmphotographyproject.com

Develop film:   DIY at home

[Einst_Stein]

Look more, I th8nk this is a fake  news. Not going to happen.

Edited July 13 by Einst_Stein

[plaidshirts]

On 7/10/2024 at 9:46 AM, kivis said:

I used a film lab in Kentucky. the name escapes me.

The one I use is called Fulltone. 

[Danner]

On 7/10/2024 at 6:22 PM, mark_s90 said:

1. alot of the chemicals contain compounds containing something called CYANIDE.. C 41 fixer has 3 ingredient compounds containing CYANIDE. 

 

On 7/10/2024 at 7:51 PM, Anbaric said:

[citation needed]

According to the FlicFilm material data safety sheet: for its C-41 chemistry

https://www.freestylephoto.com/static/pdf/msds/flicfilm/FLIC_FILM_ECO_C41_SDS.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOopBWHaa4WnXT5YQUqWDEr03HFrhg1R-xvzCztdUQ4OLTLUEoF1g

This chemistry has low toxicity, and particularly respecting cyanide, in pertinent part…

Developer Part A contains: Potassium carbonate, Sodium sulfite, and Potassium bromide

Developer Part B contains: Hydroxylamine sulfate and p-Phenylenediamine

Bleach contains:  Potassium ferricyanide and Sodium bromide, but note that Potassium ferricyanide has low toxicity, its main hazard being that it is a mild irritant to the eyes and skin.

Fixer contains: Ammonium thiosulfate, Sodiumsulfite, and Sodium metabisulfite

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[Anbaric]

19 minutes ago, Danner said:

According to the FlicFilm material data safety sheet: for its C-41 chemistry

Yes, I mentioned the Flic kit above. It does indeed contain ferricyanide rather than cynanide (the latter has never been used in C41), but even ferricyanide isn't in mainstream C41 chemistry these days. The Tetenal kit apparently uses ferric ammonium EDTA in the blix, for example (I think commercial chemistry would use this or the related PDTA salt). The Flic kit looks like it was put together with cheaper ingredients, as if they've packaged up a homebrew recipe.