Buying various films.. Suggestions please?

sineadw

Hi all. I'm hiding from assignments again..

I've been wandering about online for a bit trying to decide where's best to buy some film for new christmas toys I need some colour 35 film for an Oktomat. Fajitas (I think!) recommended 1600iso for that. I also need some polaroid 600 compatible stuff - any suggestions on that (and funky stuff I can do with it! ). I also need some nice (maybe 50iso) black & white 35mm and some IR 35.

Anyone any suggestions where to source them? It'd be nice if I could bulk order everything in the one place and save on p&p but its by no means necessary. And I've been told posting IR is a big no-no anyway as they're shipped in metal canisters which the postal services (not surprisingly really) now routinely x-ray the living daylights out of. Is that true?

Any suggestions/sage wisdom greatly appreciated

melekalikimaka

i like the ilford pan f 50 is lovely film, i love it but its very contrasty and need to keep that in mind....

CabanSail

7DayShop have a good range of films at reasonable prices.

I do not see any IR Film there. It probably best to get that locally as it has a very short shelf life. I would try Gunn's for that.

melekalikimaka

ilford sfx...is bordering on ir, 7 dayshop does it

DaireQuinlan

Yeah, ditto on 7dayshop, thats where I get all my film. Cheapest place I've found, although buy loads, because their postage is 7.95 regardless. Slowest B&W I've ever used is delta 100 so no help there. I'd advise getting a pile of tri-x though. 400asa, pretty versatile. I've shot it up to 1600 and pushed in dev to good effect. Also while you're there, get a couple of rolls of kodak ektar. I can't actually comment as to what its like, I'm just going through my first roll at the moment. Kodak maintain that its the finest grained colour film EVAR. yeeks.

IR film wise, 7dayshop sell a pack of three ilford SFX in 35mm, with the appropriate cokin filter. Its sort of ir-lite. Its more a near infrared sensitive film. I've taken some (imo :-)) nice shots with it, check my flickr stream for "sfx" for some examples. You'll have to buy into the cokin filter holders for it aswell though, although 7dayshop also have a cheaper alternative called KOOD that apparently fits the cokin filters fine.

Lets talk slide in a different post

DaireQuinlan

Oh, also, forgot to mention, best place to get 600 pola film right now is probably boots. 30 euro for a twinpack (20 shots). There's not much you can really -do- with 600 film, except wince every time you hit the shutter button as you realise you've just spent 1.50 :-) I actually have an sx-70 sitting unused because I just can't bring myself to spend that much on film. Although ironivally enough a roll of 120 provia probably ends up costing me almost as much by the time I've had it developed ...

ThOnda

I could only second 7dayshop. And the C-41 processed monochromatic film KODAK BW400 CN gives grain of 100ASA film.
For home development, I was using Foma 200 (that has N-grains). It is very flexible film. Exposed as 800 film, it produced lovely grain. Could be bought as a roll of 30 meters, so if you have facility to load it in your own cartridges, you could save a fortune. I think I could have some rolls even here, but they were not in fridge for last two years. I can give them to you for free, if you want.

Fajitas!

sineadw wrote: »

Hi all. I'm hiding from assignments again..

Wait until you're hiding from your thesis.

I've been wandering about online for a bit trying to decide where's best to buy some film for new christmas toys I need some colour 35 film for an Oktomat. Fajitas (I think!) recommended 1600iso for that. I also need some polaroid 600 compatible stuff - any suggestions on that (and funky stuff I can do with it! ). I also need some nice (maybe 50iso) black & white 35mm and some IR 35.

Yep, I reckon the Oktomat is about f/16 in reality, and shooting at about 1/200... which isn't very practical in our fantastically dull climate

You can get Fuji Superia up to 800 and 1600 iso, and B&W film up to 3200. You can push them all even further. You will be getting plenty of grain though.

As Daire said, Boots is probably most practical at the moment for T600, I'm not sure if the newer Fuji films have the batteries in them, which may leave you a bit short. Personally, If you haven't bought a Polaroid, I'd be buying one of the Fuji cameras, film is easier to get your hands on. Not cheaper though.

I've just gone and ordered a box of 25iso film 35mm (Rollei), there's plenty out there, but you're going to have to buy online - The slowest I've seen in Eire is 50 slide film. As Daire said, that'll need another thread.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/index.html is my favorite resource for buying film, it's probably not as cheap as 7dayshop.com, and postage is more expensive, but there's a lot more in the way of supplies and stock.

And I've been told posting IR is a big no-no anyway as they're shipped in metal canisters which the postal services (not surprisingly really) now routinely x-ray the living daylights out of. Is that true?

I've heard that about IR film myself. Though, tbh, I'm sure most things coming through borders is x-rayed at some point. Maybe talk to Gunns and see if they can order it in for you? I wouldn't bother with the SFX stuff... you're going to have to invest in another filter(s) and are still stuck with slow shutter speeds. Real IR film can be rated at anything from 4 to 6400 and still get good results as long as your metering is spot on, no filters required. Before you use it though, make sure your camera can be used with IR film - It's very finicky, anything from having a window in the back of the camera, to the paint inside the camera can fog the film.

Going back to the Polaroid film... 600 is boring if you intend on manipulating it - It just dosn't do much. You're looking at the older films, medium format films and large format films for the transfers, manipulations, and so on. There's a few limited edition 600 film types (Nearly all expired at this stage - Polaroid dosn't last very long), try unsaleables.com for'em.

DaireQuinlan

Fajitas! wrote: »

You can get Fuji Superia up to 800 and 1600 iso, and B&W film up to 3200. You can push them all even further. You will be getting plenty of grain though.

Just as (yet) another side note, I've had nothing but trouble with fuji 800/1600 colour films. Get Kodak Portra 800 for all your high speed needs. Its miles better (IMO) and all the OOF areas get a pastelly sort of grain to them that I find quite lovely. Actually, I've switched completely at this stage to Kodak for print film. I still maintain my allegience to Fuji for transparency though ...

Fajitas!

Really? I've quite liked the Superia rolls I've put through, gotten some decent results. I must give Porta 800 a bit more of a go though.

DaireQuinlan

Fajitas! wrote: »

Really? I've quite liked the Superia rolls I've put through, gotten some decent results. I must give Porta 800 a bit more of a go though.

Oh yeah, I've never really worked out why they didn't work out for me. I have a suspicion that it was something to do with them scanning really badly. What I was getting was really really heavy noisy grain in the blue channel in dark areas of the image so much so that they'd actually look speckled with blue. Could just be that my Nikon scanner & fuji film don't mix. Portra is a dreamy film though. I love it, the 400 uc too.

Fajitas!

Will pick up some Portra next week so, see what I can do with it!

My box of 25iso should be arriving this week... Going to try push some of it to 800 for the laugh

Phototoxin

photoglossy.com has cheaper postage than 7dayshop but dont have as wide of variety.

sineadw

Thanks all! Exactly what I needed