Buying film in the UK

TheTimeChamber

TheTimeChamber

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In a similar way to our film development thread, I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread containing websites we all prefer for our film (we could even end up having an FAQ with development, film, supplies etc in it).

Anyway, starter for 2:

http://www.discountfilmsdirect.co.uk/

This is now my go to source for film, cheapest I have managed to find and prompt delivery. I would highly recommend them.

http://www.7dayshop.com/photo-video-supplies/film

7dayshop is my fall back, no longer the cheapest I have found

Does anyone have any other shops they prefer for price etc?
 
I've gone back to using mailshotsuk http://www.mailshotsuk.co.uk/

Based in Stoke they do the Agfa slide at £5 ish a roll.
Tudor (fuji) is £1.99 a roll.

Postage is a more reasonable starting at £2.95

Could do with a web scraper that trawls all the best known sites to compare prices. Like camera price buster.
 
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When I did some comparison shopping last month I was extremely impressed with the results for Calumet's fleabay shop: lowest or near lowest prices for (35mm) Portra 160, Tri-X and Tmax100/400, and free delivery! Discountfilmsdirect and 7dayshop were both looking comparatively pricey at that time; I haven't checked since, as I've bought enough for quite a while. AG Photo also had pretty good unit prices, but adds £4.90 postage (possibly free if you spend enough). There do appear to be delivery and stock problems at times though, from reports here.

I ordered on a weekend from both Calumet and discountfilmsdirect (the latter with the best price on small quantities of Precisa), and both deliveries came on the Tuesday morning!
 
Not always the cheapest but MrCad are worth a look they do mail order but I tend to wonder in and have brought quite a lot of short dated Large Format film of them in the past.

The Pro Centre in London still stock quite a bit of film and Teamwork digitail still hold at least 5x4 on the shelf to and sometimes have deals on short dated stock.

I haven't personally but I know a lot of Large Format photographers don't buy film in the UK if you buy in bulk the savings even with shipping and important duty are substantail if you buy from the states the better stores are B&H, Badger Graphics and Midwest Photo Exchange I would never recomend Unique Photo.

I buy from 7dayshop when they have short dated stock that I use brought 50 rolls of Velvia 120 from them for a hundred last year.

My prefered source for film in the Uk is All Photos Ltd in Tarring Road Worthing they don't do online ordering but they do mail oder / their own deliveries and have a trade counter. They keep a fair bit of film insock including 5x4 at reasonable prices and are very helpful last year when I had heard rumours of 57 boxes of short dated Provia 10x8 floating about when I asked them to get me ten boxes they were 24 pounds cheaper than teamwork and 63 pounds cheaper per box than the only other place offering it.
 
Mathers in Bolton

Cheaper than everyone else, but it's best to buy in bulk as they have postage costs.
 
Ash. said:
Mathers in Bolton

Cheaper than everyone else, but it's best to buy in bulk as they have postage costs.
Click to expand...

Personally, I wouldn't agree with such a broad statement like that - film varies by so much on the 10-15 well known sites, with different postage costs for different locations and different amounts (of both weight and gross value), that it pays to shop around.

And it's not necessarily cheaper than everyone else at all.
 
I used Calumet via ebay recently for the first time and paid £19.94 for 5 rolls of 120 Portra 160 with free postage. Whenever free postage is listed on Fleabay I dont expect the fastest service but this arrived by FedEx the following day!

Mark
 
freecom2 said:
Personally, I wouldn't agree with such a broad statement like that - film varies by so much on the 10-15 well known sites, with different postage costs for different locations and different amounts (of both weight and gross value), that it pays to shop around.

And it's not necessarily cheaper than everyone else at all.
Click to expand...

Don't take everything so literally.

However, just to make you feel a littler happier: When comparing a fair amount of film types with various other suppliers, mathers is often the cheapest if you're prepared to buy multiple items to cover the additional costs of postage.
 
Ash. said:
Don't take everything so literally.

However, just to make you feel a littler happier: When comparing a fair amount of film types with various other suppliers, mathers is often the cheapest if you're prepared to buy multiple items to cover the additional costs of postage.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, when it is said so definitively, it is very easy to take literally.

Mathers often is, but isn't always, and it varies massively depending on your requirements. And prices change weekly in some places (the 3rd party sellers on Amazon and 7dayshop are especially notorious for this), meaning it's always a very fluid outlook - so again, it pays to shop around.
 
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