I have been checking the UK market for any stores keeping my 365@50 film in stock. In bulk, prefereably. I can't get it back home, but these days you seem to be unable to get pretty much anything at all film related back home. So I need to look this way, towards the UK where I'm paying a rather big part of my tax each year even though I don't live here.
I was thinking about spending a few ££ as well at some point, over here in my second home land, and may just as well use them on some good old film. Trouble is that the rolls of Ilford PAN400 is rather far between over here as well, as the film originally is intended for a different market. Probably the far east, or somewhere. At least not Europe, if I have got things right.
I found the film, at least at two different locations on-line. All I need to do now is to find a map and get over to the UK to get things done. Go shopping, you know.
Yup, I could simply throw in an order, but I would much rather pick them up myself if that's possible at some point.
Probably something posted before, but I promise you to find something a bit fresher for the eyes for tomorrow! I don't remember too much about this fine snap, but it might come out of some german rangefinder. I know where it was snapped, though. This old bridge is not in use anymore, but it's still there just to show off some nice building skills since long forgotten and no longer used. Then again it would probably be too expencive and too dangerous to build something like this today. I'm quite sure, actually.
So, the plan right now is to get home and get into my little workshop (if it's even possible to get inside the door) to hopefully build some kind of device or thingy, making it achievable to roll my own film from a bulk roll. I'm going to start with a probably since long overdue roll of FP4 I got in a drawer somewhere, and if things go smoothly I'll order a couple of bulk lengths of fresher stuff. HP5, FP4 and PAN400. Probably not all of them in one go, but you get the idea I guess.
Oh, yes I know! There are dedicated "daylight film loaders" to be bought all around the interweb. I actually used to own one as it happens, but it obviously disappeared from my ownership at some point. Things tend to do that at times, and sometimes I think it's just because we seem to own too much stuff! Just jump over to Jim's place and see for yourself. I think he's quite right about his thinking about posessions and thngs in his latest (re)post over at his fine Down The Road blog.
So, my film loader is no longer to be found anywhere and I seem to have two options. Get another one (nope Jim, I'll try to keep myself from doing just that...), or just try to check if it's possible to get the job done without the gizmo. I think it is, and if it is I would say the more tricky way would be the best. At least if all other bulk loaders work the same way as my old one used to do. See I used to get scratches and stuff on the film, and at times the last couple of frames would end up fogged by light. I don't like that! I like to fog my film myself, if I feel like it. I don't need a big box made out of bacelitte to do it for me.
Hand rolled film, that could be the next tiny wee project. I will keep you updated as I fail and (hopefully) further learn, of course.
But first of all I'm rather shure there will be other projects more urgent to take care of, if I ever get out of this steel thing jumping around in the waves of the North Sea.
Hey, thanks for the link to my blog! And I marvel at how in some places in the world it's hard to buy things I take for granted as easy to buy in the US.
SvarSlettThanks for your comment, Jim.
SvarSlettWe can still get film over here, but there's more or less nothing to find inside a physical store any more. I know only a couple of places where that's possible, but it would mean a 360 miles drive one way to get to one of these shops from my home. I can still order the stuff for delivery the next day, so it's not like it is a huge problem, but still. The price is another issue, as import taxes and the fact that the payrolls are very high over here is driving the prices towards the sky. The quite limited market for film is not making things easier either. With around 5 mill. people living here I would say there can't be many of us using film regularely. Maybe a couple of hundred souls or something like that. Easy to understand the choice of films are a bit limited, to put it that way.
I would very much think the market is something completely different over there, and the demand for film is also at a completely different level. But, maybe one day things will start happening back home as well, even though I doubt it will ever get back to what it used to be like.
I can buy the 200 and 400 ISO films from Fuji and Kodak at a couple stores. And there's a camera store downtown that carries a reasonable range of Ilford, Kodak, and Fuji films. But I still buy most of my film online.
SvarSlettI'm not sure there's a greater demand for film per capita here, but our much larger population does afford economies of scale: i.e., if one percent of the US population shoots film, that's still 3 million people.
That's right Jim, and just what I think as well. There's quite a difference in volume sold, no matter which way we look at it. And will always be, of course. You just have to keep the sales up, over there! :))
Slett