Indonesian photo market no longer process film

Dear All,

I am Utomo from Indonesia. Several years ago inspired by large format info forum and Jack Dykinga book, I entered Large Format photography. It was such an interesting
and very educational experience. All the time, I use either Ilford
Delta 100 or Kodak EPP 100 or Kodak Tungsten 100. The results are as
you already outlined, the more pictures that I took, the more I could
manage the camera and get better results (camera Wista VX with Sinar
150mm or Schneider 210mm).

Sadly, now Indonesian photography market no longer process film.
Since April, one by one, the shops that used to process 4x5 films (slide,
negative), stop processing film, and moved to digital. They still
could scan my negative and print it, but they no longer want to
process the film. For B&W, it is no problem, but for colour.....

For myself and a lot like me, amateur photographer, the only way to
shoot colour is, either to move digitally, meaning buy the PhaseOne
or
Leif digital back, or stay with film and process it ourself. Another
problem is, there is not much colour chemicals in Indonesian market.

My question is, do you know of any Chinese made digital back, which
usually will only cost a fraction of the European/American ones. By
this, I intend to still take pictures using my large format....

thank you so much. If you have suggestions how to deal with it, I
will
gladly listen to you.

Regards,
Utomo

Dear Utomo,
Instead of trying to find a digital back, I would suggest you send your film for develpment overseas, to Japan, Australia or even USA or Europe. I don't know if the Indonesian postal system is reliable enough (there's always EMS and couriers), but I would try it. I'm sure some of the forum users might help with providing names and contacts of good labs that will do international mail orders.
Good luck and courage!
Best,

Buy some process equipment and mail order chemicals.

As far as I know, virtually all countries prohibit importing/exporting chemicals through mail.

Assuming there are still shops in Indonesia that process C-41 (in 35 mm and APS, if not in 4x5), it shouldn't be impossible to obtain C-41 chemicals, and it's actually possible (if rather exacting) to process color in the same equipment you'd use for black and white -- the only absolutely necessary expenditure is for the specific chemistry.

I'd suggest checking whether Fuji or Tetenal chemicals are available from a local distributor; Tetenal, at least, makes a 3-bath C-41 kit that is almost as easy to use as B&W, requiring only a higher, and more precisely controlled temperature, and more precise timing in the color dev than most of us give our B&W (obsessive zonies excluded). And if the chemicals are already imported into Indonesia by a distributor, then it's just a matter of domestic shipping to get them from whatever island they're on to whatever island they need to find.

While the Chinese have figured out economic alternatives to most products, I can't say I've seen any inexpensive LF digital back knockoffs. But, there may still be some film solutions for you.

If hang onto your film and process it all at once, the economies of scale might balance out if you use a lab, such as Calypso Imaging in Santa Clara, California. They have a deep discount for nature photographers on E6 sheet film processing that might offset the high cost of shipping via a courier service internationally. Their website is www.calypsoinc.com

Good luck!

Dear Utomo, I'm Michael from Indonesia. You can still shoot transparancies and get them processed at prisma, I believe. I just got some done about 2-3 weeks ago.

As for prints you just have to scan and do digital prints.

Dear Michael,

Thank you for giving me the info. I still have some unprocessed negatives. Could you give me Prisma phone number so I can contact them?

Thank you so much, cheers. UT