Color film ( C-41/ E6 ) chemistry sources

[Jim C.]

My usual go to is B&H for darkroom color chems since they're local,
and I can pick up at their warehouse. I've ordered from Freestyle and they have
a well stocked choice of chems but cross country shipping doesn't appeal to me.
Since color chems don't seem to be stocked as much as they used to be at B&H
I was wondering what other online retailers are fellow members using ?

[Wayne]

I stopped ordering chems from B&H years ago when they went stupid on it and have always used Freestyle ever since. Not much help, I know.

[vinny]

Freestyle. What don't you like about cross country shipping? I mean, this stuff is shipped overseas to get here in the firet place.

[Jim C.]

Freestyle. What don't you like about cross country shipping? I mean, this stuff is shipped overseas to get here in the firet place.

The temp extremes that the chems will probably go thru going cross country.
I work with temp and moisture sensitive materials and I've always timed it so that I can order
those materials in the Spring and Fall, I had one shipment that I needed desperately from a supplier in CA
in the Winter and one component had clouded over from the cold, it was not fun to remelt the material in
my lab oven so I'm gun shy about shipping temp sensitive materials cross country.
And I'd rather the chems go thru one temp extreme than two so that I can get the maximum storage life out of them,
and then there's the shipping cost for liquid kits.

[Wayne]

But you don't really know what temperature extremes or how many the chems have gone through regardless of when you have them shipped.

[richardman]

I am ordering Kodak Flexicolor from Unique Photo right now.

[Jim C.]

But you don't really know what temperature extremes or how many the chems have gone through regardless of when you have them shipped.

If you've ever entered into your closed car thats been sitting in the sun on a Summer day you can make an educated guess
that the shipping trucks are pretty close to that temperature, same goes for all the seasons.

[Wayne]

What I meant was you don't know that you are really minimizing the extremes by having it shipped spring-fall. Is it shipped by boat from Europe, or in the freezing unheated hold of a cargo plane? Temperatures in trucks and warehouses can get hot/cold in spring fall too.

But Unique may be a good option for you if you're worried about it. I was trying to think of their name but couldn't quite pull it up.


If you've ever entered into your closed car thats been sitting in the sun on a Summer day you can make an educated guess
that the shipping trucks are pretty close to that temperature, same goes for all the seasons.