Where to get the chemistry in Canada

[Skygeezer]

We have moved back to our country house for retirement after suffering a few years in the city. I am debating setting up my darkroom again. I had a depressing talk with our local supplier for film and chemistry. He doubts that they will be carrying any film or chemistry a year from now. Is there another source for colour film and paper developer in North America? I am in Canada, so as local as possible would be best.

DonM

[hpulley]

Where are you located? Henry's is pretty good in Canada either in store shopping or mail order and I've also had good luck shipping stuff from Adorama and B&H in the states. B&H has Purolator Ground shipping for Canada now which can even prepay the HST for you and being ground it means they can ship some chemicals which are restricted for air shipping.

Edit: Henry's doesn't seem to have any color chems in stock though I buy B&W stuff from them. I have to order color stuff from the states. There was a thread about a place is Mississauga where you can pick up color chems but I haven't tried it yet.

[George Nova Scotia]

It might help if we knew where "local" is. You can add your location to your profile.

[hpulley]

See this thread: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum40/8...ip-method.html

This post has a phone number for Unisource, I haven't tried them yet: http://www.apug.org/forums/viewpost.php?p=1102690

[MattKing]

For any post of this nature, especially in the Product Availability forum, it is really, really helpful to indicate where you are.

I've sent a request to the fine, generous people who act as APUG moderators to have "(Canada)" added to the thread title, because I've been trying to keep track of this sort of info for my purposes.

[Skygeezer]

Sorry, local is Manitoba. I added this to my profile. I was using Don's Photo but their price climbed out of sight and they just didn't want to bring in darkroom supplies anymore. I am reluctant to try the US since UPS and Purloator add huge "brokerage fees" to the shipping cost, which I think is a major ripoff. USPS does not add extra fees, but it is a problem shipping chemistry by mail. I will try some of the links that have been posted.

[hpulley]

Henrys does have two locations in Winnipeg. They don't stock color chems but they list some for special order on the website.

UPS has brokerage fees which can be a problem if you choose the wrong shipping method. Generally there are international shipping methods which include the brokerage up front which is cheaper.

Some chemistry, dry powder can generally be sent fine by mail. Liquids can leak so they are wary of them.

[Mike Wilde]

Talk to The Banana (I have not seen post from John for a while though) or Colin Corneau. They are both in Brandon area, and they will tell you where they get thier supplies.

[Eric Rose]

check out www.thecamerastore.com they are stocked up on most things.

[Kevin Kehler]

I used to work at Don's and it is mainly a volume issue; not enough people order which means they need to jack up the price to make it worth their while to bring in. Almost everything is special order since they don't keep chemistry or paper in stock except for some Pearl RC paper and D-76 developer; there was one month when I still had my staff discount, I personally accounted for almost 50% of the month's analogue gear for the whole chain (I stocked up on 120 film, some paper, printing filters and chemistry right before I left but was still under $500).

These days, I order a bunch from http://www.darkroomcentral.ca who I have had great customer experience or I get my family to go to Beau Photo in Vancouver and send it to me. Darkroom Central is actually Photo Central which is based in Winnipeg as well.