UK Film Lab moving to Canada

FujiLove

FujiLove

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I've just received this email from UKFL:

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We hope you're well and have had a great start to your week.

We are writing to you as someone who has sent film to us here at UK Film Lab to share some important news.

In August this year, we will be moving to live in British Columbia in Canada, and UK Film Lab will be moving with us, to become 'Canadian Film Lab'. We believe passionately in the unbeatable quality of service that we deliver, and we'd love to receive your film in the future. To us, the highest quality scans and ultra-reliable, completely personal service have always been our top priorities, and Canadian Film Lab will work to the same successful formula. We will also be adding a new service to our line-up, with the addition of Noritsu scans as an option in addition to our existing Fuji Frontier service.

Of course this will be a huge change, and there will be a pause while we set things up for our launch as Canadian Film Lab, which will happen as soon as possible after our arrival there in August. We will be keeping you posted with our news and we'll be providing special introductory offers to you as an existing client. We’ll also be providing lots of useful information including shipping advice for sending your film to Canadian Film Lab and of course updated contact information.

To allow sufficient time to arrange shipping back of all negatives, UK Film Lab will be accepting all new orders arriving with us before the end of this month (June 2016). For our non-UK clients we appreciate that shipping time can be difficult to judge so please don’t be worried about whether your film will arrive with us in time. If it seems reasonable to assume that your order will arrive with us before the end of the month then we will certainly accept it, even if it arrives a few days later than expected.

Over the coming weeks we will be emailing all clients whom we currently hold negatives for – other than those who have indicated previously that they do not want their negatives returning – to arrange return of negatives. Please note that this will be a gradual process so please don't be concerned if you don't hear from us straight away (although some of you we are already in touch with about this as part of our standard negative returns process).

We will contact you by email to make arrangements for returning your negatives. To help with this process, we'd be so grateful if you would respond straight away to this email when it arrives and pay postage invoices as soon as you can, and please be aware that we will not send any reminder messages if we do not receive a response. With that in mind please check your spam folder regularly in case our email is delivered there. If you are certain that we have your negatives on file and that you haven't asked us to dispose of them for you, please contact us after 25th July if you haven't heard from us by this date. Otherwise please assume that we have yet to get to your file, and that we'll be in touch soon.

We will soon be posting full updates to our Facebook page http://ukfilmlab.us3.list-manage1.c...9a320e22bb92639ecb&id=daaaf74203&e=5d5bbbbc8f so please head there if you have any questions. We will also be receiving emails as usual, but we anticipate that it may be very difficult for us to respond to all correspondence straight away, and if your email asks something that is already covered on our website or Facebook page we may not be able to respond. We hope you understand, and we will certainly do our very best to be responsive and helpful.

Thanks so much for your attention and for your support of UK Film Lab.

With very best wishes

Christian & Erica
UK Film Lab

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Interesting choice, guess its good for "us" they're not just shutting shop. I've not checked but I'm willing to be postage to Canada isn't significantly higher than the small packet rate film currently goes at but the risk for international post goes up dramatically compared to domestic.
 
steveo_mcg said:
Interesting choice, guess its good for "us" they're not just shutting shop. I've not checked but I'm willing to be postage to Canada isn't significantly higher than the small packet rate film currently goes at but the risk for international post goes up dramatically compared to domestic.
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I'm fairly sure that airmail parcels, like checked in baggage, are inspected with high intensity x-ray. Can anyone confirm if this is the case?
 
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I was, and still am, a bit gutted to hear this as they were the lab I used, met both owners on a workshop last year and they have my editing preferences, and I know a few other members in here use them the same way, as well as a couple of friends of mine not on here.

I also know people send them film from around the world now, as they do to other labs like Carmencita, Indie and Richard photo lab in the U.S., so I'm guessing X-Ray isn't a problem.

What worries me is the price. All the U.S. Based labs are more expensive for a similar service. I'd love to keep using UKFL (CFL), but the price may become prohibitive.

I am looking at Carmencita as an option in the interim when UKFL are moving and won't be able to process at all.
 
Sounds like a massive opportunity for someone like Peak to fill in the gap really.
 
FujiLove said:
I'm fairly sure that airmail parcels, like checked in baggage, are inspected with high intensity x-ray. Can anyone confirm if this is the case?
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I don't think this is true, no.

There are certainly Europe-based photographers that use US labs, for instance, and they don't seem to have any trouble in this regard.
 
I've been giving this some thought and I think I'm going to try Carmencita in Spain; Their service seems very similar to UKFL and I've head great things. Going to try them as soon as I can rather than waiting until UKFL have moved, and hopefully I'll have a roll or two to send them next week after I've been to the Brecon Beacons for the weekend.

skysh4rk said:
I don't think this is true, no.

There are certainly Europe-based photographers that use US labs, for instance, and they don't seem to have any trouble in this regard.
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That's a relief to know as this was my biggest concern about posting film overseas to have processed. :)
 
Carl Hall said:
I've been giving this some thought and I think I'm going to try Carmencita in Spain; Their service seems very similar to UKFL and I've head great things. Going to try them as soon as I can rather than waiting until UKFL have moved, and hopefully I'll have a roll or two to send them next week after I've been to the Brecon Beacons for the weekend.
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As soon as I read the email the other day, I immediately knew that I'd be switching to Carmencita. While I would prefer to continue using Christian and Erica, as I've used them for hundreds of rolls over the past three years, I'm really not keen on sending the film outside of the EU.

Selfishly, I wish they were sticking around for just another few weeks, as I have my PhD graduation and a family holiday coming up in the first week of July and was going to be sending them quite a few rolls, but oh well...
 
FujiLove said:
I'm fairly sure that airmail parcels, like checked in baggage, are inspected with high intensity x-ray. Can anyone confirm if this is the case?
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Nah, I've bought loads of film from HK and China and its never been fogged, I doubt it would be a problem.
 
The population of Europe, and Canada plus USA, is roughly the same..they must think they would do more trade in North America than Europe, as I can't think of any other reason for moving.
 
Well excluding Canada might be a better place to live...the object of a business is to make money.
 
stevelmx5 said:
I get the feeling they are moving for their own personal benefit and have chosen to take the business with them rather than the other way around Brian :0)
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Sounds logical Steve...but many stores like Costco (which own Asda) don't do film anymore so maybe they have found a potential market for North American filmies.
 
excalibur2 said:
Sounds logical Steve...but many stores like Costco (which own Asda) don't do film anymore so maybe they have found a potential market for North American filmies.
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Costco don't own Asda, Walmart do. :thinking:

At any rate, I'm pretty sure that this move is primarily for personal and not business reasons.
 
excalibur2 said:
Well excluding Canada might be a better place to live...the object of a business is to make money.
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As everyone else says, I'm pretty sure it's a personal decision rather than purely business.
 
gazmorton2000 said:
As everyone else says, I'm pretty sure it's a personal decision rather than purely business.
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........if you can put money up front they say Jersey is nice.....couldn't stand Canadian cold winters, but that's me. :D
 
I was really sad to read this mail, I have come late to using UKFL but really liked their approach and I have been very pleased with the scans I have received from them. I genuinely wish Christian and Erica every success in their new life in Canada and in their business venture there. That said I won't be sending film over the Atlantic and will look for a closer to home solution. For straight C41processing I will continue to use AG, but like others I am doing to give Carmencita a go for dev and scan!
 
For those using 120 C41 Filmdev offer an option that could be tried. Very quick, considerably cheaper than UKFL, and I've been happy with the quality of the scans...
 
I probably wouldn't send over seas, but i wasn't a big user anyway - an interesting development.

I too read it as they want to move to Canada and decided to carry on the business, rather than moving to Canada because it was good for business - and best of luck to them!
 
i take it from some of the reply's there is a problem with other uk based company's offering del/scan? is that just the case with mf or 35mm as well?
 
It's not that there's anything wrong with the other Labs in the UK, it's just that UKFL were (are?) really good. Their scans are top class and require pretty much no editing most of the time, and they actually care about what they do, which shows with all the relationships they've built up with their clients.
 
I was wondering if this had been posted on here. I was surprised when I got the email :( always liked getting my scans from them.

I may try Carmencita Film Lab as Carl mentioned. Their prices seem fairly reasonable and postage to Spain I imagine to be better than the US.
 
Carl Hall said:
It's not that there's anything wrong with the other Labs in the UK, it's just that UKFL were (are?) really good. Their scans are top class and require pretty much no editing most of the time, and they actually care about what they do, which shows with all the relationships they've built up with their clients.
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I'm fortunate enough to have this lab in my town, and they have been in business for decades and have good service and the guy who runs it knows his stuff. Their scan options are really good, everything from your basic low res jpg to excellent big TIFF scans all scanned on some model of Noritsu machine with only density correction applied for what i consider fair prices. The website isn't the best but here is the complete list of formats and scan options, you could ring them during business hours as well if you wanted more help.
 
Morinaka said:
I'm fortunate enough to have this lab in my town, and they have been in business for decades and have good service and the guy who runs it knows his stuff. Their scan options are really good, everything from your basic low res jpg to excellent big TIFF scans all scanned on some model of Noritsu machine with only density correction applied for what i consider fair prices. The website isn't the best but here is the complete list of formats and scan options, you could ring them during business hours as well if you wanted more help.
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Excellent prices, especially for process only.
 
skysh4rk said:
Well, sending film to Carmencita just got a bit more expensive for us all overnight...

To say that I'm gutted concerning last night's results would be an understatement. :(
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Same here. My other half works in science, which receives massive funding from the EU. They will now have to rely on a Tory government which is notoriously bad at supporting UK science. She was in tears this morning. :( I can't say I've been a fan of Cameron/Osborne, but the idea of the UK being run by Boris/Gove fills me with dread.

I just hope an independent Scotland will be welcoming English ex-pats.
 
steveo_mcg said:
UK Film Lab users moving to Canada
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Come on, let's all head off to Vancouver and set up our own lab. You can sunbathe on the beach in the morning and ski in the mountains in the afternoon. It's a wonderful place. Then there's Tofino where, like Iceland, it's literally impossible to take a bad photo. The people are really friendly too (although I suspect that's because most of them are stoned).
 
I've seen lots of x ray fogged films lately. 120 seems worst.
We (peak) are still here.
Why send film overseas? It baffles me.
 
RumpFace said:
I've seen lots of x ray fogged films lately. 120 seems worst.
We (peak) are still here.
Why send film overseas? It baffles me.
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Given most domestic mail goes by air and no colour film is produced in the UK I suspet the only way to categorically avoid x-ray is to collect from the Illford shop and process yourself.
 
Surely it's no different to me taking film abroad with me to shoot, then bringing it back home with me?
 
XRay fogging is pretty paranoid - I fly all the time with film and haven't had an issue. There are simple things to avoid (like putting your film in checked bags). Generally if people are sending their film over seas and there aren't really issues (and there aren't, largely) then there's not really a problem.
 
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