SECRETARY' S NOTES
For the first time in 2 years Konica have increased the price of their film. The rate seems to be about 9.5%. It is not surprising really as the value of the Yen has risen and the quality of the film improved. In a recent advert they claim to be not only the
oldest colour film, but also the best. It is certainly very good nowadays. The only minor quible I have is the notches on the
30 metre re-loads.
The notches are to mark the length of a 36 exp length of the film. Trouble is that you can`t see them in the loading drum and the notches tend to creep so a set number of winds can`t help loading. There are only two choices, Load in the dark and feel the length, or change to a Paterson Tank and ignore them. After a lot of tries with my Durst tank, I'm gave up and now use a Paterson.
Life is not quite that easy though as the new tank takes solutions in multiples of 300ml. The old ones used 250ml. That meant altering all my quantities which were based on 1 Litre. Now they run 300: 600: 900: 1500mls. This meant rounding up some of the smaller quantities of 10% solutions. Having run eight films through the new set up I am satisfied that everything works as before.
There is a bonus to this as we bought a 30 metre tin of Konica Chrome and got 21 - 36 exposure cassettes from it. With the new price that is still only £1.35 per film and it is good to know I can risk shots and take as many exposures as I wish on a subject. I would hate to have to think how much the film costs before pressing the shutter.
Supplies of film from 3M at the moment uncertain. They have a new sales Manager and he has implied that the minimum order of any one type of film is now 50 films. Now while we can probably sell 50 - 100 iso films in a reasonable time, there is no way at present that we can sell a large quantity of the faster types before the `sell by` date comes around.
I have taken this matter up with Peter Watts who is now technical manager and he is going to contact Sales & Marketing. They are supposed to come back to me on the problem. In the meantime I will only stock 3M film in the 100iso speed. I have a few of the multiple speed films and a few 640 iso tungsten type. Phone if you require any of those and I will let you know the situation.
All The Best.
Ron Croad.