[Leica] Buying film locally

["Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>]

"Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> wrote:

>I've never understood this reluctance to buy film locally... Here in
Paris you can get any kind of film you want.

But much through I love Paris - surely the world's most civilised
city - on occasions I travel to other countries where the cuisine,
wine, and range of film are much more limited.Outside of capital
cities, the range of film sold by camera stores can shrink
dramatically to a handful of popular brands - virtually all colour
negative..

In Brugge last month I could find only one shop (after a long search)
which sold Kodachrome. In Crete two years ago, I found that no-one in
the second-largest city sold Kodachrome.

I remember discovering several decades ago (the hard way) that
Stupendouschrome sold in the UK had quite a different colour balance
to Stupendouschrome sold in its country of origin.(Let's spare the
blushes of the film company concerned, which has long since vanished
into the pages of history. When I bought my first Leica, you could get
colour film from Kodak, Ilford, Agfa, Gaevret, Perutz, Ferrania,
Ansco... and probably others I can't remember.)

Doug Richardson
(Thus spake the Ancient Photographer, a Leica in his hand)