Posted on November 22 2018

Black Friday

So tomorrow marks the time of year when our US friends have finished their turkeys and pumpkin pies and - as the legend goes - start to think about Christmas for the first time since the previous December...

While we're not sure this is entirely true, there is now a retail tradition of marking the Friday straight after Thanksgiving with some deals and excitement to kick off the festive gift season in style. And we have decided to join in the fun! Note that our Black Friday deals start at 6am UK time on Friday and will run until midnight on Monday - but that there are limited quantities available so don't wait in case you miss out!

What makes a good deal?

There are several different ways that retailers can choose to run these special deals. Some run big price cuts on high value items like TVs, hoping that they attract press and people who then buy other items while in store. Others discount the entire shop to try and capture as much of their customers' Christmas spend as possible in one moment. But both of these are expensive to do and are often only made possible by having higher prices elsewhere in the year.

We strive to have competitive prices on all our films every day so that route is not open to us. So a couple of weeks ago we asked the community what they'd like us to do instead and the answers fell into two broad camps:

Mystery box! With rare/expired/random films as a bit of fun to try new things Bulk deals for people who frequently buy the same stocks to get consistent results and would appreciate some help in making that more affordable in the build-up to Christmas

Rather than choose between these two great ideas, we've decided to do both!

1. Mystery Box

Our mystery box is a collection of 5 different 35mm films (or possibly even a single-use camera...) that have been sourced from around the world. The criteria: films that are not commonly found on our store or any other stores in Europe. This means that they are either rare or expired or something even more random (manufacturer test rolls anyone?!)

They may have expired last year, or 8 years ago, or not at all. Their exposure may be 12exp, 24 or 36 depending on their original design purpose. They may be branded with their original manufacturer's name, a retailer, or with a different company as part of a long-forgotten corporate deal or initiative!

Note that most of the boxes will contain similar films so if you choose to buy multiple please don't be surprised if they are either identical or nearly-identical. Buy yours here now!

Maybe these films will inspire you to step outside of your photographic comfort zone and try to create something new, maybe you will shoot as you normally do and welcome any surprises, or maybe you'll go all-in and try film souping or difficult developing experiments! Whatever you choose to do, we'd love to see the results so please tag us @AnalogueWonderland on Instagram.

2. Bulk Deals

We heard from many photographers that they would love to have an affordable option on the most popular films. So after looking back through our sales results we've chosen the top-selling emulsions and we are putting them on a mix-and-match promotion: Buy 4 Get 5th Free!

This 20% saving is on all Kodak Portra, Ilford HP5 and Yodica films. Regardless of format, so every type of photographer (casual 35mm, devoted 120, and even the 4x5 champions) can stock up ready for the Christmas + winter photo opportunities. Just for fun we've also included the Portra and HP5 pins as well! Browse the full collection of participating products here.

All you need to do is add 5 of any of the participating products (or more!) to your basket, and when you get to checkout the cheapest will automatically be FREE.

Why these films in particular? Well as we said, HP5 and Portra are some of the best-selling emulsions, so we know that many photographers will be helped by a bulk discount. But at the same time we want to continue supporting the small independent manufacturers who are doing so much for the community - and Yodica are a classic example of these fantastic hard-working companies. Find out more by reading their story on an earlier blog post here. And maybe if you're someone who is stocking up on your Kodak or Ilford then you could throw in something you wouldn't normally try, and branch out onto a new photographic journey...

So there we go. Hopefully you'll find something tomorrow that floats your photographic boat and set you up for a wonderful December and beyond. Of course in addition to the Black Friday deals we also have our curated selection of Christmas gift ideas. Have a great weekend whatever you're doing and - as always - Happy Shooting!

Analogue Wonderland