The New Poundland Film & Where you Can Get A lot more for your Money

Poundland deserve some Kudos for keeping us Brits in cheap film for many years but when Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200 (AVP200) was pulled mid 2017 the dream died. Then just in December a new film appeared on the shelf at Poundland. But whilst it may be the cheapest film on the High Street, it is no bargain.

It was a miracle that Poundland kept me in cheap film well into 2017. AVP200 was basically rebranded Fujifilm C200 and a fine budget film. At a quid it was a bargain and the cheapest fresh film you could buy in the UK. But it wasn’t necessarily the cheapest by the time you added processing costs on as I’ve discussed before. This was due to the fact it was 24 Exposures making 36exp film that cost more than twice as much actually that bit cheaper.

Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200
Good old AVP200

Still it was on the High Street and even with the above still quite cheap.

AVP200’s pull from the shelves occurred around the time the pound fell. This may or may not (depending on your viewpoint ) had something to do with the Brexit vote. Many of us hoped Poundland would simply increase the cost (£2 or even £3 would have been still reasonable for a High Street roll of film). But it looked like film and Poundland had parted ways.

Then in December this appeared

The New Poundland Film

£2 film from Poundland but only 10 exp

It is in fact yet again C200 just re-branded as “Power Geek”. So it costs £2 so whats my problem ?

Take a look at the exposure count. Yes that is just 10exp !!!

Now lets add in processing costs. For this exercise I’ll use those nice folk at Digital Photo Express Carlisle’s 2 day D&P and scan service. This costs £5.99 a roll so buy and processing our Power Geek film works out as 80p a frame

That’s the price of a Instax Mini Frame on a good day !!

On the high street

So I crossed the road to Boots, the only other film Purveyor on the most UK high Streets. I was slightly shocked initially to find their cheapest colour film was C200 (36exp) costing a whopping £7.99. That’s grossly overpriced by anyone’s standards. Currently if you buy a 5 pack of Kodak Portra 160 a pro film on Amazon.co.uk at the time of typing each roll will be less than that.

However it still works out half the price of the Power Geek by the time you add in D&P +scan. Just 39p a frame

A better deal was the Ilford XP2 C-41 Monochromatic film. At £6.99 although not cheap for this great film, not that bad on the high street. It works out as 36p a frame.

Online bargain alternatives

Even the Kodak Portra mention above works out cheaper with a per frame cost just below that of the C200

Of course going for entry level films online can reduce costs further. Currently on eBay you can buy 10x C200 36exp for £24.99 fresh. Thats just 49p more a roll for over 3x the number of frames. It works out as 24p a frame. Kodak Colour Plus can be found for about the same or just a bit more if buying in 10+ rolls

The cheapest film on sale by a trusted vendor is slightly expired (july 2018) C200 24exp. First call are selling it for a mere £1.50 a roll but you’ll need to buy a lot to make the £7,99 Postage worthwhile. Still 20 rolls will set you back £37.99 (£1.89 a roll). That works out as 32p a shot.

12 thoughts on “The New Poundland Film & Where you Can Get A lot more for your Money”

  1. My local Boots has had Lomo in 3 packs. No postage so online is only better with bulk buys and minimal postage. Have not checked recently as working through Kodak 200 bought online.

    1. My branch didn’t have any lomography films on sale (didn’t check the empty space tags though) and as not on their site assumed had stopped doing. My recall is worked out about £5 a 36exp roll which would work out as ~30p a frame and would be cheaper even undeveloped per frame

      Well spotted.

  2. I have bought a couple of rolls of this ‘new’ Poundland film. Ten frames is fine by me. Your maths working out the cost per frame is spurious as I will rarely (if ever) want 36 shots at time. 24 exposure film is frequently too long for me. If I shoot the ten frames I actually want and then ‘use up’ the rest of the film I gain nothing from the putative cheaper cost per frame.

    I note that this film is in plastic cassettes – I am hoping these will be useful for when I use bulk film. They should be easier to use than metal cassettes.

    1. Totally valid point John. If all you need are 10 shots then why worry. This becomes the cheapest you can buy in that circumstance. Let us know if the plastic canisters work for loading with bulk film

      1. It’s not a valid point at all. John claims he will rarely ever want more than 10 shots from 35mm on this film, well, I suppose if that’s how his turnaround and work flow goes then great. All done 10 shots… + then the cost of dev.

        Now, is that economical? The cost of dev for one 10 shot roll of film or 24/36? How is his point valid in the slightest? Perhaps John feels that after 10 shots of a 36 exp roll he will just rewind past the uneeded 26 and eject for dev to maintain this work flow? Is the economy ‘time’ here?

        Is the economy he’s mentioning saving the celluloid? If so then praise be. That very economically and perhaps environmentally friendly I suppose (not discounting the more frequent usage and hastened expiry of chemicals for 3 or four devs per 10 shots instead of 36).

        It does make me ask if they are a bulk loader, however, how sourcing the plastic cartridges from these would also have been economical at the cost they each sold for?

        Perhaps John usually shoots 10 6×6? (this film must have been a bit of a shocker)

        Sorry, just happened across this old article. It’s surprising what kind of pats lays around on the internet after some years. Photographers usually being massive culprits.

        1. On one hand you’re totally right, however you develop your rolls a 36 exp is always gonna be cheaper per frame. Most labs I use charge a set fee irrespective of film length and I’ve cover that back in the day when you could buy a roll of 24exp in Poundland for a quid but it would work out more expensive than even Porta by the time you added in some development costs. Some labs do charge less for smaller rolls but it never quite works out in your favour.

          In fairness I think John does his own Dev so his costs are small. Jon’s another camera blogger and I can see with his view that sometimes 10-12 shots are enough to et a feel. Myself I rarely review something without doing 2 rolls of 24-36exp but that’s my workflow and even on a single roll review I’ll use a 36exp (and that’s normally for half frames). But each to their own and at the time of writing this the Geek squad was by some margin the cheapest roll on the high street (although not per frame).

          In 2021 when a roll of C200 or colourplus 200 costs £7-8 quid for 24 exp this becomes more interesting as a proposition for a couple of quid for home developers.

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