Astia discontinued?

[Joe O'Hara]

FWIW, I was told recently by a Fujifilm person that Astia is no longer being made. This was in response to my question about a handout at Photokina last week, as to why Astia was not among the films listed. I did not get the gentleman's name, but his words (in English) were "No more Astia". Unfortunate, if true. Has anyone heard otherwise?

[Wayne Crider]

I Googled it and the only mention of Astia no longer being made was in Quickloads, and in 12 and 24 35mm loads it's being phased out. The 4x5 sheets will be only packaged in 20 packs. (B&H has it in 10 packs in stock) The March 2010 revised list of film is available at www.japanexposures.com. I did quick scan some mention about the availability of 35mm Astia in England. There have been rumors about Astia's demise back to 2002 from what I notice, so be careful as to the date of any research.

[timparkin]

I Googled it and the only mention of Astia no longer being made was in Quickloads, and in 12 and 24 35mm loads it's being phased out. The 4x5 sheets will be only packaged in 20 packs. (B&H has it in 10 packs in stock) The March 2010 revised list of film is available at www.japanexposures.com. I did quick scan some mention about the availability of 35mm Astia in England. There have been rumors about Astia's demise back to 2002 from what I notice, so be careful as to the date of any research.

Astia has been delisted by UK importers (not enough demand to risk loss of stock) and this possibly extends to some european importers. However, as far as I can tell no 'discontinuation' notice has been issued by Fuji. I have seen many mentions of Astia being sold in new 20 sheet boxes which would indicate that it isn't being discontinued. However I have yet to see one of these 20 sheet boxes for sale 'in the wild'.

Tim

[Sevo]

Some distributors have dropped it - in particular the Fujifilm UK web shop, which was for a while the cheapest source for it. But it is not delisted by Fuji Japan, and the last I got this month though our local pro shop had 2012 expiry dates plus/minus a month or two of the Velvia and Provia I purchaed at the same time, so they are at the very least still actively packaging.

[Sam N]

I tried ordering some Astia from Adorama and they cancelled my order saying that Fuji has discontinued it in 4x5.

It's too bad... I really like that film.

[Dirk Rösler]

Still listed on the Japanese catalogue as normal, all formats 8x10 to 35mm.

Regions/countries and even retailers may do their own thing. Don't infer that a product is discontinued just because you can't buy it.

[Morca]

I sure hope not, it's by far my favorite film for portraits, even though I've only shot a few sheets of it.

[Marc B.]

Freestyle Photo lists Astia, 100 ASA in 20 sheet boxes, but only in 4X5.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/c1303-Color-Slide-Film-Sheet-Film-ULF-Ultra-Large-Forma

[urs0polar]

FWIW, I was just told at B&H today that Astia 100 in 35mm is discontinued. They are selling at $10 a roll. Didn't think to ask about 4x5.

[Ben Syverson]

Regions/countries and even retailers may do their own thing. Don't infer that a product is discontinued just because you can't buy it.
Dirk, do you have old stock, or have you reordered in the past few months?

Just saying... Two years ago, I would search "Astia 4x5" on eBay US and get a dozen results. Today, zero... Totally gone from all US retailers, online or otherwise... Maybe the distinction between the current situation and "discontinued" is slightly too subtle for me to grasp...

The same thing happened a few months ago with Fuji Presto 1600. I started a thread on RFF asking if it was gone or not, and people piled on, telling me it was still available in Japan and that Fujifilm just wasn't very communicative. Well, turns out it was discontinued.

[cheyda]

A few weeks ago I used the contact form on the Fuji's U.S. website to inquire about the availability of Astia in 4x5 sheets. The response I received was as follows:

"Please be advised that Astia 100F 4x5 10 sheet packs have been
discontinued. Astia 100F 4x5 is now available in 20 sheet packs."

I've recently purchased Astia in 20 sheet boxes from Badger Graphic, so I know the 20 sheet boxes exist. However, the fact that so few retailers seem to have the film in stock is worrisome.

[Oren Grad]

FWIW, the Fujifilm web page listing transparency films available in the home market is here:

http://fujifilm.jp/personal/jan/reversal.html

Astia 100F is shown as available in 135/36, 120, 220, 4x5 (20 sheets), 4x5 QL (20 sheets) and 8x10 (20 sheets). As of right now, none of them is flagged as "discontinued" or "remaining stocks only".

I just checked the sheet film section on the website of Bic Camera, one of the big Japanese retailers, and they're still taking orders for all three. Yodobashi Camera is showing 4x5 QL and 8x10.

This could change at any time, of course.

[Daniel Stone]

did you guys see the price of astia in 8x10(20sheet box)?

http://www.yodobashi.com/ec/product/100000001001237403/index.html

per the XE currency converter, 26,800Yen = ~$320

ouch! Thats $16/sheet + shipping!

-Dan

[Eric James]

FWIW, I was just told at B&H today that Astia 100 in 35mm is discontinued. They are selling at $10 a roll. Didn't think to ask about 4x5.

Their website shows it in stock for $7.55/roll - same price as last week.

[Deane Johnson]

did you guys see the price of astia in 8x10(20sheet box)?

http://www.yodobashi.com/ec/product/100000001001237403/index.html

per the XE currency converter, 26,800Yen = ~$320

ouch! Thats $16/sheet + shipping!

-Dan

That might slow one down a little on too much bracketing.:)

[Ben Syverson]

I have to say... I used to be a big Astia fan, but these days there is no reason to shoot E6 unless you need to project it. Ektar 100 has finer grain, better resolution and far greater latitude.

[Daniel Stone]

ben,

tell that to Rodney Lough Jr., I think his primary emulsion is Astia.

but then again, having multiple galleries can support the price of 8x10 chromes :)

-Dan

[dave_whatever]

I have to say... I used to be a big Astia fan, but these days there is no reason to shoot E6 unless you need to project it. Ektar 100 has finer grain, better resolution and far greater latitude.

....but looks nothing like E6 film.;)

[Ben Syverson]

It's true, I love looking at an 8x10 transparency on the lightbox.

In Photoshop, not so much...

[Roboflick]

I love it for stereo photography, ultra fine grain(RMS 7) and excellent reproduction of skin tones. I am stocking a freezer with it in 35mm 120 and 4by5(for portraits not stereo)

Nik

[John NYC]

I love 8x10 slide film and lament the day when it will all be a thing of the past. I shoot E100G and now Provia, but hate to see any of it go.

One of the things I love about slide film is that I can look at it in the light and compare it to my scan and tweak the scan until it looks just like the slide.

[Daniel Stone]

just a little "bump" to this thread, but felt it might be pertinent to anyone interested in the future of Astia in 8x10, and possibly 4x5. Rodney Lough Jr. in the interview video below talks about how Fuji supposedly doesn't make it anymore. So, seeing that he's part of some 'team' of theirs, I think it could be a definite call. Especially if someone of his caliber can't even get it ;).

about the 22:20min mark he talks about how HE uses Astia(well, what he now has left)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M08PVdadOMw

its an ok interview too

-Dan

[Drew Wiley]

Since 8x10 Astia is avail in 20-sheet boxes in Japan, that's fairly recent packaging
and implies it is still alive there. But the price is insane if it gets shipped here. I like
E100G too, but it's no substitute for Astia. Different characteristics. My main use for
Astia 100F was for color dupe work - best film ever for that.

[Ed Kelsey]

Yes but how long before they kill Velvia and Provia?

[urs0polar]

I can see where Astia might be gone now, or will soon. A smaller market has forced film mfrs to move to core products only, and photoshop reduces the need for many flavors of film. We just don't need the many flavors of film like we did 15 years ago. Seems to me the popular ones are Provia and Velvia, and Astia (although I never shot it) is pretty much Provia with less contrast. You might like the unique characteristics that differentiate Provia from Astia, but it might not be a big enough difference for Fuji to care, and they might just say let photoshop handle it. My impression has always been that Astia has always been the least popular for Fuji, and provia or velvia handles the rest, and rather then astia a better choice is move on to color neg when you have contrasty scenes. I don't see it as an end to film approaching,,,with photoshop we need only core products, and a smaller market in any industry always meant less choice.

Just do it in photoshop!? Blasphemy!!!

hehe :)

I think it's great to have so much choice; if I'm going to do major color balancing/correction in PS, why not just take the picture with a DSLR in the first place.

Strange that with all of this going on, Kodak released Ektar and the new Portra 400. Fuji needs to release some new films too! (a man can dream).

[John NYC]

The problem is everyone has a narrow view in analyzing the market. Stop looking at just film, look at what is produced in hardware. Fuji (who is manufacturing the film) just brought out a second generation 6x7 folder film camera (not a replacement)....that's two folders on the market.

It's a niche thing, I think. They made supposedly 5,000 of these (6,000 according to some) in their first production run, and they don't seem to have sold out from this run yet.

I bought mine, by the way, in fall of 2009.

From this forum you'd think that the Fujinon 240A f/9 would be flying off the shelves if available new, yet it is not available new -- at least in the U.S. An old one in a silver trimmed copal just went for $700 here! If Fuji thought LF film had a future, they'd definitely be doing a run of these lenses and shipping them all to us dorks here State-side, I'd think.

[Drew Wiley]

A lot of bad comparisons. Anyone with patience and reasonably good machine shop
and woodworking skills can make a view camera. And if you come up with a good
design, you can make a cottage industry out of it and possibly even sell enough to
turn a reasonable profit. Try making a reliable color film. And John - no dealer in
their right mind would be importing Fuji lenses right now due to the horrible exchange rate. If they did, someone else would undercut them when the dollar
strengthens against the yen. Timing is everything in that game.

[Drew Wiley]

You've got that one wrong too, Van. Although the Fuji-A is similar to G-Claron and
superbly corrected at close range, it was marketed as a multi-purpose lens, not as a process lens. It is in fact excellent at infinity too, stopped down a little. The appeal
of the Fuji A, besides this fact, is that it's tiny and extremely lightwt - great for
backpacking, compact travel, etc. In relation to cost, sometimes Japanese lenses are much cheaper than German, sometimes more - just depends on the exchange
rates and demand. At one point I sold most of my German lenses well-used and
replaced them with brand-new Japanese for around the same sum, just working with
the timing and in which direction the dollar had the most clout.

[Ken Lee]

I'm not an optics expert, but looking at the lens cross-sections, we see that the Fujinon A lenses look like Plasmat designs, rather than the more simple symmetrical designs that are typical of process lenses.

What may have confused people, is that the A series are f/9 lenses - which is a common size for process lenses. The A stands for apochromat. I guess they had to call them something.

I have never seen in their literature that they are process lenses or modified process lenses, or even that they are intended for close work, like real macro lenses, or flat work, like process lenses.

What they are, as far as I can tell, is simply compact plasmats: excellent general purpose lenses with wide coverage, which (compared to their f/5.6 cousins as made by Rodenstock, Schneider and Nikon) require smaller shutters and filters.

The Fuji C lenses are truly compact designs: they are not Plasmats, but Celor and Tessar designs with fewer elements and therefore more modest performance at the extremes of coverage. Like the A lenses, the Fujinon C lenses open to narrower apertures than real Tessars (which open to f/6.3 or f/4.5). The 450, for example, only opens to f/11.5 - but few people shoot any wider than f/16 in the field.

That's where these lenses shine - in the field - again because they are small, light, and take small filters. In fact, the Fujinon 450C takes the same 52mm filters as the 240A. A normal Tessar or Heliar or Plasmat of 450mm length, would be very heavy, too large for a simple shutter, and require a 100mm filter. According to this site (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lenses/), a Rodenstock 240mm APO Sironar S lens, at f/6.3, takes 86mm filters.

[Drew Wiley]

Process lenses were those marketed for copy cameras. Repro Clarons were included
in this category. What most of us shoot with, in terms of G-Clarons, is the relatively modern six element version marketed for tabletop photography. Fujinon A's are very
similar except multi-coated, but were quietly marketed in the brochures as "Super
Apochromats" intended for a range of uses. The 250 G-Claron was fitted in a no.1
shutter, the 240 Fuji in a no.O. I have both of them and use them both for all kinds
of things. A very slight difference in contrast due to the coating difference, and both
easily cover 8x10 with moderate movements, provided they are stopped down.

[Drew Wiley]

Should have added - process lenses were typically sold in barrel version, whereas
taking lenses were generally marketed in conventional shutters.

[John NYC]

I don't know about the Fuji, but here is what Schneider said about the G-Claron line...

http://www.schneiderkreuznach.com/archiv/pdf/gcn.pdf

Personally, I have found my 240 (and now 300) G-Claron to be sharper at infinity than the Copal #3 plasmat (Caltar) I bought and tried a while ago.

[Drew Wiley]

The marketing of G-Clarons was cryptic as best (to Schneider's loss), and Fuji was
also undermarketed. G-Claron absolutely had a history of process use; but in this
country at least, I can't find any evidence that Fujinon A's were ever associated with
the printing industry. And so far, I've never seen an "A" lens that wasn't associated
with view camera use. Maybe someone in Japan knows the history behind this. Even the very rare 600 and 1200 mm versions were intended for shooting, not copy. But
in any case, I sure love em.

[Ken Lee]

Thalmann spends a great deal of time researching lenses...and he calls it also a process lens.

With all due respect, I believe he was mistaken: mislead perhaps, by the f/9 aperture.

If you look at the 1981 Fujinon A lens cross-section (http://www.thalmann.com/largeformat/as-sfs.htm) (on Kerry's site), you'll see that it doesn't look like a typical process (http://www.kenleegallery.com/pdf/Process-Nikkor.pdf)lens. It looks like a Sironar (http://www.rodenstock-photo.com/en/main/products/lenses-for-analog-photography/apo-sironar-s/).

You'll note that they were called AS, rather than A. AS stands for Super Apochromat. The catalog describes them as such, and lauds their color correction. Nowhere does it mention suitability for photo engraving or copying of flat objects. Instead, they are "fine performers" for both "long-distance" and "close-ups".

How better to describe a general-purpose lens ?

[Sal Santamaura]

With all due respect, I believe he was mistaken: mislead perhaps, by the f/9 aperture...Instead, they are "fine performers" for both "long-distance" and "close-ups"...How better to describe a general-purpose lens ?Archive Ken, archive. :)

See this post:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showpost.php?p=72884&postcount=16

You even posted in the thread it's from. :)

[Ken Lee]

"I know of at least one error in this booklet; it erroneously claimed the 250mm f/6.7 was EBC multicoated, while in fact that lens was only single coated. So, take this with a grain of salt. The AS series, which included 180mm, 240mm, 300mm and 360mm lenses, all f/9, is listed as "Wide Field Apochromatic Lens Series EBC Coated. Optimized for 1:1 to 1:5."

Emphasis mine.

Does it make sense for Fuji to hide the fact that those lenses were in fact Macro designs in other catalogs ?

Would a company design and manufacture a line of macro lenses - and then promote them as general purpose lenses ?

Fuji had several lines of wide field lenses, whose name purposely included the letter W. See http://www.subclub.org/fujinon/byseries.htm Almost all of them had a wider angle of coverage than the A series' 70 degrees. The ones which didn't, were long lenses to begin with.

I guess there is some disagreement here: Arne Croell, in that same thread, stated "...the G-Clarons, which are Plasmats like the Fujinon-A...."

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. And we can certainly agree to disagree. I'm sorry for making a bigger deal out of this than it deserves.

[Sal Santamaura]

..Would a company design and manufacture a line of macro lenses - and then promote them as general purpose lenses ?...Sure, if their small size, light weight and good coverage meant that photographers found them very attractive for general purpose field use. :)

[Drew Wiley]

I spoke to the Fuji reps about this years ago, before the A lenses were even MC, when
they were known only to a small number of people in the US. They classified them as
tabletop lenses, but said the ones they sold were mostly to landscape photographers
due to the lightwt and superb optical formula which worked for just about any common
problem. I got in a brawl with Sal over whether a 250/6.7 W ever existed multicoated
or not. In hindsight, I think he was correct all along, and that the exceptional characteristics of this lens (which virtually matched the best MC lenses of the time)
was probably due to some special glass type no longer available. Typos no doubt occur
from time to time. (My lens was stolen, so I have only the empty box, but I replaced it
with a MC 240 A, which is an even better performer except for a bit less surplus coverage on 8x10). A good clue is that fact that process lenses were typically sold in
barrel for use in Compur electronic shutters. Cheapo process cameras (for silkscreen use etc) without electronic shutters would never have used lenses of this quality or price in the first place.

[Drew Wiley]

Another trivia bit - Fuji A lenses are indeed optimized at close range (not macro per se), so like later G-Clarons perform much better than general-purpose plasmats close
up. By contrast, Fuji C lenses are optimized at infinity, and are superb in that respect
almost wide open (yet not very good with extreme closeups). But by the time you hit
f/16 or f/22, the A lenses are virtually equal at inifinity (or perhaps a little smaller aperture with the 360A - I just did an infinity comparison of several of these lenses
less than two weeks ago, just to refresh my memory for 4x5 use, since I normally use
these lenses on 8x10 instead).

[Sal Santamaura]

...I got in a brawl with Sal over whether a 250/6.7 W ever existed multicoated or not. In hindsight, I think he was correct all along...Drew, I never brawl, particularly on this forum. We simply had a discussion. :)

Doesn't matter whether the 250/6.7 was ever multicoated; I like mine as much as my EBC 240A. And EBC 300A. And EBC 360A. :)

[Drew Wiley]

Well Sal, I was never really interested in who was right or wrong. It was more a
Smiley's People thing - trying to sleuth out the optical engineers secrets. I had been
under my older brother's influence per lenses, you know, old school thinking to always buy Schneider. But here was this 250/6.7 lens with wider coverage and a smaller shutter, real tempting, which turned out to also have way better contrast
and micro-detail than my multi-coated Schneider plasmats. And the color of the lens
looked different than others. I have no idea why. At what point is a lens considered
multi-coated? It certainly didn't have the coatings look of current Fuji EBC lenses,
but hypothetically, you could have one type of coating on one element, and another
type on a different element, or even on the backside of the same element. I've spoken to optical engineers about such things, and they can do all kinds of crazy
things to fine-tune the properties of the lens which aren't exactly multi-coatings in
the conventional sense. It just really intrigues me, especially since Fuji seems so
secretive. Anyway, that lens really hooked me, and I started buying Fujinons ever
since, though I never totally gave up on German lenses.