Another FujiFilm Price increase + Film Discontinuations

[Corran]

Looks like Fuji is at it again:

http://ffis.fujifilm.co.jp/information/articlein_0040.html

http://www.japancamerahunter.com/2015/07/film-news-fujifilm-raises-pricescuts-film-again/

This is official from FujiFilm in Japan.

Most of this stuff is small-format but of note is Velvia 100F sheet film is being cut. Also, a 20% price increase on a lot of sheet film prices too.

I think they've shot themselves in the foot over and over with these constant price hikes.

[Roger Cole]

The shock in that to me is that, apparently, Provia 400X really has still been made and sold in Japan. I have enough in my freezer for this year and next but maybe I could get some more, and fresher, from Japan this year. Stuff is awfully expensive but since I shoot for projection and often in light where 100 just won't cut it, often worth it.

[richardman]

Time to save up $$ to buy a cache of 400x....

[goamules]

I fear soon there will be very little color film. Perhaps none in large format.

[Corran]

I'm glad I personally never got too in to 400x. It's certainly a nice film - I shot a few rolls of it in my Pentax 67, even pushing it to 1600 occasionally.

I hate it but I'm sure reversal film is finished. Even my friends that shoot all or almost all film, can't or won't shoot chromes, either due to price of the film or processing. I'm glad I have a couple hundred rolls of Provia and hundreds of sheets of Provia/Velvia left. I don't know where the threshold is to actually sell reversal stock at a profit but at a price folks can afford.

In 35mm I'm not buying color film anymore except for likely this Rollei Digibase stuff I've been trying. I love it. I hope if FujiFilm packs it up Rollei will expand it to 4x5 and larger.

[John Kasaian]

Everything is going up in price. Everything.

[Rayt]

I can find a substitute for most things including the up to now to me unthinkable digital for color. But nothing is as good as Acros for long exposures. I will just have to do a trip to Tokyo these few months.

[Corran]

Man, I know the "digital for color" thing is really popular, but...personally I'd rather be forced to shoot b&w in digital than color. There's nothing that can emulate the look of color films, IMO.

That said, I don't want either. I am still enjoying wet printing, though I wish I had the time (and the space!) to do it more often.

[StoneNYC]

I announced this about 2 months ago :-p

And yea, 400X and such are still available in Japan that's where I get my 8x10 Velvia50 and 8x10 Acros100 from. :)

[Corran]

Well that's interesting since this was posted by FujiFilm Japan on 7/10/2015.

There's been several (constant) price increases.

[StoneNYC]

Well that's interesting since this was posted by FujiFilm Japan on 7/10/2015.

There's been several (constant) price increases.

Yes and when I did post something here with a link to my FB group buy page, everyone doubted and mocked per the usual.

Check the date of the post...

https://www.facebook.com/8x10Velvia50/posts/1443746262607785

I'm not trying to be an ass or anything of that nature, but I have a contact in Japan and I'm getting info from internals of Fuji now ahead of lots of the official announcements. I've been trying to keep people up to date so they can plan ahead.

[Corran]

Stone, that's all well and good, but rumors and speculation is just that until something substantive from the company is stated. You may have been right this time, but that's irrelevant IMO.

I also imagine your "contact" is breaking the terms of his contract (NDA clause), so I hope you realize his job may be on your head one day.

[StoneNYC]

Stone, that's all well and good, but rumors and speculation is just that until something substantive from the company is stated. You may have been right this time, but that's irrelevant IMO.

I also imagine your "contact" is breaking the terms of his contract (NDA clause), so I hope you realize his job may be on your head one day.

Well the info I received was in announcement sent out to vendors. It wasn't top secret.

Sorry that my info wasn't official enough from my word for you.

Ok I'm out, I've hit my self imposed max posts for the day.

[Corran]

Fuji's announcements have certainly not been a sterling example of clarity and transparency. But either way, you just can't trust everything you hear [read]. Anyway, the official announcement linked is more relevant.

[Kodachrome25]

Brutal, color is just a war zone now. No more Kodak 220 either...

I have about 70 rolls of 400X and a few hundred sheets of 4x5 Velvia to go through then I think I am done with color for the most part, save some projects on Ektar and Portra.

I wonder what Ferrania will look like in 5 year's time?

[Rayt]

Man, I know the "digital for color" thing is really popular, but...personally I'd rather be forced to shoot b&w in digital than color. There's nothing that can emulate the look of color films, IMO.


Yeah I know what you mean. The thing with color is not just about the film but also the processing. Where I am there is only one lab left for processing color C41 or E6 in sheets. After that it will be mail order. At least I can do all my B/W processing and printing. :(

[Corran]

I wonder what Ferrania will look like in 5 year's time?

I wonder as well, hopefully flourishing. I am excited to get the 4 rolls of film in the mail from their Kickstarter!


Yeah I know what you mean. The thing with color is not just about the film but also the processing. Where I am there is only one lab left for processing color C41 or E6 in sheets. After that it will be mail order. At least I can do all my B/W processing and printing. :(

This is why I started home processing C-41 and E-6 last year. I've also been doing a small amount of processing for friends. Surprisingly easy once you get the technical details ironed out, though I certainly wouldn't pit my processing consistency against a top lab.

[Paul Metcalf]

I walked away from any serious photography about 5 years ago, but the unused darkroom (which became an ugly storage room) has finally called me back. The only digital I would do was P&S simply for documentation ("Hey look, here's me doing something stupid... "). My color work (all Jobo-processed transparencies printed on ilfochrome by me) stopped when the availability of Ilfochrome (and it's chemicals, mainly bleach-fix) started to dry up. I didn't want a bunch of transparencies in my files that I never printed. I have less than a 100 sheets of Ilfochrome left, and a bit of bleach-fix left, hopefully enough to make prints of what I have. I'm in the planning stages of moving to digital (at capture) for color work, but I won't print, it will all remain digital. Boring as hell to me, but it will keep me from doing the "if I only had my camera" thing. I'm assuming that someday we'll have fairly inexpensive flat panel displays that we hang like pictures today that are wireless, battery-operated (long life LOL) and can slide-show the quadrillion color images we'll all have stored in the "cloud." Yawn.

[Michael W]

I wonder what Ferrania will look like in 5 year's time?
They'll probably be announcing price increases and product discontinuations.

[dave_whatever]

Sad but inevitable, its a shame Fuji are unable or unwilling to go the route of downsizing film production to a sustainable level and being a bit more proactive about stimulating demand for a quality niche product (the sort of Harman/Ilford style business model). At least we've still got Velvia 50 and Provia for the time being. I reckon I've got enough in the freezer to last me a decade at current rate of shooting. Just need to make sure I've got enough chemicals to see me through home developing it all (which incidentally is relatively affordable and easy, and should not put off anyone who's bemoaning the demise of their local lab).

[sperdynamite]

I walked away from any serious photography about 5 years ago, but the unused darkroom (which became an ugly storage room) has finally called me back. The only digital I would do was P&S simply for documentation ("Hey look, here's me doing something stupid... "). My color work (all Jobo-processed transparencies printed on ilfochrome by me) stopped when the availability of Ilfochrome (and it's chemicals, mainly bleach-fix) started to dry up. I didn't want a bunch of transparencies in my files that I never printed. I have less than a 100 sheets of Ilfochrome left, and a bit of bleach-fix left, hopefully enough to make prints of what I have. I'm in the planning stages of moving to digital (at capture) for color work, but I won't print, it will all remain digital. Boring as hell to me, but it will keep me from doing the "if I only had my camera" thing. I'm assuming that someday we'll have fairly inexpensive flat panel displays that we hang like pictures today that are wireless, battery-operated (long life LOL) and can slide-show the quadrillion color images we'll all have stored in the "cloud." Yawn.

Well, I'm sorry that your ilfochrome process is going away. I truly am! They're rare in the world, but they are beautiful. I have to say though, that it's not the early days of pigment printing anymore. If you do anything digital, my advice would be scan and print. My relatively inexpensive, and relatively small Epson R3000 puts out some pretty wonderful prints, and I get to use fiber based papers. They don't have that wonderful quality that an Ilfochrome/cibachrome had, but they pretty squarely rival my darkroom RA-4 prints. Why not shoot all the Provia/Velvia you can in sheets and print it digitally going forward? I'd much rather do that than never let my images go beyond a hard drive.

[StoneNYC]

I walked away from any serious photography about 5 years ago, but the unused darkroom (which became an ugly storage room) has finally called me back. The only digital I would do was P&S simply for documentation ("Hey look, here's me doing something stupid... "). My color work (all Jobo-processed transparencies printed on ilfochrome by me) stopped when the availability of Ilfochrome (and it's chemicals, mainly bleach-fix) started to dry up. I didn't want a bunch of transparencies in my files that I never printed. I have less than a 100 sheets of Ilfochrome left, and a bit of bleach-fix left, hopefully enough to make prints of what I have. I'm in the planning stages of moving to digital (at capture) for color work, but I won't print, it will all remain digital. Boring as hell to me, but it will keep me from doing the "if I only had my camera" thing. I'm assuming that someday we'll have fairly inexpensive flat panel displays that we hang like pictures today that are wireless, battery-operated (long life LOL) and can slide-show the quadrillion color images we'll all have stored in the "cloud." Yawn.

They already have digital flat panel picture frames that are wirelessly connected to the cloud. FYI.

[Corran]

Yep, scanned transparencies and digital printing is the way to go for many...most of the prints in my last show were ink prints on textured paper from scanned Velvia 4x5 sheets, printed 30-40 inches. The results were excellent and much better than I expected from ink. I'm not much into the metallic paper but if you like that stuff, it makes a great print. I was just looking yesterday at a big 40x32 print I had done from an 8x10 negative on metallic paper that has a great look to it (it's being donated to a charity auction).

[jp]

[Much beloved] slide film is going away because for all intents and purposes, it's not directly printed. Viewing it as an original is a treat, but only for the photographer; nobody stores and organizes images as transparencies anymore like an old stock photo collection.

It's most likely scanned. And if you're going to scan, it's very nice to have the extra dynamic range of a negative film like Ektar100/Portra in camera, and then bump up the contrast or adjust the range on the computer to make it look like your favorite slide film. Call me blasphemous if you want, but I haven't shot slide film for about 10-15 years and use a mix of Dslr and Portra/Ektar now for color.

[StoneNYC]

[Much beloved] slide film is going away because for all intents and purposes, it's not directly printed. Viewing it as an original is a treat, but only for the photographer; nobody stores and organizes images as transparencies anymore like an old stock photo collection.

It's most likely scanned. And if you're going to scan, it's very nice to have the extra dynamic range of a negative film like Ektar100/Portra in camera, and then bump up the contrast or adjust the range on the computer to make it look like your favorite slide film. Call me blasphemous if you want, but I haven't shot slide film for about 10-15 years and use a mix of Dslr and Portra/Ektar now for color.

E6 and C-41 scan WAY differently and it's very obvious and different from my viewpoint, both are nice in different ways but I'm rarely fooled, as they have different looks.

[ic-racer]

Color films are so time consuming to print and LF chromes are fun to see on a light table, but without Cibachrome, again difficult to print.I can see why these color emulsions have limited use. Just don't bring B&W emulsions down with the ship.

[Drew Wiley]

Do what I did. Switch to color neg like Ektar and print it darkroom onto Fuji Supergloss. With a bit of learning curve reapplied to masking technique (not always
needed as with Ciba, but helpful anyway at times), you'll have a look every bit as stunning at half the price in materials. You're extant chromes can be scanned
and printed on the same material via large laser printers. Leaves both inkjet and "metallic" in the dust if you desire that same kind of extreme detail and sense
of depth from large format originals. But the selection of E6 films is fading fast anyway, and I'm down to my very last box of 20x24 frozen Cibachrome, which might or might not still be good. But color neg film is at its peak quality from Kodak right now, and so is RA4 paper especially from Fuji. No need to be intimidated. Do it while you can. Backlit digital displays have about as much appeal to me as a backlit Hamm's beer sign in the window of a skidrow dive.

[Corran]

We all make our [film] choices. I can't stand Ektar.

Probably a discussion for another thread though.

[Drew Wiley]

A different thread indeed.

[Pali K]

Everyone has been pointing out the negatives so I'll add one positive to this price increase. Being new to LF, I feel like my best lessons were learned when I screwed up sheets of 8x10 Velvia 50 so the price increase should add that extra motivation to get things right :p And to add to the learning advantage, it seems like cost is not the only thing you have to worry about because anything under the sun can easily screw up slide film. The need to learn processing E6 at home is another advantage because of the lack of options available easily today :D

On a more serious note, I love color negative and slide film. On the rare occasions when things come together for me on a E6 slide, the feeling that follows is hard to beat. I am glad that I got into LF at a time that I still had the option to shoot color film but bummed that I never got to see Cibachrome. Hope it stays around at least until my legs can still lug around a LF camera.

- Pali

[tgtaylor]

I have 3 high-quality slide projectors, 35mm to 6x7, and a big 6' Da-Lite projection screen along with several thousand slides to project. It's a treat to put up the big screen, load-up several trays and take a trip back in time with some good music playing. Popcorn, Coke/Beer of course.

Eat your heart out.

Thomas

[Drew Wiley]

Just take my word for it, Supergloss can do essentially anything Ciba ever could, and do it better. But that is contingent upon taking the trouble to learn it well,
just like you needed to with Ciba. Traditional RA4 printers can be downright lazy; that's why they whine about film and paper so much. They want to shoot, skin,
and cook the venison just with one pull of the trigger. No wonder fur and raw meat taste bad.

[Paul Metcalf]

Ah, a good reminder to check what's left of the venison, elk, game birds and fish in the freezer, probably time to start restocking.

[Regular Rod]

I think we really like FUJI because of the packaging and feeling silly for such a lightweight decision to buy and use it, we then come up with other better sounding reasons for choosing it.

Today, purely personal view of course, I buy monochrome film from companies I perceive as having a full commitment to producing and continuing to produce film.

For colour, again just a personal view, maybe we are in the dying throes of colour sheet film being available to us? Is it a case of simply buying as and when needed? One thing is for sure some of the prices being expected by some sellers for out of date stock are downright criminal!

RR

[redrockcoulee]

I really do not understand Fuji's pricing. Right now their 120 film is less expensive than Ilford or Kodak and has been for most of the last few years. But the price for 4X5 is way higher. I have not used it in large format partly for that reason although it is my main film in MF. With a 20% increase in price roll film will now be slightly higher than Ilford, at least in Calgary.

It has been a long time since I have shot colour in LF, perhaps I should give it a try again. I can still get C41 processed locally up to 8X10 as long as I am not in a hurry.

[sperdynamite]

I think Fuji will continue making film until it absolutely makes sense to stop, at which time they will jump at the opportunity. I get what they're facing, it's tough. A company can't just tear down a large volume factory and build a whole new one because some die hards want to keep shooting Velvia forever. On the other hand though, their film IS too expensive vs Kodak. Fuji 400H is probably the best wedding and portrait emulsion out there but most people I know switched to Portra because of the costs. I think that's fine because P400/160 are great and Kodak is more likely to keep supplying our C41 materials into the future than Fuji, but it's not ideal. We film shooters live in a world of 'not-ideal' though. My hope would be that somebody like Ilford or Ferrania comes out with a couple of C41 stocks and they make them available in 35/120 and cut sheets. Personally I think Ilford has too many stocks..(Do they still make SFX?) I'd love to see one or two replaced with a color emulsion. They seem like one of the most likely players to stay large and in the film game. There are lots of things that were predicted to vanish years and years ago that you can still buy new today in some form, there are so many large format and film photographers that you can't say there is not a market.

[StoneNYC]

I really do not understand Fuji's pricing. Right now their 120 film is less expensive than Ilford or Kodak and has been for most of the last few years. But the price for 4X5 is way higher. I have not used it in large format partly for that reason although it is my main film in MF. With a 20% increase in price roll film will now be slightly higher than Ilford, at least in Calgary.

It has been a long time since I have shot colour in LF, perhaps I should give it a try again. I can still get C41 processed locally up to 8X10 as long as I am not in a hurry.

It's the same as kodak, TMY-2 (Tmax400) is cheap in 120 but expensive in sheet.

It's because the base material that's used is different, and the cost of the separate run with the sheet film base at lower purchasing numbers means that the cost goes up for the run.

That's why the sheet film is more expensive.

Ilford has smaller runs, and is able to sell more of the sheet film, which offsets that cost of a separate run combined with smaller runs.

It's unfortunate but it's better than not having it to purchase at all.

[Drew Wiley]

I'd be paranoid if Fuji discontinued ACROS 120 film because it's got just enough going for it to make it suitable for 16x20 prints which can sneak into a portfolio with my large format ones. And it's pretty damn affordable in roll film too. I love it in 4x5 as well, but can certainly use more affordable FP4 as a general substitute if needed, even though it is a different animal in terms of spectral sensitivity. 8x10 is a different subject, where speed becomes more a factor than grain size etc. And since I already have way way way more 8x10 chrome shots on hand than I'll ever be able to print, and a few boxes of unopened film still in the freezer, I'm not really affected by what Fuji does or does not do with chrome pricing. More concerned about Kodak and continued availability of color neg sheet film now. But even if that fell through, I could probably freeze enough to last my realistic needs for the duration. But the cost of sheet film base is itself dependent upon cumulative volume for particular items, so just don't think Harman alone will be able to sustain something economical.

[goamules]

What's sad is the only ones commenting are those "hanging on to what I have already." If a new generation of photographers started buying every month or two, we wouldn't be here. I wonder if ANYONE actually starts LF nowadays? If not, it will die out.

[StoneNYC]

What's sad is the only ones commenting are those "hanging on to what I have already." If a new generation of photographers started buying every month or two, we wouldn't be here. I wonder if ANYONE actually starts LF nowadays? If not, it will die out.

I use and buy new on a regular basis, but I do plan to order one more run of 8x10 Acros100 and 8x10 Velvia50 boxes just before the hike if I can afford it. But then I'll use that and buy more at the new price.

[Corran]

I wonder if ANYONE actually starts LF nowadays? If not, it will die out.

What do you mean by "starts?" I don't know anyone who jumped into LF before something smaller. However, the students I know and work with, many of them want to or have started to shoot LF. But none of them shoot transparency film, and only one or two are even interested in color film. All they do in the photography program is b&w so that's usually why. Most students don't even know what reversal film is unless I've shown them, and couldn't afford it if they wanted.

I did talk to a student the other day who was excited to try MF color film but was exceedingly confused as to why he couldn't use D76 to develop it...

[sperdynamite]

What do you mean by "starts?" I don't know anyone who jumped into LF before something smaller. However, the students I know and work with, many of them want to or have started to shoot LF. But none of them shoot transparency film, and only one or two are even interested in color film. All they do in the photography program is b&w so that's usually why. Most students don't even know what reversal film is unless I've shown them, and couldn't afford it if they wanted.

I did talk to a student the other day who was excited to try MF color film but was exceedingly confused as to why he couldn't use D76 to develop it...

Well he's a student so he's there to learn, I wouldn't fault a young person for not knowing everything.

Large format is very much alive in schools that teach it. Once you're exposed to the kind of work that comes out of a view camera it's hard to resist at least to try it. I went to Southern Illinois University and 4x5 was huge with students (I graduated 2007 so not THAT long ago). Actually beyond entry level classes few stuck with 35mm. Medium format has actually taken over as the dominant format for many film shooters working today. Hasselblad's are cheaper than 5Ds and a lot more fun for anyone who wants to be creative.

[Corran]

Yes, the students here get a bit of time with a 4x5 (in the advanced class) and they are usually smitten by the negatives. Sometimes they hate it though! The camera operation that is, and bulk.

Not faulting the student, just a little story.

[Pali K]

I use and buy new on a regular basis, but I do plan to order one more run of 8x10 Acros100 and 8x10 Velvia50 boxes just before the hike if I can afford it. But then I'll use that and buy more at the new price.

Same here - I will likely be buying new stock for sheet Velvia and Provia for as long as they are still available.

Pali