Fuji Canada Discontinuing Astia

[fishfish]

Just for general interest, just reviewed the new Fuji Canada price sheets, and A LL formats of Astia (RAP) have been dropped from the Canadian market; not sure i f this is a Fuji Canada marketing plan, or the beginning of the end of Astia, bu t it is confirmed by Fuji Canada that the film has been withdrawn from the marke t here.

e.

Eric Boutilier-Brown Halifax, NS, Canada

http://www.evolvingbeauty.com

[Dominique Labrosse]

Thanks for the info Eric. I guess this cements my my recent wavering over to E100 for people work. I know that you are mainly a B&W guy but out of curiosity, what do you use to shoot people in colour?

Regards,

[Wayne Crider]

What a shame. Astia is such a nice film at push 1. The contrast and color actually look better. I'm surprised that more people aren't shooting it at that speed. In fact it can do a 2 stop push rated at 320.

[fishfish]

Hi Dominique; for colour trannies, I have nothing better then Astia (sigh) for beautiful skintones etc. I used it at EI 80, prefering the luninous highlights that this gives. Where I used to work has a Fuji Pictography 4000, which gave beautiful output from good scan - nothing I have seen yet rivals it.

Now that I have moved stores, I am back to shooting colour neg, as I have access to RA4, so I can print my own work on Fuji Crystal Archive papers. I prefer softer colour neg films - Agfa XPS, Fuji NPS, and at last resort, the Kodak Portra series. My curent fetish is Fuji 1600, which gives decently large grain, and great blown- highlights. The irony is that in B+W I shoot 8x10 film, and at the same time, I use 35mm highspeed infra-red (one of the grainiest films on the market) and Fuji 1600...two ends of the spectrum.

e.

http://www.evolvingbeauty.com

[chris jordan]

i think the new Provia 100f is superior to ALL of the previous fuji trannie films-- you can make it look like astia (but with better blacks) by slightly overexposing it. and, it's sharper than velvia-- substantially tighter grain patter, if you can imagine that. i'm making 600 MB scans from my 4x5's and they're amazing.

[Anthony Harrison]

It's a shame if Astia is going the same way as RMS, both of which not only give great skin tones but are my films of choice for shooting interiors. The suggestion that Provia F is "superior" is a considerable generalisation: superior in what way? Yes, it's even finer grained, but slight over-exposure (yes, I've done that) in no way produces results similar to Astia. I dislike F's colour balance - I've found consistent yellowish-greenish overtones on rollfilm and 35mm - and its coldness. I still have lots of RMS in the fridge, but when that's gone there might be no more. Then, if I can't get Astia either, I might just have to use one of the ever-changing Kodak emulsions, until that too gets binned... By which time we'll be shooting digital full-time anyway, then these particular arguments will be of interest only to reactionary pedants.

[Andre Noble]

Well hell, if giga-bit digital film holders and archival color micropiezo head printers are color's future, then bring it on!

Let Fujifilm worry about the future of Fuji film.

[Julio Fernandez]

Eric: Fujifilm Canada is notorious for aggressive profit seeking even if that involves some discomfort to customers. Witness Quickload, which is sold in the US but not in Canada. Fuji's discontinuation of Astia is no sure sign that Fujifilm will discontinue it in other countries but it does indicate that Canadian sales are probably too small to warrant the risk of their having to write off outdated stock. Furthermore, I am told, Fujifilm frowns on Canadian dealers importing from the US goods they do not sell to the Canadian market.