Forte Products

[mrbob]

Yesterday I received a telephone call from Freestyle Photo in LA informing me

that they could not fulfill my order for Forte 4x5 ISO 400 sheet film. I was

told that Forte had gone out of business. I'm aware that Forte had gone belly up

a couple of years ago, but shortly afterwards the company was revived under new

ownership. So, has lightning struck a second time or was I misinformed? <p>

 

Can anyone confirm this news?

[bob_eskridge2]

Sad but true.

[Monophoto]

Sadly, what Freestyle told you is true.

 

Forte announced that they would be closing a few months ago. There were various reports of what happened, but the essence appears to be that they were using old equipment in a very old, and vastly oversized factory, and hence weren't making enough money to justify staying in business. Then, someone came along with a better offer for the real estate, and the owners took the money and ran.

[brucecahn]

Bergger is similar. Forte made their film. There is still some availabe.

[frank_menesdorfer]

Yes I can! Forte is gone and this time it's looks like for ever as I have received an original statement from the company and some of the people worked there were my personal friends.

 

Last time was 3 years ago but than some investors stepped in and brought the firm from the eployes as they were the owners that time.

 

Now it turned out that this group wasn't intrested in the filmaking but the property as those prices rising in Hungary. Also Forte location is in the nice place in the outskirt of the city of Vac by the river of Donau surranded with pine forests. The rest you can list out for yourself.

Now if Forte (I whish) arise this time would need a miracle!

 

However I can get you as many 4x5 400 ISO film as you want fresh films and still got one 11x14/25 sheets and 8 box 7x17. If you look or sourche on the French, Italian and German site after Forte or Europan you will find it.

[frank.schifano]

...or you could try some of the Arista.EDU Ultra sheet films from Freestyle and is made by Foma. I'd be surprised if they did not make the suggestion. I've used some in roll film formats and it's not at all bad stuff. It should be just fine in large format sizes and is very reasonably priced.

[big toys are better]

With any luck the demise of film and paper manufacturers will soon stabilize as demand and supply settle into a steady state. Hopefully Foma, Efke, Ilford and Fuji and a few others will all come out winners now that it looks like Forte and Kodak are going the way of the dinosaurs.

[frank_menesdorfer]

It will but, as I see it the digital market must decide first if they go further on developing sensors for 120 or bigger size with the same image quality or not. If they do than I'm afraid more of the film manufacturers going to disappear as probably only the 8x10 or larger film market going to be left alone and than the need of the film are will drop dramatically again.

 

The biggest turn around and the losses begin with those cell/mobile phones. That hit the market hard both B/W and colour mostly on the 135 mm film which of course was major income for all manufacturers.

 

And than again China rises as B/W film manufacturers for large format with competitive prices and as I have heard with good quality too! Do you know that Shanghai film contain some 3.5 g silver per square meter? At least this is what the company state of their products.

[gene_e._mccluney]

You talk about 35mm being hit hard with digital sales..well, it seems that 35mm is still the

most popular size for film. Notice how many more choices of emulsion we have in 35mm,

that are not now available in larger sizes.

[frank_menesdorfer]

Yes you are correct of course but still it's the consumer side of the business we are talking about and what they produce today it's only a 1/3 what they did just some years ago if we count in millions of square meters and it's falling all the time as the digital technology advance . I mean image quality, Photoshop and printing possibilities.

 

It's very hard to argue with those using or gone over to the digital system to get back to film again because of the costs and some of the above mentioned factors. However there is no failure in the digital imaging you can take a hundreds of images and cost nothing and you don't had to learn anything about films and their types and where to use those.. I believe that I'm saying the truth when I state that this is the easy way in or out for those who have no knowledge of the traditional photographic art.

 

And of course I don't had to mentioned that it will kill the 35 mm film market slowly but will not effect the large format as like me I won't give up and I think many readers in this site think like me. This is the art of the photography.

 

The next step would be a 120 mm film as here in Sweden you hardly find pro studios which not using digital system already and the general attitude is that "film is primitive" and this statement coming from many pro photographers. In this country a war is going on between traditionalists and digitalists.

 

So just think about it.