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Fuji to Raise Price of Film, Paper by 30%


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I bought a WHOLE lot of short dated Velvia 50 and Provia 100F in 35mm when B&H had it on sale, and still have a fair bit on hand although I was thinking that I needed to order some more 120 and possibly 4x5 before the spring.

 

With Ektachrome back, Provia is basically dead to me-it's still not my beloved Elite Chrome(and yes, I still have some) but is a well behaved general purpose slide film both for people and things, and I find(for the times it matters) that E100 has better caucasian skin tones than to my eye than Provia. That's not to mention the fact that even though both E100 and RDPIII report an RMS granularity of 8(still not as good as 7 on Astia 100F, a film I like better than anything other than possibly EPP for skin tones), but with the caveat that I find E100 to have a smoother look to the grain. With 120 and sheet film reportedly on the horizon for E100, I don't know that I'll ever shoot another roll or sheet of RDPIII once my current stash is gone.

 

Nothing can replace Velvia 50(RVP/RVP50) for me, so I'll just have to grin and bear the cost.

 

FWIW, E100 stocks have finally stabilized, but my local lab is still reporting enough E6 volume to run 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Admittedly the local camera store got a boost to their numbers a week or two back when I bought a brick, but I've seen the main store sell probably 100 rolls this year-they quit carrying Fuji transparency film 10 years ago because they could rarely sell it before it went out of date(their standard expired price is 1/2 the normal price, so they would lose a LOT of money on a 20 roll box where they'd only sold 5 rolls in date, and at a minimal mark-up).

 

As I mentioned, I'm in okay shape on 35mm, but it looks like I should order 120 before April.

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I wonder how much Instax I can hide in the fridge before my wife notices?

 

Is Astia still available? I didn't shoot much slide film, but I liked Astia.

 

Not for a while-maybe 2009ish?

 

Fuji is down to 3 transparency products-Provia 100F(RDPIII), Velvia 50(RVP50) and Velvia 100(RVP100).

 

Velvia 100F, which was much maligned but I actually didn't mind terribly for "wild colors where you might need to photograph people also", is long gone also. We finally got Velvia 100 in the US, which turns white people red just like 50, but it's very subtly different to my eye in that the yellow-to-orange warming/shift isn't as strong as in RVP/RVP50. It doesn't completely ELIMINATE it like 100F, which is why 100F could handle white skin better than either of the others.

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Is it time to call a boycott on Fuji? How critical is any single product or product line to life?

 

With Kodak now back in the E-6 game(as long as they follow through on 120 and sheet film), I don't see any of their film products as essential, although I have a strong preference for one particular one.

 

A quick check at B&H shows that Kodak only makes RA-4 paper in rolls, while Fuji supplies it in pre-cut sheets.

 

Also, I'm not sure where commercial labs get their E-6 chemistry now-I would GUESS Fuji since at least for the time being I don't think Kodak makes it.

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I must add that I had an inkjet print made from a scan not long ago, just to se one of my images in a larger format. I chose Fuji Pearl paper, a metallic paper? The print was pretty amazing (considering, among other things, the price), I think much because of the content- but I admit their Pearl paper is awesome for some applications.
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I hope to return to 6x6 shooting later this year (after a 15 year absence) and only since Velvia 50 is actually still available. I won't be shooting a lot so the price increase won't hurt much. Let's face it the film market is a tiny fraction of what it once was. I just hope Fuji can press forward with the few films that they do have.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Here is an interesting article that gets into Fuji and their price hike... for a different perspective, this goes a little deeper, I think...

 

Fujifilm: put down your pitchforks, it's survival of the fittest ~ EMULSIVE

 

 

"Shigetaka Komori has stated as much himself in the past but please allow me to put it into my own words:

 

FUJIFILM IS NO LONGER PRIMARILY A PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS, FILM OR DIGITAL. FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF NUMBERS ALONE, IT HASN’T BEEN FOR OVER TWO DECADES. THE COMPANY CONTINUES TO PRODUCE A LOT OF FILM, IT’S JUST NOT THE KIND YOU CAN TAKE PHOTOS WITH.

 

Still, let’s not simply take the company’s CEO and Chairman at his word. How does the published data support this claim?

 

To repeat myself, at peak film, Fujifilm’s Photo Imaging division accounted for 33% of net sales (¥470.3B) and 60% of profits, according to Shigetaka Tomori. With two-thirds of the business wiped out over the next three years, one could be forgiven for thinking that the death of film meant an extinction-level event for Fujifilm."

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I'm for the most part shooting Kodak UltraMax is all. After a 5% price hike it is still affordable for me to use film for general photography. C41 processing at home is a huge savings over mail order developing. Superia with the 30% price hike is still going to be competitive with Kodak actually in the consumer films. No hate for Fuji from me. They are just a business trying to make a dollar. The consumer can buy their product or not as they please. I think the Fuji digital camera's are very popular but even the digital world has problems as sales are shrinking every year in that market also.
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