Zero chances.
Acros 100 in peril?
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Zero chances.
This is what bothers me the most, the brazen dishonesty of Fujifilm. If they are going to discontinue the film, why not say so? Why keep it hidden? Let people know so that they can stock up at a more measured pace rather than the stampede that eventually forms.
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cause maybe they aren't going to discontinue it, and it is all internet heresay
or rumor or speculation by even film distributers and vendors. if nothing has
been concretely said by fuji why not wait until they say it before you get upset.
there used to be a company here in new england in the 1970s and every 6months or a year
they would announce they were going out of business and they never did, it was just
a way to get people to buy what they had to offer. sorry to see acros go. and if it does
there are other emulsions still being made by fuji and other companies. people can buy them ..
or change how they make photographs, use larger format cameras ane make their own photographic
materials. if people think that the manufacturers are going to make things that don't sell, and they don't make
a profit from they are dillusional at best. they ( other companies too, not just fuji ) can get rid of
stuff that doesn't sell well enough and put their $$ into things that sell more. we've been in a time machine for
10years at least, its not back to 1910 yet but will be there soon enough,
or rumor or speculation by even film distributers and vendors. if nothing has
been concretely said by fuji why not wait until they say it before you get upset.
there used to be a company here in new england in the 1970s and every 6months or a year
they would announce they were going out of business and they never did, it was just
a way to get people to buy what they had to offer. sorry to see acros go. and if it does
there are other emulsions still being made by fuji and other companies. people can buy them ..
or change how they make photographs, use larger format cameras ane make their own photographic
materials. if people think that the manufacturers are going to make things that don't sell, and they don't make
a profit from they are dillusional at best. they ( other companies too, not just fuji ) can get rid of
stuff that doesn't sell well enough and put their $$ into things that sell more. we've been in a time machine for
10years at least, its not back to 1910 yet but will be there soon enough,
I wonder if this is part of the film business model; when Kodak discontinued cut sheets of Supra Endura their customer service claimed there was stock and no notice of discontinuation, then when stocks dried up it was suddenly gone but the rumours of it being discontinued were around months before. A lot of colour printers were caught out and had little stock to carry on with.
Oh, and condolences to all Acros lovers, especially pinholers who will struggle to find a replacement with such good reciprocity.
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it was part of kodak's model alright
i called and spoke with some VEEP there back in the early 2000s when they got rid of their
paper making plants in south america. they just said, they were consolidating their "stuff"
and had no plans on discontinuting any kodak photographic papers .. less than a week later
worldwide announcement they were getting out of the kodak paper business.
The main issue here is the specifity of production. PE stated this around. A formula that works for Fuji, won't work elsewhere without extensive readjustment. IIRC the example that was discussed for example was taking a current Kodak formula (Portra) and try to make it in Ferrania's small coater. Even scaling could present its own difficulties.
Losing Fuji means the loss of an entire legacy of film manufacturing know how.
Adox has/has been working with projects about bringing old formulas; Specially Agfa type. CHS, which is a replacement following the characteristics of Efke film. APX 400 which they were able to make a trial release but halted due to economic disadvantage in the B&W ISO 400 market. Paper products, they have MCP/MCC which would be Agfa's paper lineage and they have a project for a descendant of Forte Polywarmtone. The latter is another example for specificity because they even bought the original kettles!
The discontinuance of Acros in sheet film sizes hit me hard, because it was one of my big sellers. I still sell a lot of it in 35mm and 120 and this new development will again disrupt my financials. Before long, I'll find some more big sellers. That's what Fuji did, and that's what I'll do.
Kumar
Kumar
This seems to happen with more regularity than you think. I just discovered infrared when Kodak HIE was discontinued. Similarly, I missed what was left of Polaroid because I didn't have any cameras and didn't know much about their film stocks beyond integral film when they went bankrupt. I wish I had stocked up on tungsten and high speed slide film when they were still in production. When Fuji announced the end of peel apart films I bit the bullet and bought an old land camera so I could at least have the experience of shooting that kind of film/camera, even though I have a limited number of boxes to do so with. It's even worse with paper - so many wonderful old papers are gone (or have had emulsion changes and are not the same as they once were).
On the one hand, I would say shoot some Acros while you can, if you can get a hold of it. On the other hand, I would say, don't bother, because if you love it, it will be frustrating to just have discovered it only to lose it.
That said, some films do come back from the dead (Kodak brought back Tmax 3200 and is bringing back Ektachrome, even Fuji brought back Velvia after they had discontinued it, Ferrania is trying to bring back their films as well), but I would never count on it from happening. If there is something you love, stock up on it or move on to something else.
How unfortunate for both Kodak and Fuji that they didn't hire a management/marketing genius like you to run their company/division. If they had, without doubt your immense insight would have enabled both to stave off the worldwide transition to digital imaging and continue to offer a vast selection of silver halide imaging products in virtually unlimited quantities at bargain prices.
It’s economic reality. The film market is a fraction of the size it once was and will never be that size again. If you’re set up to make at that capacity, serving what market is left is not that easy unless you re-tool for a smaller production capacity, which costs money.
Fuji doesn’t appear to be interested in retooling.
Kodak, Ilford, and Foma are. You can see it happening with Kodak and re-releasing slide film. Part of bringing it back was retooling for smaller production runs.
At the end of the day, Fuji is a business and they will make business decisions that they think will benefit their business. If they don’t think they can make a good business of it, they’ll exit.
Unless you’re an insider, the whys are speculation and I’d rather get on with shooting with what’s available.
Fuji doesn’t appear to be interested in retooling.
Kodak, Ilford, and Foma are. You can see it happening with Kodak and re-releasing slide film. Part of bringing it back was retooling for smaller production runs.
At the end of the day, Fuji is a business and they will make business decisions that they think will benefit their business. If they don’t think they can make a good business of it, they’ll exit.
Unless you’re an insider, the whys are speculation and I’d rather get on with shooting with what’s available.
Where is there evidence that Kodak has re-tooled?
They said so. There is/was a podcast online (don’t remember where off the top of my head) a while back where several Kodak employees were interviewed who are working on bringing Ektachrome back and they described what they’ve been up to and what was involved in getting things back up and running again.
They had to find and set up smaller kettles for the ingredients (not to mention source the ingredients), and work out getting the coating correct on a much smaller coating machine that they took out of the mothballs and repurposed for Ektachrome. This was all because they could not economically do it on the same scale as before. If that’s not retooling, then what is?
It was actually a very fascinating discussion and provided a fair amount of visibility into how Kodak has been dealing with having a smaller film market size. If I find a link to it, I’ll post it here.
OP
OP
Hi Adrian, The Kodakery podcast interviewed three Kodak employees working on the Ektachrome project. The episode is called "Update from our film factory on Kodak Ektachrome Film"
The project manager (Kodak employee since the 1980s) mentioned smaller batch sizes, and all new smaller equipment five minutes into the podcast.
You know i really liked acros. It was cheap at one time and made nice photographs...but it's still only a 100 speed film more like 80.
I'll take TMY400 any day and shoot it in all formats. Adios Acros!
I'll take TMY400 any day and shoot it in all formats. Adios Acros!
MattKing
Moderator
For clarity, it is the 39:52 audio podcast referenced in that link that has the information, not the much shorter video.
Andrew O'Neill
Moderator
Thank you. I had not seen this before.
It's not only not a waste, it's a huge advantage when shooting 8x10. Film is purchased by more than just "miniature format"
shooters. And one sheet of 8x10 is as much area as an entire 36-exposure roll of 35mm or a 120 roll. Revenue is revenue.
This is the story, https://studioc41.net/2018/03/30/understanding-fujinotfilm/
Though no way to verify if the claims are correct, it certainly makes sense with what we have been seeing over the last few years.
Seen that but churning out Instax requires coating lines for negative materials as well, of course roll and sheet film do require other finishing lines but the "core" of manufacturing that is the Coater should still be there...
It reads like a blogger blogging about another blogger, then making some guesses and proclaiming them correct. "We now know FujiFilm's reason." Oh really?
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