Fuji Does Not Care about Film

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DF

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Like it reads - agree or disagree?
I've contacted a number of higher ups and mid levlers in the past several months through e-mail as well as Linkedin in reguards to the availability of Velvia, frustrations of us users not knowing and all that - and not one response.
 
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Just wait - you'll see Fuji decide to discontinue Acros II in the not-too-distant future, just like they did before. Instax? They're all about that. Film - not nearly as much. Zero motivation to manufacture E-6 type materials.
 

bags27

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This is Fujifilm's press release about last year's profits. It covers photography last and doesn't even mention film. I've heard (FWIW) that it's rapidly becoming a health care system. I really, really don't like Fuji digital cameras (bought and sold 2), but I admire that they dominate 2 niche markets: 1/2 sensor and MF and avoid completely competing in full sensor. That's a terrific financial decision.

It's a huge corporation. It will only produce what is profitable, and only then when it can't make even higher profits in another area. It's not called just Fujifilm anymore: it's Fujifilm Holdings Corporation.

 

Chan Tran

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If there is a small profit they might contact with Kodak to coat and package their E6 emulsions.

And then sell for more. Yup outsourcing is a good way to make money. They could have Kodak makes Ektachrome E100 and packages them as Provia.
 

Sanug

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E6 has become a very, very small niche market. Kodak may have brought back Ektachrome on the request of the motion picture market only.

I am very sad about the situation and the incredibly high prices for slide film. Nowadays you will find a lab offering ECN-2 development more easily than for E6. I hope E6 will not die soon.
 

DREW WILEY

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I don't know the Euro situation. Here the Ektachrome revival is doing quite well. We can buy Ektachrome clear up to 8x10 inch sheet size, and there are a sufficient number of labs daily doing E6 processing. Yes, it's gotten expensive. But so has almost everything else.

Nobody is going to look at E100 as a substitute for Provia, or visa versa. These films have somewhat different color signatures.
 

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I only have a few rolls of 120 E6 film left from a small purchase two years ago and I seriously doubt I'll be buying anymore. Both Provia and Velvia are getting tough to find in stock anymore, even at the big on-line stores. At least Ektachrome is still out there.
 

MattKing

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Kodak may have brought back Ektachrome on the request of the motion picture market only.

Other way around. The impetus came from Kodak Alaris because of the demand for still film transparency material. The added interest of the motion picture people probably meant that the extensive work required to bring it back was viable.

Speaking generally though, Fuji has never responded to end user enquiries. That isn't the Fuji way.
Back in the day, there were robust film product distributors in each local market. They were much more responsive. There might be someone left there who are interested in something beside Instax, and would be willing to go outside their normal responsibilities and respond to an end-user, but I wouldn't count on it.
If you were a high quantity commercial retail operation, you also might get a response.
End user outreach is a resource intensive, highly expensive challenge. Most largish manufacturers don't do that any more.
 

brbo

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Back in the day, there were robust film product distributors in each local market. They were much more responsive.

Indeed. A number of years ago I asked out local distributor about availability of some Fuji's films and they were very responsive.

And also quite frank. They knew about as much as the rest of us. The next up representative in Fuji's supply chain would tell them absolutely nothing. They basically placed the orders with them and then they either got the items or not. In quantities they ordered or not. It's also true that my country represents a market of a smaller US city.

The fact that we are discussing Kodak film in a "does Fuji care about film" thread is quite telling... Which reminds me, EU is currently flooded with that new "Fuji" 200 and 400 film.
 
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koraks

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I've contacted a number of higher ups and mid levlers in the past several months through e-mail as well as Linkedin in reguards to the availability of Velvia, frustrations of us users not knowing and all that - and not one response.

Like I said in the other thread - you approach random people through LinkedIn with questions that interest you but don't really relate to their job/requirements, what do you expect? Of course you're not getting a response. It doesn't say much about "how Fuji feels about film" either. It just shows that it's not a very effective way to approach executives.

Btw, Fuji does care about film, but the truth is that it's just a very small part of their business. One part they do find interesting, also in terms of volumes and financial gains, is Instax. Pretty much everything that requires coating in Japan has to make way for Instax. Which makes perfectly good business sense. Other products coated on the same line therefore are coated intermittently, or are removed from the portfolio altogether. Recently they dropped production of Fujitrans, for instance. Not that you hear many people complain about that, even though that truly was a unique product that really has no substitute in current production, other than their color slide and color negative films. It's just not associated much with the analog crowd, so nobody hollers about it if it's gone (which is now the case).

Insofar as I talk to people at Fuji, they do care about the analog world btw, and they acknowledge our existence. They're the people in the paper business and although they spend extremely little time on analog, what time they do spend on it is always disproportionally much to the infinitesimally tiny revenues it creates for them. I'm not complaining; they pick up the phone, answer emails and they try to do their best (within reason) to answer my/our questions. But yeah, you need to know who to approach and how to approach them and to avoid wasting too much of their time.

I can't speak for the people in the film business as they're all in Japan. This is another reason why it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to approach people in US or European offices with questions about film. If you don't speak Japanese AND you don't have the contacts directly to the people involved in that business segment, you're not going to hear about that part of the business at all, ever. Zip, zilch, nada.

Speaking generally though, Fuji has never responded to end user enquiries. That isn't the Fuji way.

This is for the most part correct and they also acknowledge it - heck, we touched upon this only last week and they more or less literally said so. They're a B2B company, not used to or particularly interested in communicating directly with end users. It's not that they don't want to. For the most part, they just have other things to do and they're not organized to answer end user questions at a large scale - especially not about film, because like I said above, that's a Japanese endeavor and you're not going to get any answers, let alone straight ones, if you approach them as an American/Canadian/European etc. If you would know who to approach in the first place.

Btw, not that Kodak is so much better. I tried to contact them in the past about color paper and received no answer whatsoever. No acknowledgement, no polite "we'll forward your request" or "please have a look at our online documentation" - nothing whatsoever.

their instant film, which makes them billions of dollars

No, tens of millions or maybe a hundred million annually if they're very lucky. Which is big money, still. But not billions, by a long shot. Instax revenues aren't even close, let alone the money they actually make on it in terms of EBITDA etc.
 

brbo

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Instax revenues aren't even close, let alone the money they actually make on it in terms of EBITDA etc.

We can argue about what "make" means (revenue, profit, profit after tax...), but revenue from Instax IS around 1 billion USD.
 

mshchem

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The manufacturing equipment is probably maxed out coating Instax or color negative film. I wouldn't be surprised if Fujifilm would cut the remaining E6 films, I wouldn't be surprised to see Fujichrome come back.

If someone paid for a batch of film, in advance, and there was a means of converting it.

Ektachrome being available is fabulous.

There simply isn't a market case for these films.
 

armadsen

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The manufacturing equipment is probably maxed out coating Instax or color negative film. I wouldn't be surprised if Fujifilm would cut the remaining E6 films, I wouldn't be surprised to see Fujichrome come back.
As far as anyone knows, E6 films (Provia and Velvia) are the only actual Fujifilm-produced emulsions available, at least outside Japan (I think you can still get Fuji Industrial 100 there?). They definitely aren't coating color negative film, they're selling Kodak-manufactured film for that. My own belief, shared with many, is that they aren't coating any non-Instax photographic film anymore. They're selling through their existing stock of Provia and Velvia, and when it's done it will be done.

For what it's worth, I have a good relationship with my local store, and asked them about Provia, which I love, recently. They said that they've been told by their distributor that Provia and Velvia orders will be shipped once per quarter, with no other information about its future availability. They've got pending orders for many hundreds of rolls, but it's anyone's guess whether they'll get what they've ordered. They were one of the launch stores for Harman Phoenix, with Harman/Ilford telling them they were in Ilford's top few percent of stores for volume sold, despite being one of several Ilford-carrying stores in a mid-size market (Salt Lake City).

I've got my freezer stock of Provia and Velvia, but I'm shooting more E100 as time goes on, and figuring that'll be my only E6 option before too much longer.
 

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I wonder how much of this is an unofficial gentlemen's agreement between Fuji and Kodak? Kodak takes over the film momentum but drops color paper, while Fuji takes total dominance of color paper supply. Under present market circumstances, that kind of symbiosis rather than outright competition makes a lot of sense.
 

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Well, though I do like Provia, it makes sense for me to support Kodak with my next little bulk order of slide film. But of course, from Kodak's perspective my paltry little order barely even qualifies as "noise." But, as little as I use, I am glad it is still out there for me to use.
 

brbo

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Except that Kodak paper business isn't owned by Eastman Kodak nor Kodak Alaris...
 

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Fuji has relationships with both Kodak and Harman, Kodak sold Gold 200 under the Fujicolor brand and Harman Arcos for Fuji. Question is both Harman and Kodak at capacity? Other option, Fuji sells it's film division.
 

DREW WILEY

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brbo - What Kodak paper business? Who cares who now owns a brand label with apparently no product left to sell? - or only random leftovers to sell?

And Paul - Acros is just a tiny gnat in this question. It's a great product, but certainly nothing which alters the Fuji equation.
 

Paul Howell

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That's why Im thinking that Fuji might sell off it's film line, drop film from it's name. As I understand it Fujifilm is owned by a large conglomerate includes banking, insurance, might be wrong but also makes pharmaceuticals, inkjet and copy machines. Then again as long as the film division makes money why sell it?
 

mshchem

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It's good for Fujifilm to use the trademarked names for film simulations on digital cameras and Instax printers. Not sure that they'd give up the names.
I suspect, same as others they can't make small enough batches to keep the supply chain happy etc.
 
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