Perhaps the difference is subtle enough to be missed by my untrained eye. They really do look and act the same to me.
There is definitely a highly visible difference between Superia 100 and Superia Reala 100. The latter behaves like a Fujicolor Pro film in every way. But they do not designate it as such. I don't dislike Superia 100, but IMO it acts like a consumer film, while Reala acts like a pro film.
The question is whether there is a difference between Superia Reala 100 in 35mm and Reala 100 in 120 (also available in 220 in Japan last I checked). From what I can tell, there is not a difference. However, the data sheet for the 135 version being separate from the medium format data sheet would suggest that there is.
B&H seems to use the term "discontinued" to refer to items that they no longer carry, not to items that have been discontinued in manufacture. While the product may be gone entirely, I would not use B&H's, or ant retailer's, "discontinued" descriptions as a marker of what is being manufactured and what is not.
Unfortunately, info directly from Fuji tends to be no better.
While it does happen from time to time, we try not to confuse "We can't get this and don't know when we will," from "The manufacturer or our supplier says this is history." The problem is every so often a buyer or web programmer inadvertently selects the wrong code and every so often after we've been told an item's been discontinued it gets undiscontinued. That's beyond our control.
I get the impression that both Fuji and Kodak have been more than a little bit incoherent to the distribution channel the past few years. I know nothing about Kodak internally, but I do know a few folks internal to Fuji North America. They used to be friendly and share information; now that's changed. Things apparently aren't desperate, but they certainly aren't good on the inside. And I don't know anyone well enough to just outright ask what's happening.
So my guess has been that the layoffs and the plant closings in the NA site are indicative of the same things going on in Kodak, and the results aren't always something that seems sensible from the outside perspective.
The things we don't know are numbers like licensing, overhead or depreciation figures that move what "should" or "could" be a profitable product into an unprofitable column, and then it gets whacked. Fuji is very closed mouthed about specifics for things like that to outsiders like me.
MB
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