Fujifilm 400H Pro

Steven Lee · Oct 23, 2023

Anyone else misses the 400H Pro? I just developed and scanned two rolls exposed earlier in August. Once again, I am blown away by the results. Just like Portras the 400H delivers the same great looking skintones, but unlike all Portras, it manages to render incredible blues at the same time. No need to fight "Kodak rust" when scanning. My beach/fishing photo trips have never looked better on any other film.

I can only imagine how a 4x5 scan of 400H Pro may look like...

Why am I posting this? Because I will enjoy reading others memories of this film. I have only 30 rolls left in my freezer, and I sincerely hope Fujifilm will restart its production by the time I run out. If their roadmap planners monitor web resources like Photrio, they will see this thread and maybe it will be the last drop to push them off the fence in the right direction.

Fuji 400H fans, chime in!

pentaxuser · Oct 23, 2023

Steven Lee said:
and I sincerely hope Fujifilm will restart its production by the time I run out. If their roadmap planners monitor web resources like Photrio, they will see this thread and maybe it will be the last drop to push them off the fence in the right direction.

Fuji 400H fans, chime in!

I liked it too but I doubt if a few of us on Photrio have anywhere near the buying clout to push Fuji in any direction at all

pentaxuser

Fatih Ayoglu · Oct 23, 2023

And it was very decently priced against Portra 400, nearly half priced. I have probably around 30-40 boxes of 120, separated in 3 different freezers in 3 different countries...

Prest_400 · Oct 23, 2023

Back in the days (aka 2017) I used to interchangeably shoot P400 and 400H to whichever was available. Had I known then... I was a broke fresh grad.
But I never developed much romanticism to it, despite embracing the pastel tones as a romantic medium to capture the Mediterranean, the labs I went did a good job of matching both.

Color negative is very malleable results wise. 400H reportedly benefits from extra exposure and can be a good 200-320 film.
About rust (warm-yellow brown color bias), I do see it a lot with scans of Gold 200 (120). Not to dismiss this film, which is just looking that way due to how people scan it; but I have been able to stock up this year on P160 and the 400H for the same price.

Glad to know more about the different rendition, which I can plan for.

Last year I bought a propack for about 60€ (120) and in August again, at the same price. The latter was the last ever in stock at a store in Stockholm AFAIK.
I am planning a trip to Asia and these are in the freezer till then. Late 2024 (<1y expired) should be fine. To add into our discussion about Fujicolor, I also have just a pack of 160NS 220 that I bought and froze in 2016 for travel purposes again. I hope Fuji does trickle down some of the growth for Instax and makes a Fujicolor lineup available again!

At the time of writing, Fujichrome Provia and Velvia are schrödingers films, listed but almost not available anywhere.

mshchem · Oct 23, 2023

Fatih Ayoglu said:
separated in 3 different freezers in 3 different countries...

I love it! Dedication! I have 1 refrigerator/freezer that I store film and paper, no food.

chriscrawfordphoto · Oct 23, 2023

What is "Kodak Rust"??

koraks · Oct 24, 2023

pentaxuser said:
I liked it too but I doubt if a few of us on Photrio have anywhere near the buying clout to push Fuji in any direction at all

Most definitely not. The buying clout of Photrio for a product like 400H would justify doing a single production run every decade or so.

I wouldn't think in terms of clout. Think in terms of representativeness for a larger audience. Or, more realistically, try to appeal to their 'film DNA' and their 'commitment to photography'. There's a real possibility that a company like Fuji will entertain the idea of keeping a product available as a courtesy as long as they don't lose too much money on it. It would be more of a reputational thing.

brbo · Oct 24, 2023

I liked it. I'd usually overexpose it when there was enough light, but this film was incredible in mixed low light, too. For RA-4 prints, I prefer Ektar and Portra to 400H Pro. I only have one 135 roll of 400H left.

I don't know what "Kodak Rust" is either. I don't think I ever saw anything that I would call "rust" in my Ektar/Portra scans or prints (unless rust was actually photographed). Maybe that refers to the slightly "muddier" colours of Kodak's consumer films like ProImage 100 and ColorPlus 200?

Prest_400 · Oct 24, 2023

koraks said:
Most definitely not. The buying clout of Photrio for a product like 400H would justify doing a single production run every decade or so.

I wouldn't think in terms of clout. Think in terms of representativeness for a larger audience. Or, more realistically, try to appeal to their 'film DNA' and their 'commitment to photography'. There's a real possibility that a company like Fuji will entertain the idea of keeping a product available as a courtesy as long as they don't lose too much money on it. It would be more of a reputational thing.

The latter is overall represented by most of imaging. Paraphrasing some industry talk, photography is not as large as it used to be and even the digital camera business isn't that big for Fuji who has moved onto cosmetics.

TBH a lot of the clout would have been Wedding and event photographers that loved this film. CN ISO 400 allegedly should be about the best seller of the line up, yet there it went.

Fuji IIRC cited components and raw materials as to why they discontinued 160NS and 400H. With a bit of Occam's razor reasoning, reformulation is required to produce Fujicolor and they are just not into that.

From what Adox Fotoimpex's Mirko mentioned about producing some materials, in their case they shared eg. the use of Sensitizers left over from Agfa (Silvermax) and mentioned that synthetizing these is a specialized and costly process. Ferrania had theirs spoil and with that went their E6 film attempt.

Color is being manufactured anyways through Instax and it's reasonable to think that it is taking most of the resources.

brbo said:
I liked it. I'd usually overexpose it when there was enough light, but this film was incredible in mixed low light, too. For RA-4 prints, I prefer Ektar and Portra to 400H Pro. I only have one 135 roll of 400H left.

I don't know what "Kodak Rust" is either. I don't think I ever saw anything that I would call "rust" in my Ektar/Portra scans or prints (unless rust was actually photographed). Maybe that refers to the slightly "muddier" colours of Kodak's consumer films like ProImage 100 and ColorPlus 200?

Used 400H for street night scape long exposures and it worked fantastic. I do only hybrid, so it captures part of the issue but many scan Kodak Portras tending to yellow when overexposed. Gold has a warmer look. For the latter (in 120) I notice it a lot, but that is also how it is being scanned.

Fatih Ayoglu · Oct 24, 2023

mshchem said:
I love it! Dedication! I have 1 refrigerator/freezer that I store film and paper, no food.

That and also I really hate airports, scanners and overly confident and extremely knowledgeable(!) airport staff.

I broke a good deal with my mother for one freezer and my mother-in-love (!) for another freezer.

koraks · Oct 24, 2023

Prest_400 said:
Fuji who has moved onto cosmetics.

Cosmetics is pretty small for them, too. But they're giving that direction a try, especially in Asia, apparently. Not sure if it's going to fly, though. Areas where they're particularly strong are still industrial products; i.e. film (not photographic film; just thin stuff).

Eugen Mezei said:
Did they ever state loosing money on film?

No, but at this point, it's hard to see them making much of a profit on it.
If it was so profitable for them, I'm sure they would actually do it, you know.

M-88 · Oct 24, 2023

This thread looks like some sort of funeral. Or a memorial service. I used 400H only once, for my spcial vacation and photos turned out nicely. I really appreciated the lack of redish tint which I usually find on Kodak films. Unfortunately, in my country, offerings from Fuji were always pricier than whatever Kodak has. So for me, Pro 400H has been dead since the summer of 2019

Fatih Ayoglu · Oct 24, 2023

koraks said:
No, but at this point, it's hard to see them making much of a profit on it.
If it was so profitable for them, I'm sure they would actually do it, you know.

I am certain they were making profits on that. But then like every other company (except start ups where they focus on sales initially), their business is dictated by shareholders and those shareholders are looking for their ROI, meaning a profit margin. Like 1-5% profit margin on that line is not good enough, 5-10% is a watch out and 15% is let's invest more.

Obviously Fuji could not increase the margins due to ever increasing cost of goods and the end price to consumers were under pressure already.

So the result, the funeral service.

koraks · Oct 24, 2023

@Fatih Ayoglu shareholders of course play a role in the background in firms like Fuji, but they're not as directly involved as you imply them to be. For instance, Fuji never publishes details on how profitable certain product lines are/were.

Fatih Ayoglu · Oct 24, 2023

@koraks I dont mean they do that daily by calling the CEO. What I meant is, at the meetings, they expressed their desired to achieve certain profit margins and then the CEO goes back and check what they can do to increase their margins.

koraks · Oct 24, 2023

I know what you mean. But I think it's an oversimplification of how a conglomerate like Fuji works in reality.

It doesn't matter, though. I think we agree on the fact that they're in the business to make money, and that C41 film apparently didn't make them enough money to continue doing it.

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