Fujifilm Price Increased Announced: April 2014

Here we go again.

http://www.fujifilm.com/news/n131220.html

Shit.

I fear there's a more fundamental shift going on here than just digital replacing analog. I've felt for a while now that what may really be happening is that photography itself, all of it, is beginning to go by the wayside as a standalone activity.

Film usage is dropping, digital camera usage is dropping, smartphones and tablets are everywhere. But these replacement technologies are not replacing earlier photographic tools. They are redefining photography itself from something that was a tangible pursuit worthy of time, patience, and thought, into something that is simply an uncontrolled throwaway behavior.

Photography as it's own destination for the masses is on the wane. Photographic behavior, as in quick! do that again! let me get that! followed by an equally quick look-see on a gadget, followed by it's all deleted and/or never looked at again, is now the norm. It's the act, the behavior, of snapping and quickly looking (or not even that), followed by disposal, that counts. Not the picture that counts.

The picture is now nothing more than a temporary consequence of the behavior. Not the reason to engage in the behavior.

And there is precious little need for film or cameras or a photographic industry to support those fleeting, in-the-blink-of-an-eye behaviors. And soon enough, there is about to be a photo technology available to all to actually support nothing more than those random thoughtless blinked behaviors.

Photography is morphing from thoughtful action-based to thoughtless reaction-based. Like having your leg involuntarily jerk when the doctor hits your knee with that little rubber mallet.

And so the cost of film continues to rise...

Ken

Needless to say. this is not happy news, but I do think it's inevitable. (And a lot of things beside film have gone up in price too.) The main question will be how far and how fast prices go up. So far there are multiple respected makers, so we should avoid monopoly pricing. I can't honestly remember what I paid for film back in the 19-ought-sixties, but I suspect in real dollars the price still isn't too bad. In any event, I'd prefer to pay a bit more than see it disappear.

Ken Nadvornick said:

I fear there's a more fundamental shift going on here than just digital replacing analog.

Click to expand...

Yep. The structure and norms of society are changing.

Ken Nadvornick said:

I fear there's a more fundamental shift going on here than just digital replacing analog. I've felt for a while now that what may really be happening is that photography itself, all of it, is beginning to go by the wayside as a standalone activity.

Film usage is dropping, digital camera usage is dropping, smartphones and tablets are everywhere. But these replacement technologies are not replacing earlier photographic tools. They are redefining photography itself from something that was a tangible pursuit worthy of time, patience, and thought, into something that is simply an uncontrolled throwaway behavior.

Photography as it's own destination for the masses is on the wane. Photographic behavior, as in quick! do that again! let me get that! followed by an equally quick look-see on a gadget, followed by it's all deleted and/or never looked at again, is now the norm. It's the act, the behavior, of snapping and quickly looking (or not even that), followed by disposal, that counts. Not the picture that counts.

The picture is now nothing more than a temporary consequence of the behavior. Not the reason to engage in the behavior.

And there is precious little need for film or cameras or a photographic industry to support those fleeting, in-the-blink-of-an-eye behaviors. And soon enough, there is about to be a photo technology available to all to actually support nothing more than those random thoughtless blinked behaviors.

Photography is morphing from thoughtful action-based to thoughtless reaction-based. Like having your leg involuntarily jerk when the doctor hits your knee with that little rubber mallet.

And so the cost of film continues to rise...

Ken

Click to expand...

This is super bleak but I can't refute any of it. I am sort of glad Fuji is doing this, adapting, rather than throwing in the towel.

Price increases do not worry me, especially since I do not buy from bricks-and-mortar shops where there is a huge gouging caper evident here in Australia. If quality is what you want, you must be prepared to pay for it, for as long as the product is available.

Importantly too, is Fuji's awareness of what any pro-dealer will also tell you:

"The demand for film products is continuously decreasing"

Click to expand...

Use film and enjoy it while we do have a good supply of it.

I certainly want lower prices, but it seems the price of everything is rising, so I'm not terribly concerned that film is increasing as well. At least they are not doing what many other industries are, lowering the quality as they raise the price. Anyone eat at McDonald's lately? I'd gladly pay more for a Big Mac that tasted like it did when I was a child - and this is why I only eat there a couple times a year anymore.

Ken, I feel your comment is well thought out and has a lot of merit to it. I think everything has moved to the instant gratification mode and photography is in that line up too.

I can recall a friend of mine stating 20 years ago now where photography was headed when he bought his first video camera. Basically he said, "you will just setup a camera and video from sunrise to sunset. You can then just sit in front of a big screen TV and press a button every time you like a scene and watch a 16x20 print spit out"

He and I don't talk anymore.....!

Ken, in a lot of respects you are right. Change is inevitable and it will have an effect on photography. But what is missed here is just how embedded imagery is in our society. How those images are captured have been changing ever since photography came into being, it just seems to happen quicker today than in the past. But if you look back, almost all those eras in photography can still be enjoyed today. Sure, things change and move on, it has to. But the past rarely ever goes away entirely. People still ride horses. We still use buggies. Whips are still being made and sold. You can still take photos on large glass plates if you want.

Fujifilm may go away. Kodak may go away. But there are still smaller companies out there who are willing to fill the gaps. To be honest I feel much sorrier for those who have invested their lives in digital. Their world is also starting to change but I am afraid that it will be much harder to keep digital technology alive as a cottage industry than film.

I'd feel a little bit better if Fujifilm at least pretended to market their films to try to broaden the appeal.

Pioneer said:

Fujifilm may go away. Kodak may go away. But there are still smaller companies out there who are willing to fill the gaps. To be honest I feel much sorrier for those who have invested their lives in digital. Their world is also starting to change but I am afraid that it will be much harder to keep digital technology alive as a cottage industry than film.

Click to expand...

You may be VERY right about that.

Ken Nadvornick said:

I fear there's a more fundamental shift going on here than just digital replacing analog. I've felt for a while now that what may really be happening is that photography itself, all of it, is beginning to go by the wayside as a standalone activity.

Film usage is dropping, digital camera usage is dropping, smartphones and tablets are everywhere. But these replacement technologies are not replacing earlier photographic tools. They are redefining photography itself from something that was a tangible pursuit worthy of time, patience, and thought, into something that is simply an uncontrolled throwaway behavior.

Photography as it's own destination for the masses is on the wane. Photographic behavior, as in quick! do that again! let me get that! followed by an equally quick look-see on a gadget, followed by it's all deleted and/or never looked at again, is now the norm. It's the act, the behavior, of snapping and quickly looking (or not even that), followed by disposal, that counts. Not the picture that counts.

The picture is now nothing more than a temporary consequence of the behavior. Not the reason to engage in the behavior.

And there is precious little need for film or cameras or a photographic industry to support those fleeting, in-the-blink-of-an-eye behaviors. And soon enough, there is about to be a photo technology available to all to actually support nothing more than those random thoughtless blinked behaviors.

Photography is morphing from thoughtful action-based to thoughtless reaction-based. Like having your leg involuntarily jerk when the doctor hits your knee with that little rubber mallet.

And so the cost of film continues to rise...

Click to expand...

Very good post Ken, I agree. I actually posted something similar as a topic for a thread nearly 2 years ago and it kind of got shot down like a paper airplane over Bagdad, so take a look again if you like:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

But....I do think photography as an artistic pursuit for those who choose to use black and white film and hand print it in a darkroom, will damn near outlast every kind of photography there is...it is just *that* worth it. That is what Ilford is banking on and Kodak too now actually.

Price increases are simply "The" reality we face, this is not unique to Fuji.

RattyMouse said:

I'd feel a little bit better if Fujifilm at least pretended to market their films to try to broaden the appeal.

Click to expand...

Less about marketing and broadening appeal than re-educating the public that has fallen for wholly for digital — that's the way the world has gone; film is a diminishing segment, or put it another way, for so many blind to the facts, "film does not exist anymore". I've been on the receiving end of such a whacky statement while working in-situ with a 67 ... as if!! Fuji, as a global company, is facing cost pressures in a tiny market that, behind closed doors, I suspect they are gnashing their teeth over with every passing year. There is no denying that analogue photography is costly (especially for people working in colour). A rise in the cost of film — however steep (realistically a roll of 35mm Velvia 50 will soon retail around $40+), is better than cutting out two or three films from their line up.

For the US, the price increase is 10% from the 1st April. Already announced here: http://www.fujifilmusa.com/press/news/display_news?newsID=880552
Other countries are yet to announce their price increase.

Poisson Du Jour said:

A rise in the cost of film — however steep (realistically a roll of 35mm Velvia 50 will soon retail around $40+), is better than cutting out two or three films from their line up.

Click to expand...

Well, with Fujifilm you get both. 5 discontinued films this year and a nice price raise next year.

I work in the chemical industry (and have for 20 years) and raw material prices are relatively stable all this year. After the last few years, 2013 was probably THE most stable year for raw material prices in the past 7 or 8 years. I'd like to know which raw materials are driving up Fujifilm's costs. Certainly Fuji is doing very well with regards to the devalued yen. Foreign sales are bringing in more money than ever.

It's interesting to see how INSTAX films somehow escape the price increase.

RattyMouse said:

I'd feel a little bit better if Fujifilm at least pretended to market their films to try to broaden the appeal.

Click to expand...

It’s a battle that I personally will keep fighting. But in terms of how anyone markets their products or services in the internet age, it’s hard to say. Even the advertising perception is all over the map, it’s tough to pin it down for niche products like film, especially when they came from being mainstream.

I honestly do believe that film’s best foot forward is gaining a greater captive audience as an artistic medium only, not one to compete with digital which is killing it self off the map to begin with because it was always designed to self-obsolete. But the problem is that some institutions that are considered the go-to places to learn and practice art are ran by the same kinds of trend following idiots that brought Kodak to it’s knees.

For example, lets take the local one down the street from me, *highly* regarded in the art world, Anderson Ranch Arts Center. For what I believe to be over 10 years, renown fine art photographer and friend John Sexton held a unique and highly sought after Summer workshop that combined exceptional field work in a highly desirable location with his phenomenal skills as a teacher of his master craftsmanship in a state of the art darkroom that he played a big role in designing. I think there were 18 enlarger stations featuring the very best equipment money could buy including LPL 4550 XLG enlargers. John hand picked everything for the darkroom, top to bottom.

Well like any other academic who had to appease to trends instead of truly representing the arts, Anderson Ranch nixed the film and darkroom based workshops and went nuts buying computer equipment, high dollar Epson printers and all the other associated digi-crap. When I contacted them in 2011 looking to see if they had a mural enlarger lens lying around, I got to taking to the photo department guru. I asked why they nixed the analog workshops and she replied that people were really asking for digital. I assured her that it would shift back and that they ought not to be so quick to assume that this new fad would have staying power. She kind of agreed and said that they still essentially had the darkroom and most of the equipment in storage.

Last night at a gallery opening, I ran into someone I know who works at the ranch and is very well aware of the ongoings there. When we got to talking about darkroom workshops in the valley, this person told me that they are totally tearing out the darkroom. When I asked this person why, they said with disdain that the people who make the big decisions are just not interested in it. We both concluded that they are idiots and that leaves an even more open door for me to take the reigns on offering a real photography workshop in the valley.

Not everyone is like the above, ICP, Maine workshops still realize that not only is film not totally going away but the fine print hand crafted in a real darkroom is a rising force of true photographic expression to one who wants to be recognized for their talents, not a computer’s.

Trail Images said:

I think everything has moved to the instant gratification mode and photography is in that line up too.

Click to expand...

I agree that many things happen seemingly instantly but I don't think that it is necessarily instant gratification.

What I'm saying is that it isn't that people aren't willing to wait a bit for a nice framed print to put on their wall, rather that it is our ability to communicate in real time with both voice and video from wherever we are has changed; we are no longer constrained by the physics of posting a letter or finding a pay phone or waiting to get home.

It is the banal everyday chatter of our lives that is changing.

markbarendt said:

I agree that many things happen seemingly instantly but I don't think that it is necessarily instant gratification.

What I'm saying is that it isn't that people aren't willing to wait a bit for a nice framed print to put on their wall, rather that it is our ability to communicate in real time with both voice and video from wherever we are has changed; we are no longer constrained by the physics of posting a letter or finding a pay phone or waiting to get home.

It is the banal everyday chatter of our lives that is changing.

Click to expand...

I'd say that in the modern world, with instant communication, we are subject to far more banal chatter than ever before. The slowness of film processing, the slowness of newspapers, the slowness of postal letters, helped limit what was said, thus mitigating somewhat the banality of everyday life.

Now, it seems every "photograph" is up on the web and being viewed in seconds after it was taken. No matter how good it is, more eyes are seeing it than ever.

Thus is gets harder and harder to see quality.

RattyMouse said:

I'd say that in the modern world, with instant communication, we are subject to far more banal chatter than ever before. The slowness of film processing, the slowness of newspapers, the slowness of postal letters, helped limit what was said, thus mitigating somewhat the banality of everyday life.

Now, it seems every "photograph" is up on the web and being viewed in seconds after it was taken. No matter how good it is, more eyes are seeing it than ever.

Thus is gets harder and harder to see quality.

Click to expand...

I don't disagree about it being harder to find high quality photos but that's not my point, nor is it the point of the internet.

The internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate. Much of the chatter in this brave new frontier is simply about sharing the moment with friends and family that are scattered across the globe. It's about a quick giggle or saying hi rather than about creating a print that is going to hang in a gallery.

What seems odd to me anymore though is that there remains any expectation good quality shots or privacy within the normal banter of these everyday conversations done via uploads to Facebook or flickr or in texts or whatever else...

What I'm getting at is that when we are chatting with our buddies over a phone line (or FaceTime) we can play fast and loose with our choice of words to inject humor and other emotions with inflection and context. Similarly, most of the "photos" I text or upload to my friends and family are inside jokes or Grandpa's "awww moments", they are simply a replacement for typing to describe the dumb thing the dog just did or whatever else.

Like the words I say on a phone call these banal photos are "said" and meant to be "heard" in a transitory manner. That the images (or my accompanying text) remains as an artifact forever after the conversation is irrelevant to the reason it was "said".

The artifact, image or text, that remains after the conversation can be fun to pass on as gossip inside the right circle of people or it can become a little bit of hell if it gets into the wild. (One of my bosses got a taste of the latter this week.)

Not good news but I give Fuji credit for giving over 3 months warning and I give Ilford, in the form of Simon Galley credit, for saying not so long ago that he foresaw no reason why Ilford products would rise in price in the near future.

pentaxuser

Ken, your post is excellent and spot-on. I work for a large tech company, and daily I see a stream of mindless kids wandering into the building, eyes glued to their phone, mostly oblivious of the real world around them. Today's youth don't *see* anything for themselves.

In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Galapagos, he points out that humans laugh when another person farts. When humanity devolves into another, less intelligent species, they still laugh at farts. I'm convinced we're devolving in lots of ways and this smartphone obsession is just another step along that path.

Everything new is just awful , isn't it?