Fujifilm to get cheaper??

Gary;

Consider this. Fuji is now the only producer of E6 products. They no longer make Motion Picture film. They also coat Instax.

Thus, their lines are Instax, E6. C41. and B&W.

My sources state a supposed fact with no date attached. I cannot tell you what I don't know. I can just project the problems arising from the given product mix. Their C41 is limited, and the B&W is not sold in as wide a market as Ilford (AFAIK). They are in the same boat as Kodak really, but supported by other Fuji divisions.

So, at a guess, (my own, not my sources) is that E6 will probably fail in about 5 years or less.

PE

Back in the late 90's I lived in Beijing and was quite active over on photo.net (just remembering this as a point of time reference for myself). As digital started to become popular the old adage that film, let alone E-6, would all be long gone within 5 years or less was common. Coming up on 15 years since...

Photo Engineer said:

Gary;

Consider this. Fuji is now the only producer of E6 products. They no longer make Motion Picture film. They also coat Instax.

Thus, their lines are Instax, E6. C41. and B&W.

My sources state a supposed fact with no date attached. I cannot tell you what I don't know. I can just project the problems arising from the given product mix. Their C41 is limited, and the B&W is not sold in as wide a market as Ilford (AFAIK). They are in the same boat as Kodak really, but supported by other Fuji divisions.

So, at a guess, (my own, not my sources) is that E6 will probably fail in about 5 years or less.

PE

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You have 21,698 posts and over the years I have noted several in the past that have been wrong. I hope this will prove to be another.

Yep, wrong wrong wrong!

However, balanced wrong with right please.

IDK where this will fall, but I was pressed for an answer.

PE

I guess Fuji is in an interesting market position. They appear to be the only producer of E6 material, so in theory have a monopoly. However, I think it's also reasonable to say that most us us don't shoot E6 because we have to, it's because we want to. So price it too high and we'll move. I don't know what the profitability of E6 is like, raw materials have gone up, everything has gone up. Interestingly, the one area that I would have though there was still a strong push for E6 was in the larger format Velvia 50 for landscape/calendar work, and the 5"x4" was cut. So who knows what the future may hold? I know I shoot a lot less E6 than I did, mainly because of cost. Close to £10 for a roll of 35mm Velvia 50 plus processing makes my eyes water....

brianmquinn said:

...several in the past...have been wrong. I hope this will prove to be another.

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After observing innumerable bumper stickers on the vehicles around me while commuting 100 miles per day for 33 years here in southern California, my favorite one said:

Bloody hell Sal thats about 800,000 miles !!!!

at say 50 mph ?....you have spent nearly 2 years of your life sitting in your car !

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

Simon, in the LA/Orange County area, that can be anywhere from 70mph to 0mph and everything in between. Usually multiple times in each trip.

I had a 100 mile commuting round trip for a while, and hated it. Then I went from that to a 200 mile round trip and after 3 months swore never again. As both were to and from Palm Springs, neither had much in the way of slowdowns, either. If there had been LA-type jams, no doubt I would have ended up in a rubber room.

And back in the days when real estate was booming, and people were flooding into the area by the tens of thousands, I saw a 28-mile commute go from 30 minutes to 40 minutes in the span of two years.

It's also not an unusual commute at all in the US. I commute about 23 miles per day each way, 46 miles round trip, and my wife about 10 more each way. I have had jobs where I commuted 40 miles each way. I've worked with people in Atlanta who commuted from Chattanooga TN (90 miles EACH WAY, 180 miles round trip) and Macon (more like 100 miles each way, 200 miles round trip) but the person who lived in Macon worked a job with 8 consecutive shifts of 10 hours each followed by six days off, so she commuted eight trips every two weeks, not ten.

Part of this is culture and the price of gasoline, even at today's prices compared to much of the world, but much is also just the sheer size of the US. A going with his father to see a football game about 800 miles away. Long as that is, it's less than 1/3 of the way across the country, and that's at the middle, not diagonally. Fly that 800 miles east from London and you'd be somewhere in Poland. Do it from the middle of France and you'd be almost to the Ukraine. In his case here he was a couple of states over, Oklahoma or Texas I think it was. The US is geographically big and though the population is centered in larger cities many people work in or near those larger cities and live outside a good ways. I COULD live close to my work. But a house comparable to the one I have would cost at least $100k more if it were within 5 miles of my job, and I don't even work inside Atlanta proper where it would be even more. It would take a LONG time to make up that in transportation costs differences, though for some people the aggravation and time are worth the compromise in housing. Other people are lucky enough to live where that's not a factor but the jobs in bigger cities usually pay enough to lure people here - then we look at the price of housing near those jobs versus the suburbs and how much nicer house we can have in the suburbs and a lot of people just say "#$%^ that, I'll put up with the traffic and drive!"

OTOH I work mostly nights. At night I can make the trip in 25 minutes. Mondays I go in during rush hour and today it only took 45 minutes, which is a very lucky day and also involved using a toll lane that saved me about 20 minutes and cost me about five dollars. A more typical time on Monday is an hour to an hour fifteen. On the thankfully very rare occasions I have been at work and left at 5 PM it can easily take 2 hours to 2.5 hours to get home. If I regularly had to work those hours I would move or, more likely, find a job with more flexible hours!

Fuji's E-6 line will die mainly because of two reasons (MHO)

1. Fuji's Marketing department - no one seems interested in selling films
2. Availability of chemistry - with Kodak E-6 chemistry supply drying up (available in large packs not feasible to use for small volumes), There is no alternative for the labs. With Kodak's distribution network, Fuji never had to worry about selling chemistry. Now I don't know if they will be able to put up an effective distribution system in place or even be interested in doing so.

just my two cents

Simon R Galley said:

Bloody hell Sal thats about 800,000 miles !!!!...

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Or, as I refer to it, a bit more than 3 Lunar Units (LUs).

Simon R Galley said:

...at say 50 mph ?....you have spent nearly 2 years of your life sitting in your car !...

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For most of the career, I was dealing with suppliers and customers in the Eastern time zone. Management therefore readily agreed to a flexible shift that usually started at just past 6:00 AM and ended around 2:30 PM. This helped immensely in avoiding the bulk of metro Los Angeles' worst traffic, and kept my speed closer to posted maximums, which ranged from 55 mph to 65 mph over the decades. Nonetheless, it's best not to refine the calculation you made. Ignorance of how many years were spent sitting in a car is more blissful than dwelling on it.

davedm said:

Fuji's E-6 line will die mainly because of two reasons (MHO)

1. Fuji's Marketing department - no one seems interested in selling films
2. Availability of chemistry - with Kodak E-6 chemistry supply drying up (available in large packs not feasible to use for small volumes), There is no alternative for the labs. With Kodak's distribution network, Fuji never had to worry about selling chemistry. Now I don't know if they will be able to put up an effective distribution system in place or even be interested in doing so.

just my two cents

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Agreed, Fujifilm's "marketing" is disgusting. Who knows how well film could be doing if even half an effort was given here. As I said in a different post, I went out camera shopping last weekend. I didnt know what I was going to buy, but I had some ideas. I wanted to get a 35mm film camera to complement my medium format gear. My initial thoughts were of a Contax G2, but part of me wanted manual focus so I was conflicted.

Here in Shanghai, there are 20 or so shops that sell used camera gear, all located in one mall. I went to one that I knew had a lot of Contax gear. I found the store very busy, too busy to wait around in. There were 3 people looking at the Contax gear. Three people on a Sunday morning!! The stores were just opening. Now 3 isnt a huge number, but the fact that it's 3 people looking for a film camera, and a Contax one at that just tells me that there are more people interested in film than perhaps the "geniuses" at Fujifilm (and Kodak) even know about. I just wish Fujifilm would put half an effort behind their film line. For god's sake, their web page on film is just pathetic.

I ended up buying a Nikon FM2. Hopefully the film that comes back in a few days validates this purchase.

Regarding E-6 chemicals, I thought Kodak outsourced all that. Can't the real supplier keep making them?

lxdude said:

Simon, in the LA/Orange County area, that can be anywhere from 70mph to 0mph and everything in between. Usually multiple times in each trip.

I had a 100 mile commuting round trip for a while, and hated it. Then I went from that to a 200 mile round trip and after 3 months swore never again. As both were to and from Palm Springs, neither had much in the way of slowdowns, either. If there had been LA-type jams, no doubt I would have ended up in a rubber room.

And back in the days when real estate was booming, and people were flooding into the area by the tens of thousands, I saw a 28-mile commute go from 30 minutes to 40 minutes in the span of two years.

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I used to commute in LA, that place nearly killed me, I left 19 years ago. My commute for the past 15 years has been non-existant living in a tiny mountain town. I may not have the 2,500 square foot house with the basement darkroom and white picket fence, but I can walk out the front door right now and within a 5 minute walk, be at the edge of thousands of miles of pure wilderness.

I'll never understand the idea of spending a lot of one's life chasing material objects and jobs only to sit in horrible traffic in a concrete jungle for the rest of one's life....looking forward to retirement...

PKM-25 said:

...I'll never understand the idea of spending a lot of one's life chasing material objects and jobs only to sit in horrible traffic in a concrete jungle for the rest of one's life....looking forward to retirement...

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Not everyone who made/makes long commutes in LA is single and able to independently decide on a change of venue/lifestyle. Nor are they necessarily chasing material objects. Sometimes family circumstances make "getting the hell out of here" impossible. It is good to avoid generalizations and reaching conclusions with insufficient data.

Taking a different tack, be thankful that so many are still making those commutes in LA rather than joining you in and around Aspen. You'd find your mountain environment substantially less attractive were it subject to significantly increased homo sapiens pollution.

Sal Santamaura said:

Or, as I refer to it, a bit more than 3 Lunar Units (LUs).
[...]
Nonetheless, it's best not to refine the calculation you made. Ignorance of how many years were spent sitting in a car is more blissful than dwelling on it.

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Yeah, but it's also only about 4.295 light-seconds. That sounds much better...



Ken

(Who was born and raised in Los Angeles, and knows exactly what you are talking about.)

I'm retired these days and it takes me all my time to commute from my bedroom to the kitchen to have breakfast, I've done my share of it in the past, but in Britain a 100 mile commute is fairly unusual because it's a small country and most people would move house if they had such a long journey every day, although I have heard of some high powered business executives who live with their familys in the highlands of Scotland who commute every day to London by scheduled flight which must cost a fortune.

benjiboy said:

I'm retired these days and it takes me all my time to commute from my bedroom to the kitchen to have breakfast, I've done my share of it in the past, but in Britain a 100 mile commute is fairly unusual because it's a small country and most people would move house if they had such a long journey every day, although I have heard of some high powered business executives who live with their familys in the highlands of Scotland who commute every day to London by scheduled flight which must cost a fortune.

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LOL!
Down here in Australia 200km commutes to work are common in the country where jobs are scarce and one has to work with what's available. What's that in miles? Do the math...

Sal Santamaura said:

Not everyone who made/makes long commutes in LA is single and able to independently decide on a change of venue/lifestyle. Nor are they necessarily chasing material objects. Sometimes family circumstances make "getting the hell out of here" impossible. It is good to avoid generalizations and reaching conclusions with insufficient data.

Taking a different tack, be thankful that so many are still making those commutes in LA rather than joining you in and around Aspen. You'd find your mountain environment substantially less attractive were it subject to significantly increased homo sapiens pollution.

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Just trying to inspire people to say to hell with it and take a chance in life and ultimately make a move. My baby brother and a half brother did not, stayed in LA and are no longer living.

But to get back on topic, I only use one Fuji film now and that is Acros in 120. It is not going to get cheaper, no film is, it is all going to go up and I think that for Acros's reciprocity characteristics alone it will be worth the increases.

PKM-25 said:

I used to commute in LA, that place nearly killed me, I left 19 years ago. My commute for the past 15 years has been non-existant living in a tiny mountain town. I may not have the 2,500 square foot house with the basement darkroom and white picket fence, but I can walk out the front door right now and within a 5 minute walk, be at the edge of thousands of miles of pure wilderness.

I'll never understand the idea of spending a lot of one's life chasing material objects and jobs only to sit in horrible traffic in a concrete jungle for the rest of one's life....looking forward to retirement...

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What do you do for work?! It's tough to find neurosurgery jobs in the middle of nowhere. What does your wife do? Multiple women I have dated have been high level executives at companies. When the topic of long term plans came up it was an issue. Our career prospects didn't always line up geographically. All of us went to school for a long time and invested in our careers. We want to provide for potential children. Even moving to the fourth or fifth largest city in America would compromise some people's careers. It's a tough economy. People have to do what they have to do. I'm not going to ask a woman to abandon her education, career, world travel, and $150+K/yr just because I like to walk down country trails every once in awhile. And I'm not going to tell junior he can't go to Harvard because daddy doesn't like to sit in traffic.

Neurosurgeons here in Rochester have 3 big hospitals with excellent Neurology departments but with a rural environment within a 20 min or less drive.

PE

We have phenomenal neurosurgeons here and a thriving medical community. Chattanooga TN - the middle of nowhere by many peoples' reckoning!

To get back to the O.P.'s question, if the Japanese yen "is in free-fall" it's too simplistic to assume that Fuji film will become cheaper as other members have pointed out their are many other factors involved.

Noble said:

What do you do for work?!

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He's a pro photographer.

Simon R Galley said:

Bloody hell Sal thats about 800,000 miles !!!!

at say 50 mph ?....you have spent nearly 2 years of your life sitting in your car !...

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Apparently I was a rank amateur compared to this guy:

Sal Santamaura said:

Apparently I was a rank amateur compared to this guy:

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/trans...n-who-has-almost-3-million-miles-on-his-volvo​

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Holy crap! That's 16+ light-seconds!

:eek:

Ken