Fujifilm is going to discontinue Velvia 100F in all formats, and Velvia 50 sheet films; this is the sad news arrived yesterday. The reasons are known-decreased sales, see the link. The good news (so to say) is that it won't happen until the end of this year, so we still have time to stock up. I just hope they'll keep both Provia films in production. For Velvia 50, I think, we don't need to worry too much about (for roll films)-it's just too popular, given also the fact that Kodak Ektachrome is gone...To me, this is not the worst news, since I was already hit when they discontinued Astia. To me, Astia was the most gorgeous slide film ever made. Ever! Even for landscape! Fortunately, I did stock it up in my freezer, and it should last for some years. Maybe the future production of color film will be based on pre-orders and once the quota will be fullfilled, the production run will be made, who knows. Certainly this is not nice, in our view, but it will change dramatically our approach in buying and consuming "silver goods". Nonetheless, vinyl LPs are also produced in a similar way today, yet they thrive.
Mitja
I don't have much problem with the 100F getting dropped. It never was a worldbeater Velvia in the first place - I remember their key suppliers stopped providing some key ingredients for the 50 Velvia so they created some "intermediate version" of Velvia named 100F which quite didn't hit the bill in therms of nice vivid colours the Velvia supposed to have. Then sometime later Fuji sourced the key ingredients again and created the new Velvia 100 (not the 100F!) and reintroduced 50 - both were the "right" Velvias again. I REALLY hope the Velvia 100 remains (the new one with the "right" looks - distinguasable with white on the package and it's different emulsion) since I much like the added sensitivity of the 100 - I can shoot in wider conditions and still have that vivid Velvia look, not just reserved tripod setting like with the Velvia 50 (which is a worldbeater slidefilm indeed, but little "limited" as a travelling film due to it's low iso and I use polarizer most of the time -2 F-stops). It's a real pity about the Velvia 50 sheet film though... I'm sure LF pros will buy all the remaining stock in storm - Velvia 50 is highly regarded in the 4x5" world.
ReplyDeletePre-order solution would be a nice idea if it works. Hopefully it's doable for Fuji if they get enough big order number by different dealers to put the the batch production together and pull it through. I remember Kodak didn't do sh*t if the order number was less than 80 000 (!) rolls per one batch (and probably one of the reasons they went bankrupt) hopefully Fujifilm is more flexible since today's volatile economic world you just have to be more flexible. Fuji has proven this by diversifying it's emulsion products into cosmetic products etc (one of the reason why their film production is still going strong btw, the film-technology derivate products keeped them on the surface when the digital went full-force in photography), hopefully the pre-order system would be also considered in the current difficult ecomomic times.
I fully agree with Fuji that in time the film will definitely find it's own niche just like vinyl records in music today.
Margus