Just months after Fujifilm USA introduced “Made in USA” triple packs of 200 and 400-ISO colour negative films, there’s conflicting messages over the films’ continued production.
As Kosmo Foto and other film photography blogs covered, Fujifilm’s C200 and Superia X-tra 400 films were temporarily discontinued in Japan alongside their slide films, something the Japanese manufacturer blamed on supply chain issues caused by the Covid pandemic.
The discontinuations were followed by the release – in the US at least – of new three packs of 200 and 400-ISO Fujicolor films which were labelled as “Made in USA”. The Fujicolor 200 films appear to have the exact same datasheet as Kodak’s Gold 200 film, and the 400-ISO film appears to be very similar to Kodak’s own UltraMax 400.
However, in the last week there have been reports that these multi-packs are being discontinued in October/November. Kosmo Foto has contacted Fujifilm USA but has yet to receive comment from them.
At the same time, Fujifilm Japan’s website published this news release from June which warns of price increases and
“Dear Customer,
Thank you for your continued patronage of Fujifilm products.
FUJIFILM Imaging Systems Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; President: Koji Matsumoto) is working to improve production efficiency for photographic film and INSTAX “instax” products amid soaring component and raw material prices, transportation costs, etc. We have tried to absorb the costs by reducing costs and other measures, but it is difficult to absorb them through corporate efforts alone, so we will revise the prices as follows.
The price increases, according to the table provided, range from 13% to 88% on photographic film, but Fujifilm does not break them down by film type.
The release continues:
“In addition, orders for “color negative film 135 size” and “reversal film 135 size and 120 size”, which had been temporarily suspended in Japan, will be resumed from June 12th. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.”
The news release does not mention anything about the “Made in USA” film., nor has it shed any further light on the attempts to “improve production efficiency”, which could be interpreted as a move to discontinue multi-packs.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
