Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt5791
One thing for certain - from what I read and hear, I think Fuji won over a lot of Kodachrome users in the 80's when they released Fujichrome 100, and then Velvia.
Today Fuji is, and has been for a number of years, way stronger on reversal than Kodak.
Conversely, Kodak is way stronger in colour negative and B&W than Fujifilm. And I think, the way things have headed, with massive interest in B&W and fewer E6 labs, I think Kodak went in the right direction focusing on col. neg. and B&W.
Part of me is also wondering if Kodak simply ran out of production capacity - in recent years they have slimmed down their operations and with the recent spike in demand they had to prioritise Col. Neg and B&W in production - and reversal was the obvious choice to kill off. The Tri-X we have had coming through recently has had manufacture dates of February this year - which suggests it's rolling off the line and into cameras as fast as they can make it. Just some speculation!
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I don't think it was production capacity. If the sales had been there Kodak would have kept the capacity.
When the discontinuation was announced I ordered some film from Freestyle, one of the largest dealers in the US, though probably #3 behind B&H and Adorama for film because the prices are a bit more. I was ordering from them because I was getting other items too and it was cheaper on shipping to just buy the film there. My favorite E6 film since the discontinuation of Astia has been E100G and it was listed as "low stock, call for status" right after the announcement, so I called and was told "we just got in 250 rolls, and we normally sell 10 about 10 rolls a month, so you should be fine if you order now."
Ten rolls a MONTH from one of the biggest dealers in North America. No wonder they quit making it.
Velvia did really hurt Kodachrome in the days when transparency fim was still king of color. Until then, Kodachrome was the saturation champ. Velvia ramped that up to a whole new level. My personal feeling and taste is that Kodachrome had very rich but realistic color and Velvia is overly saturated, overly contrasty, and doesn't look very real but that seems to be what the market wanted then and still does. (I must also point out that I've seen plenty of Velvia work I like, and like it myself ok for flat, overcast lighting, but for sunny days I much prefer something like Astia or E100G.)