I think I’ve become a “Fuji Truther”.¹

I didn’t mean to, but I think I have.

And just what is the dark and disturbing — sinister — truth that I’ve decided that I am buying into?

I think that, at least in some cases, Fuji hasn’t been actually been manufacturing limited quantities of slide film in the last while.

They’re just Disney-Vaulting stocks they manufactured long ago and keep in some deep freeze facility in Japan. And that early every Spring, an alarm goes off, and they allot two or three junior staff from their much-preferred Instax division² to this mysterious deep freeze where they fire up 35-year-old hamster-powered machinery to spool up a small number of rolls, stamp them with a new best before date and send them out into the world.

…where sad and desperate slide film girlies like myself pay a pretty penny for each and every roll.

So why am I a truther?

What has pulled the scales from my eyes?

I have had the most rotten of luck with Velvia 100.

With the exception of two 35mm rolls last year, I have had absolutely no roll of the stuff come back without dramatic colour shifts in the last several years. Whether it be 120, 35mm, processed by a lab, or by myself, they’ve all been a green mess that have required more of my very limited colour-correction skills than any slide film ought to.

Fortunately, this green-cyan roll is from last year’s sad girl purchase and I didn’t bother with Velvia 100 this year, instead preferring Provia 100F.³

At best, with today’s stocks, I think that my lesson is use it or lose it. There is no good reason to save it since the countdown clock has already been running (albeit slowly) for some time.

1. I shouldn’t have to say so directly, but this is very tongue-in-cheek. I do think that many film companies play fast-and-loose with best-before dates and that, at least in some cases, Fuji – who is the most cryptic and cagey of manufacturers – would prefer to stretch things and avoid assigning more losses to their film division than they would have to, but also avoid getting into messy cross-subsidy shenanigans. Especially where it’s very clear that their dedication to film is …flimsy at best. ↩︎
2. They’d never send anyone from their passion division: the people who design the film simulation filters for digital cameras. Why bother with the real thing when you don’t have to, right? ↩︎
3. I’ve always liked Provia better anyway. I developed one of the three rolls of Provia I purchased this year yesterday and it turned out beautifully. ↩︎