Product News Category

According to this post from Ilford/Harman on APUG, Ilford will not assume production of Polaroid’s discontinued black and white peel-apart/pack films:

Dear All,
I have been out for a few days and several of you have sent me PM’s re POLAROID : Please see below :
April 18th, 2008, Mobberley, Cheshire UK and Minnetonka, MN, USA — HARMAN […]

It’s coming back, maybe in August [2008]! ADOX says:

The Emulsions for this paper are being produced on the original Agfa machinery which ADOX purchased together with former Agfa engineers from the liquidator of AgfaPhoto in Leverkusen.
They are identical in all measurable parameters with the papers formerly sold by Agfa under the “Agfa Multicontrast Classic” name.
This […]

It looks like the sky really as fallen: Polaroid are getting out of the film business.
This article on Boston.com says:

The Norwood and Waltham plants make large-format films used by professional photographers and artists. Polaroid also makes professional-grade films in Mexico, and its consumer film packs come from a factory in the Netherlands. All these plants […]

Two more Polaroid films are on the chopping block… this times it’s the super-contrasty Type 51 and the sepia Type 56, both 4×5.
The pages linked above say:

NOTICE TO OUR CUSTOMERS: Please be advised that Polaroid will be discontinuing the manufacture of its T51 [/T56] film within the next several months.
We realize that this is disappointing […]

According to Photography BLOG, Fujifilm will display a prototype of a new medium format camera at PMA this year (the Photo Marketing Association trade show), which runs from 31 Jan – 2 Feb, 2008. They say that “details … are scarce at the moment, so we’ll try and get more info for you next week […]

Kodak’s film discontinuance notice says:

KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance of several smaller running families of Professional film - EPR, EPN and High Speed Infrared (HIE) effective end of December 2007. Demand for these products has been declining significantly in recent years, and it is no longer practical to continue to manufacture given the low volume, […]

This is from month or two back, I somehow got it stuck as a draft and forgot about it. Anyway, the following large format lenses are now out of production, so whatever is left in the supply chain is it if you want to buy new:

Fujinon-SW 90mm f/8 (shipment ended August 2006)
Fujinon-T 300mm f/8 (shipment […]

Following the story of one of Polaroid’s coating plants closing reported by South Coast Today, several message boards have been alight with rumours that Type 55 positive/negative sheet film is discontinued.
Bill Schwab (who BTW makes fantastic pictures) actually bothered to call Polaroid, and said:

Just got off the phone with Polaroid (easy) where I was […]

You can read the complete press release, but the highlights are:

It’s the "world’s sharpest" and "finest-grained" ISO 400 B&W film.

Pushable 2 stops up to ISO 1600.
Availability "will occur on a stock-turnover basis, beginning in December 2007".
The new film code will be TMY-2.

There’s a surprisingly informative Q&A sheet (PDF) about the old vs the new film, […]

Fotoman Camera, makers of large format and medium format panoramic cameras, are having a sale:

Purchase any Fotoman Camera Kit, and select an additional Cone Assembly of your choice… free of charge.
This offer is limited to on-hand inventories, and is valid through December 31st, 2007.
Please contact any of our authorized dealers to take advantage of this […]