Looks like the film world is a little nervous right now. First this from Fuji as a response to Minolta exiting the photo business and now the honourable people from Zeiss speak their minds. So what to make of all that?
I try not to panic and do what I always do, trying to take pictures in one way or the other. I don’t think there will be a complete demise of film in my lifetime. Less choice perhaps, but with Fuji appearing as the last major still standing, Japan is probably a good place to be. Otherwise someone somewhere will make them. I doubt there is much support for black and white, even in domestic market the photo-crazy Japan. Yesterday I saw an exhibition of yet another photo club populated by men over 60 in a department store, and as usual not a single black and white photo in the selection.
Good news is that Rodinal will survive, too.
Meanwhile, for those shopping for a Zeiss Ikon or related lenses, here is the best price I have found so far. You have to be in Japan for this of course, and know your way around Ueno.
isn’t Chikuma that fondler’s heaven we once visited? Not to quible, but it looks like our old friend Fujiya has them beat (mind you, the difference is VERY negligible) on a few of those lenses. Too bad that as of yet, used zeiss lenses have not yet trickled down to Fujiya’s used department.
Ah, no, not that one. Yeah, that one is a real fondler’s place and generally not very forthcoming. Chikuma gave me their card during one of the camera shows in Matsuzakaya and were generally very friendly (not too uncommon towards Germans in camera shops, although at some point the name Hitler and the axis pop up).
You are right about Fujiya, although it depends on the item it seems. The Biogon 25 that I have in mind – purely theoretical of course – is 89k at Chikuma and 92K at Fujiya, but it can be the other way round for other items and it is almost negligible. The camera body (not that I’m interested, promised) is 136k at F and 129K and C. Looks like I overpaid a bit on the impulse purchase of my Planar at Lemon-sha, but it was not widely available then.
thanks for the laughs out loud I got from your reply (ahem, “purely theoretical”!). Yeah I thought that was weird how the pricing wasn’t consistent. You would think, especially in Japan were it seems vendors have secret meetings to agree on pricing, that they would be more so.
On your other point, I wonder why it is that color (and specifically, slides) are so dominant here, amongst the hobbyist/enthusiast set. I suppose, as I think you found out before, that public darkrooms and such are not really very common here, unlike the states certainly (although with the progress of digital I’m sure that has been rapidly changing).
I have to wonder if, or rather, how long, b/w will be able to hold out against the “just de-saturize your slides/color neg if you want b/w” idea.