Fujifilm has announced that it is ending production of both the 35 mm and 120 format versions of its PRO 400H colour negative film. In a notice posted to the Fujifilm website, Fujifilm says that it has become increasingly difficult to procure the raw materials needed to produce PRO 400H:

“FUJIFILM PRO 400H film is a unique product that is coated with a fourth layer — requiring specialized raw materials and chemicals. As it has become increasingly difficult to procure the raw materials needed to produce PRO 400H, we regret to inform you that after careful consideration, Fujifilm has made the difficult business decision to discontinue PRO 400H.”

Fuji’s 400H film is a unique colour negative film and offers a lot of latitude when it comes to dynamic range and exposure. You can overexpose the film by a whole six stops and still retain all that highlight detail. So, if you’re shooting outdoors and wait to capture shadow detail without worrying about blowing out the highlights, it is (was) an ideal film stock to consider.

Fujifilm does say that they expect to be able to allocate stock until the end of 2021, but that its production has ended effective immediately. What’s available during the course of this year will be the last of it.

Let’s hope that PRO 400H will follow the same path as its ACROS II film. ACROS was discontinued for the same reasons as PRO 400H, it proved difficult to procure the raw materials needed to produce ACROS, but later returned as ACROS II. ACROS II has been created “by researching substitutes for raw materials that became difficult to obtain and radically re-examining the manufacturing process to match the new raw materials“.

Fingers crossed.