Fuji Industrial 100

Today's episode is sponsored by The Dark Room. Fuji Industrial is kind of a weird name for a film stock, right? But being a titan of industry myself, I figured I must try it. At least, that's what I said several years ago when I took the plunge and ordered eight rolls from Japan. In a classic case of don't judge a book by its cover, I did quite the opposite and only wanted to try this film because I thought the box looked super cool. Sporting a white backsplash with green lettering all across it that translates to industrial color film for recording, which is a bit of a vague statement. That's like saying Toyota Corolla, transportation product for rolling forward. Also, according to Google Translate, there will be 13,524 shots on this roll, so I think that's a bit hopeful. I've shot a few boxes of industrial already with varying levels of success, depending on how intoxicated you are when you view them. After all, my work is best viewed with a beer in your hand anyway. It's quite a colorful film, even when there's no color to glean from the setting. It's 100 ISO and color negative. It says CN-16 on the box, but don't be scared, that's just Fuji's version of C-41. And finally, Fuji Industrial was always sold in bulk, unless of course you knew the right shady underground black market labs that would sell it individually. So for this review, I figured where better to shoot my final two rolls of Fuji Industrial than the industrial city itself. I was heading to the Fog Belt anyway for the annual darkroom photo walk that was looking to be absolutely humongous. So I figured I might as well sling a color film for recording. All right, content. Just got to San Francisco. No time for a room tour. We have important things to be doing, like loading up Fuji Industrial 100 in my beautiful Nikon F2 Titan. Good old Fuji Industrial 100. Good for industrial stuff. When you want those manufacturing tones, textiles, aggregates, refineries, I don't know why it's called industrial. Future Jason, do your homework. A bit of extensive online digging around suggests that Fuji introduced industrial around 2010, right around the time when certain companies were discontinuing the most important film stocks they ever manufactured, and simultaneously hurting my feelings. So the reason these f**kers were sold in large volumes was because they were intended for corporate and commercial use instead of individual use. It's the same reason they sell packs of cigarettes instead of, you know, singles, despite how much I beg for just one at 3am. What does commercial and corporate use exactly mean? Couldn't tell you. Sounds like something an employed person would know about. Many people consider this film stock to be identical to Fuji Color 100, perhaps just rebadged in an attempt to throw the consumer market off the scent. Kind of like how it's probably likely very definitely that Kodacolor 200 is actually just Color Plus, allegedly. Kind of tracks though. If Fuji Color 100 is your favorite film stock, why buy the higher priced individual rolls if it's the same film stock and buy industrial in bulk? Whatever. Conspiracy theories that are probably true aside, my scared introverted ass finally left that hotel room as several of us hopped into a car that evening. It was good to be back in San Francisco. I'd actually be moving there in a couple months from when I shot this. This whole thing was like my homecoming in a lot of ways. Not like the dance that I didn't have a date for, but like a happy reunion. I had my prom over there, yeah. Right there. Yeah, right there at City Hall. We eventually arrived on the west side of the city to shoot sunset, but wound up on the ass end of the light. Oh well. At least the light on the bridge was as golden as it is gate. Don't worry, we don't need to pretend these photos are good, but once again we do see the usual strengths in a Fuji film stock. Greens and blues are quite pastel, very gorgeous in their rendering. This is why people love Fuji film stocks. However, I personally wouldn't say industrial is very saturated overall. Looking at the spectral graph that I found randomly, because there is no actual data sheet for this sh** due to the ongoing global conspiracy to make my life miserable. This film is consistent with more sensitive blues and greens. After dinner, the crew and I decided to take our first ever Waymo, which apparently is short for Waymo Dangerous, than a human driver. That guy just dipped. Tesla, wait! This is so strange. Alright, we're good. Made it. Get me out of this. So here's one for ya. If you don't want your super rare titanium Nikon F2 to get stolen, here's what you do. You put your Nikon in a cannon bag. With a new lease on life, I headed down to the lobby that morning to meet up with the darkroom crew, as everyone was finally in town, to clown around. And clown down we would, as we all reluctantly gave Waymo a second chance to finish the job and kill us once and for all. Luckily, we made it with no issues, and I instantly began camera strap mocking the gang to establish dominance before I got down to shooting. But first, I'd need to reload my camera, and instead of doing it in the car on the way there, I decided to do it in public because you can actually do that here. People in the bay are used to seeing the sidewalk crouch. What I specifically wanted to highlight with this film stock is the reds. Red kind of being in quotation marks. They're super saturated on this stock and almost go kind of magenta in a lot of cases. It is definitely not the most sensitive color on the spectral chart. But when you can get it in a shot, it looks punchy and, I don't know, inflamed. Compared to other 100 ISO film stocks, industrial definitely delivers a distinct look. I guess I would generalize that Kodak film stocks lean a bit warmer overall, but industrial selectively punches warm colors up quite a bit to create an interesting color contrast in frame when blue and green are so dominant. So I guess at the end of the day, if you're lucky enough to have this film stock in your camera, shoot something red and thank me later with a $2 tip on Feetfinder. But with Fuji Industrial 100 becoming harder and harder to acquire by the day, you may be tempted to look for an alternate film stock that has similar speed and quality. That's where today's sponsor, The Darkroom, comes into the picture. The Darkroom continuously posts new information about the vast world of film photography, and one of the resources they provide that I've personally used countless times is the Film Index, a compendium of information regarding every film stock you can possibly imagine, including scores on saturation, latitude, and grain. This is the page for Fuji 100 where you can read reviews and view other photographers' sample images from the stock. If you're looking for a similar stock to Industrial 100, you can sort by ISO here at the top and browse the options. Kodacolor 100 might be a solid alternative based on its ratings. Beyond the Film Index, The Darkroom also just put out a free online course explaining everything you need to know about film photography. It's so detailed it might just put this channel out of business. It's called The Darkroom Film School, and there are three levels depending on your extent of experience, starting with the basics like disposable cameras, all the way to what you should do about flying with film, and then of course the advanced stuff like pushing and pulling film. It's quite a swath of information, and it's totally free on The Darkroom's website. And if you get stuck on terminology, there's even a glossary to look up definitions and further dissect the film photography process at your own speed. I'm retroactively upset that all this info wasn't available to me when I was learning this stuff about a decade ago. And of course, when it's time to get your film developed, look no further than The Darkroom to get the job done professionally. Every role will be handled as if it's the most important work of your own photographic career yet, and that's what I love about the team over there. If you have an order of film ready to go, head over to thedarkroom.com to get started, or simply download the Darkroom app today. Anyway, the event that evening went off without a hitch, because we didn't need to tow anything, but there was something like 350 people who showed up to the photo walk. I'm quite certain that was the largest turnout I've ever been a part of. It was probably technically a stampede. What's to become of Fuji Industrial 100 though? Well, it was discontinued by Fuji in 2020, which may be the craziest thing that happened that year. Though to be honest, it's not really uncommon for Fuji to slash their stuff. They love getting you hooked on their product and then pulling the rug out from underneath you. They get some sort of sick freaky pleasure from it. You can still get this stock on eBay in bulk packs, though them expiration dates are quickly sneaking up on us. Just like gingivitis. But it's a 100 ISO film. If it was stored okay, it's probably good to shoot at box speed like I did for all the work in this video. Anyway, that's enough howling into the void about a nearly extinct film stock. My final take on Industrial is simply this. It's a good film for all that it claims to be. A color film for recording. Whatever the f**k that means.