Each of these is a line of color transparency films that is no longer manufactured. Kodak is out of the business, and Ilford is strictly manufacturing only Black and White Films. Ferrania is actively working to get into the production of transparency films, but production of the initial Kickstarter batch has yet to begin. As such, only Fuji remains to produce Velvia in 50 and 100 speed versions, as well as Provia 100F.
But there is one other option in medium format at the moment - Rollei Agfa.
Typically a seller of a varied line of black and white films of various lineages, the European supplier actually offers one pseudo-slide film among its range of offerings. I say "pseudo" because they apparently offer the same film packaged and marketed in two different ways. On one hand is the Rollei Digibase CR 200, a traditionally marketed color transparency film based upon the old Agfachrome 200 formulation. On the other hand is a film called "Crossbird 200," a color reversal film marketed towards being "cross processed," that is, processed in the chemistry for color negative film instead, so as to yield unpredictable colors. From all appearances, both are the same exact film.
On my return to shooting on film, I was naturally pretty dismayed to see that the selection of color transparency (slide) films had dwindled as much as they had. Amid my digital shooting days, I recall seeing the news that Kodachrome had passed on, but had no idea that the Ektachrome line had passed as well. As I began to explore the offerings at B&H Photo, only the trio of remaining Fuji films remained as options, along with both iterations of the Rollei Agfa 200. The straight "Digibase CR200" version was only available in a five pack, and I certainly wasn't ready to commit that kind of money to an unknown yet. However, the "Crossbird" version was available in single rolls, and I gladly pulled the trigger to try to a test roll, so as to be able to compare it to the remaining Fuji films.
Reading up on whatever I could find regarding others uses of these films left me a little worried, and admittedly rather unenthusiastic about using the roll of film. For one, the film is on a polyester base instead of acetate, which reportedly leaves it susceptible to "light piping" if any of the film sees the light of day, thus inciting recommendations to load it under subdued light or darkness if possible. Other reviews however stated that the finished results when processed using E6 chemistry, left an unpleasant and overwhelming yellow cast in the image. As such, it took several months before I finally took the plunge and loaded the film into my Yashica 12 on Christmas Day, 2014, so as to begin to snap off a roll of test photos.
