They were trying to produce a less proprietary instant film system compared to Polaroids and following Kodak has always been the standard. Producing the film in the same dimensions as Kodak's system made sense. Most likely F for Fuji, as they did not want their instant product to start with a P like Polaroid.Īddressing the research conducted years earlier, the film is a rectangular format compared to the square Polaroid SX70/600 films. I can't find any definitive reason why its spelled with a F. The name Fotorama came from photograph and pano rama. In Japan, integral films, packfilms and instant cameras have all been branded as Fotorama (フォトラマ). Industrial, medical and scientific products started testing at the same time, but were released a few years later. Fujifilm wanted to change that.įujifilm introduced their own line of instant photographic products in 1981 starting with instant film products catering to the consumer market. This caused many to initially invest in an instant film system and abandoning them soon after. In light of these concerns, the cost of instant prints was also seen as high (when imported into Japan). Consumers preferred Kodak's rectangular instant prints, but the desired print quality was still an issue. They also felt that Polaroid's square image were unusual and made images hard to reproduce. They felt the images were inferior in quality, and generally preferred images with less red/orange cast and a more realistic look compared to Polaroid. While that is a improvements, Fuji determined that Japanese people were not entirely happy with the results of Polaroid and Kodak instant prints. Sales of instant cameras improved and there was 500,000 instant cameras sold in Japan during the fiscal year of 1980. Yet instant photography was not as popular in Japan as expected: By the late 1970's, Japan had less than 5% market penetration in instant film cameras compared to western markets of 25% or more. Meanwhile, Kodak also released their competing instant photo products in 1976. After Polaroid released the SX-70 in 1972, Fujifilm started preliminary research on instant films. Polaroid, the pioneer of instant photography, had launched a subsidiary in Japan in 1960.
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