Agfa Vista Film is Dead: Report

Film photography has been seeing a renewed interest from photographers and manufacturers as of late, but that doesn’t mean that all well-known film stocks will survive through the resurgence. And today there’s news that another fan favorite is biting the dust: Agfa Vista is reportedly the latest film to be discontinued.

“[W]hat everyone’s heard and surmised for a while has been confirmed by reliable industry sources: Agfa Vista is no more,” Japan Camera Hunter writes. “Shouldn’t come as overwhelmingly shocking as it’s a poorly-kept secret that Vista was actually produced by our favorite Japanese film manufacturer but it still stinks to high heaven.”

Branded by the Belgian-German multinational corporation Agfa-Gevaert N.V. (better known as Agfa) but widely-known to be manufactured by Fuji, Vista has earned a cult following for being an affordable C41 color film that provides bright and bold colors both outdoors and indoors (with a flash).

Here are some sample photos captured on Agfa Vista 200 via the Lomography store (where the film is out of stock):

Fujifilm announced in late 2017 that it will be discontinuing most of its C41 color films in 2018, so many observers reasonably concluded that Agfa Vista would also be reaching the end of the road.

“As our favorite Japanese film manufacturer has deep shareholder pockets to fill and made it abundantly clear their direction, the chances of Vista coming back are approximately equivalent to Mary Swanson accepting a relationship with Lloyd Christmas,” Japan Camera Hunter writes.

Agfa Vista 100 film was discontinued in the mid-2000s, but the ISO 200 and 400 had managed to survive until now. You may still be able to find the film in stock at select online retailers such as Camera Film Photo, so you may want to hoard some rolls before it’s only being sold at a high markup by resellers.


Image credits: All photographs via Lomography

Discussion