Kodachrome 1935-2010 R.I.P.

[Scdevon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30film.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

The last roll will be developed today before the machine is sold for scrap.
The last Kodachrome processor in the world will shut down.

 

[eljefino]

Interesting factoid, you can still develop kodachrome in regular old black and white chemicals, you just wind up with a black on red negative that's pretty hard to print... but you could run it through a film scanner.

Just an FYI if you find an old roll in granny's stuff.

 

[Scdevon]

I wonder if Paul Simon knows?

 

[Loobed]

Originally Posted By: Scdevon
I wonder if Paul Simon knows?



it looks like they took his Kodachrome away.


Digital photos have made film obsolete.

Anyone want to buy my old $4000 35mm camera?

 

[JHZR2]

Iirc film will still be processed just at lousy 300dpi ("good enough") rather than optimal for all the MPs that film equates to.

There still will be capability to process MF film for now, I assume..

 

[Jim_Beverlin]

I shot my last 6 rolls in October in Michigan's UP. I used Kodachrome since the middle 50's and have slides going back to 1942 (taken before I was born). By far and away the greatest film ever produced and the Kodachrome pallete cannot be matched by digital. Only Sigma with their Foveon processor comes close. Not certain what I will use with Kodachrome gone. Not a Velvia fan but I do kinds of like Astia and Provia. Not certain how long E-6 processing will be around. I would imagine Dwayne's will be one of the last places that will process E-6.

 

[Johnny]

I shoot quite a bit of black and white and get it processed locally by a b&w fanatic. Don't shoot as much as I use to as it has almost gotten cost prohibitive. When I do shoot, I use my Leica M6 for all my work. Never did get use to point and shoot or automatic cameras.

 

[eljefino]

E6 you can do at home with a $20 kit, it's about a 5-6 step process instead of the 15ish steps of Kodachrome. And the chemicals aren't nearly as toxic.

I wonder if any part of the process is/was proprietary and if Kodak would liberate it to the public domain. Or if someone will do a KC "soup" batch once every few years for historic purposes. I mean you can still do Daugerrotypes if you're nerdy enough!

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Iirc film will still be processed just at lousy 300dpi ("good enough") rather than optimal for all the MPs that film equates to.

There still will be capability to process MF film for now, I assume..


You can't lump all films together as "film". Kodachrome, as another poster has already suggested, consistently provided maximum results, but requires (ahem, requireD) special, complex, and yes, very toxic, processing.

All the other processes for color, and especially the B&W process are child's play compared to Kodachrome processing.

I took the Advanced Photo series of classes from the Art Dept when I was in college (graduated in 1983). The prof was a nice, but typically quirky, fellow who made us study the Kodachrome process (though none of us could do it locally). It did produce outrageously good results, but a cost that is simply no longer sustainable. Digital has gotten very good, but it will be a long time before the sensors, especially the smaller ones, can put Kodachrome behind them.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
...
I wonder if any part of the process is/was proprietary and if Kodak would liberate it to the public domain. Or if someone will do a KC "soup" batch once every few years for historic purposes. I mean you can still do Daugerrotypes if you're nerdy enough!


Yeah, but to do "home brew" Kodachrome, you would have to add "mad scientist", "chemical engineer", and "HAZMAT certified" to your "sufficiently nerdy" qualification. And if you were to try to pull it off, some overzealous cop would probably arrest you for allegedly running a meth lab.

Seriously though, given the precision required to get KC's great potential results, I wonder whether the occasional "soup batch" would be worth the effort. Perhaps it's time to just forge ahead and make the best of digital.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Iirc film will still be processed just at lousy 300dpi ("good enough") rather than optimal for all the MPs that film equates to.


Are you saying that most labs use film scanners for digital manipulation before printing at 300 DPI? I had a Ritz 1-hour do this and the results looked great compared to traditional enlarger-based printing. (and told the guy so; he was pretty proud.) Got the contrast/dynamic range to the sweet spot you can't always get with direct printing.

 

[Jim_Beverlin]

I agree with your comments about automatic cameras. I still prefer my Leica M3 and Pentax LX for film based photography. Totally automatic cameras leave me cold and feel I am not part of the process.

 

[UncleS2]

No more Kodachrome film or processing!? Inevitable, I suppose, but still it's terrible! I think there are still a couple of rolls of KC 64 in the refrigerator. No point shootin' 'em now.

We have some family color slides from the 1940s- some shot on other films(Agfa?), some on Kodachrome. The others are badly faded, some going into browntone. The Kodachromes are still beautiful color-wise, and have never been stored in anything special, just cardboard boxes in the closet.

Kodachrome could be fussy about exposure, but the results were always worth a little extra care. When I was on my camera kick in the late 90s, my standard test for any new-to-me camera with automatic exposure was to run a roll of KC 64 through it- if that came out well, the AS system was working A-OK.

So long, Kodachrome. The best is no more.

 

[daves87rs]

Sad...