What Films Would You Like To See Kodak Re-Introduce Again? And why?

[thinkbrown]

Yeah, pan f seems like a slightly odd choice to me but apparently it's one of their most requested options.

Personally I'd have rather had Phoenix 1 in 4x5 but I'm certainly not going to complain about another option and I'll absolutely be buying a box once it's in stock

 

[chuckroast]

The wonderful thing about large format film in general is that, due to the lesser degree of magnification in print, one doesn't need to worry much about visible grain, and is free to select from a wider range of films in relation to tonality, speed, curve structure, contrast malleability, edge acutance,etc. Pan F is more of a one trick pony.

At the expense of longer lenses and smaller DOF, but your point is well taken.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Incidentally do we know for sure TMX is purely tabular?

I've never seen any claim to the contrary, and as far as I know, it has not undergone the extent of very major revisions that TMax 400 underwent (which, from digging through some contemporaneous material, was the film that caused even more headaches for people with sloppy process control than the 100 did). Ilford's claims in their Delta launch material similarly suggests TMX is/ was purely T-grains (relative to the epitaxy of Delta crystal growth methods, and we can be in no doubt that there will have been electron microscope images of TMX crystals done by Ilford), and the issues with pressuring (requiring the thicker base for 120 TMX) and a thicker supercoat to get process times at a reasonable level (both mentioned in Shanebrook) seem very indicative of a purely T-grain/ high aspect ratio grain structure for that time. The advanced 3D grain structures seem to have been a thing that started appearing around about the mid 2000s revisions of Portra.

I’d love to try the Polyfiber A Mark Citret uses, or at least have Polymax FA back

I think something on a thinner fine-art base (i.e. not Baryta coated) would be interesting, especially if it travelled in the direction of what can be achieved hand coating on 70gsm Japanese papers. Polymax was all about the curve shape I think - which some didn't like because the curve they claimed to want was more like that of Azo, which is where everyone's papers seem to have shifted in the direction of.

I'd really like to see Polywarmtone finally back in production (the Harman Moersch warmtone would be nice too, though I think it never went to a second batch as people were demanding an exact drop-in for PWT, rather than economically viable), and if we're really asking for unusual stuff, taking modern emulsion tech and making a variable contrast brown/ black paper like the very distinctive Record Rapid/ Portriga would be my preference (it's not really a 'warmtone', almost a more complex brown tone, derived initially from the use of lead salts). I suspect that a lot of the underpinning idea of Agfa MCC and Ilford MGWT was to try and economically square the circle of both a market desire for moderate warmth, richer tonality papers like Medalist and for split tones in the manner of selenium on Record Rapid/ Portriga, rather than more fully replicating the untoned colour of RR. Fomatone is great, but it is somewhat in a different direction to RR visually (and backed up by the sensitometry), though I'd like to see it on a pure white base again).

I did use some Kodachrome 25 but really only had limited use for it. I got more use out of 64 but I don't really miss either of them.

I think what people are imagining is that K-14 K25/64 looked like their half memories of K-11/ K-12 Kodachrome with its pleasingly inaccurate colours and very warmed up caucasian skin tones. Gold is potentially able to do the latter, but the former would need quite a bit of engineering.

 

[Augustus Caesar]

I've never seen any claim to the contrary, and as far as I know, it has not undergone the extent of very major revisions that TMax 400 underwent (which, from digging through some contemporaneous material, was the film that caused even more headaches for people with sloppy process control than the 100 did). Ilford's claims in their Delta launch material similarly suggests TMX is/ was purely T-grains (relative to the epitaxy of Delta crystal growth methods, and we can be in no doubt that there will have been electron microscope images of TMX crystals done by Ilford), and the issues with pressuring (requiring the thicker base for 120 TMX) and a thicker supercoat to get process times at a reasonable level (both mentioned in Shanebrook) seem very indicative of a purely T-grain/ high aspect ratio grain structure for that time. The advanced 3D grain structures seem to have been a thing that started appearing around about the mid 2000s revisions of Portra.


I think something on a thinner fine-art base (i.e. not Baryta coated) would be interesting, especially if it travelled in the direction of what can be achieved hand coating on 70gsm Japanese papers. Polymax was all about the curve shape I think - which some didn't like because the curve they claimed to want was more like that of Azo, which is where everyone's papers seem to have shifted in the direction of.

I'd really like to see Polywarmtone finally back in production (the Harman Moersch warmtone would be nice too, though I think it never went to a second batch as people were demanding an exact drop-in for PWT, rather than economically viable), and if we're really asking for unusual stuff, taking modern emulsion tech and making a variable contrast brown/ black paper like the very distinctive Record Rapid/ Portriga would be my preference (it's not really a 'warmtone', almost a more complex brown tone, derived initially from the use of lead salts). I suspect that a lot of the underpinning idea of Agfa MCC and Ilford MGWT was to try and economically square the circle of both a market desire for moderate warmth, richer tonality papers like Medalist and for split tones in the manner of selenium on Record Rapid/ Portriga, rather than more fully replicating the untoned colour of RR. Fomatone is great, but it is somewhat in a different direction to RR visually (and backed up by the sensitometry), though I'd like to see it on a pure white base again).


I think what people are imagining is that K-14 K25/64 looked like their half memories of K-11/ K-12 Kodachrome with its pleasingly inaccurate colours and very warmed up caucasian skin tones. Gold is potentially able to do the latter, but the former would need quite a bit of engineering.

K25 was a little more accurate than KII. The latter had a yellow cast or stain that was regarded as inaccurate. Personally, I found K25 to be almost perfect.

 

[bfilm]

I think what people are imagining is that K-14 K25/64 looked like their half memories of K-11/ K-12 Kodachrome with its pleasingly inaccurate colours and very warmed up caucasian skin tones. Gold is potentially able to do the latter, but the former would need quite a bit of engineering.

There is no need to hark back to older versions of Kodachrome. There are countless examples of the beautiful colors that people love in pictures taken with Kodachrome 25 and 64.

K25 was a little more accurate than KII. The latter had a yellow cast or stain that was regarded as inaccurate. Personally, I found K25 to be almost perfect.

I agree that Kodachrome 25 was great. I never got to use it, as I was just getting started when it was still around and I was using Fujichrome films at the time, but many of the pictures I have seen on Kodachrome 25 are really nice looking.

 

[Bill Burk]

I don't know of a published modulation transfer function for Pan-X but I doubt it would be better than TMX. No idea what syntax of motion blur is supposed to mean but there isn't much stopping one from getting motion blur with TMX or any other film.

It's also worth pointing out since we are arguing "at the margins", there is no way your 50 year old Pan-X is doing the best it could anymore. It is fairly age tolerant but degrades.

I mean if you really like shooting looooong expired film that's cool and everything but I don't think you're being very objective here.

I’d take Andrew O’Neill’s word for it. His video is objective.

I take the word “syntax” from “Keepers of Light”. I can give examples. Large format cameras allow for movements to correct converging lines but in35mm syntax you will see trees converge if you aim the camera up.


I formed my opinion about fifteen years ago. See my first gallery shot (Little Sur). I made three visits to Little Sur over the years and used Panatomic-X each time.

 

[Dr. no]

I have seen a few mentions of Verichrome Pan in the suggestions on this thread. It is one film that I really miss. Quite why I am not sure; I'm not equipped materially or intellectually to analyse it.

Not sure either, I don’t think I ever bought any when it was available. We used Tri-X almost exclusively at work (newspapers, university PR and yearbook) except some plus-x for studio work, and when I had to start buying (rather than borrowing ) film I stuck with the same stock till into the ‘90s. I’ve been lucky to get a few big batches on eBay and like it. It seems “smoother” than plus-x or FP4+, less contrast than Acros without being as flat as Pan F, and not as “digital” as tabular grain films. I’m going to refrain from to assign apugs to these, since everyone else is ignoring this numerical system for comparing previously unmeasured pairs:
Verichrome Pan: plus-x =6 apugs
Verichrome Pan: FP4+ =6 apugs
Verichrome Pan: Acros =4 apugs
Verichrome Pan: pan F+ =5 apugs
Verichrome Pan: tabular grain films=3 apugs

See post #247 for details lost in the mêlée.

Change of subject:

“I'm not equipped materially or intellectually to analyse it.”
Yes you are! And shame on everyone that helped create the atmosphere where a fellow enthusiast is discouraged from even exploring these topics. Saying “I like the way this film looks” is not only an entirely valid starting point, it’s an entirely valid conclusion as well.
Whether you (grasp to) employ statistical analysis or attempt to create a dialectic by interrogating the subjective mannerisms, you have no right to shame fellow travelers’ experience of the use of our common materials.

(Not gonna comment on the stats mentioned so far cuz I’m not going to look at them again)

 

[Dr. no]

I agree that Kodachrome 25 was great. I never got to use it, as I was just getting started when it was still around and I was using Fujichrome films at the time, but many of the pictures I have seen on Kodachrome 25 are really nice looking.

I never got to use enough of it…

Harmattan sea

There is no need to hark back to older versions of Kodachrome. There are countless examples of the beautiful colors that people love in pictures taken with Kodachrome 25 and 64.

Why do people always talk about Caucasian skin? Kodachrome was perfect for skin. Period.
Kodachrome

 

[DREW WILEY]

I was disappointed when K64 came out. I liked the 25 version a lot better. The only advantage K64 had, besides its slightly higher speed, is that they briefly offered it in 120 version too. But all of that pales if you've ever sorted through a pristine vintage stack of 5x7 sheets of Kodachrome shots with a light box like I once had the opportunity to do. But those would be so expensive today that Kodak would probably have to sell them in 1-sheet boxes instead to 10-sheet.

 

[Lachlan Young]

I guess you are dismissing the whole field of Psychophysics ...

Psychophysics certainly makes life harder for the sellers of magic beans.

I think some people don't like the idea that the big research labs long ago worked out that if you can observe a phenomena in a particular emulsion/ imaging chain, you can find ways to measure it, research it thoroughly, and enact the good bits that make a greater than just noticeable difference. In particular I think these people really dislike the idea that their solution of (rather poisonous) magic beans might have been thoroughly outflanked and failed the taste test somewhere within the large variety of print sizes tested (as opposed to people working with 5x7 negs at 3x enlargements), and at the same time the mechanism of the bit that's really doing all the work was understood and then commercialised into other products anyway.

There is no need to hark back to older versions of Kodachrome. There are countless examples of the beautiful colors that people love in pictures taken with Kodachrome 25 and 64.

K-14 Kodachrome seems to have been an attempt to try and get the best possible results out of the inherent limitations of the process and rein in some of the excesses. It was nice in some ways, but as soon as Fuji etc managed to get an E-6 product that was competitive for sharpness/ granularity (which, let's be frank about it, was the overwhelming reason people were using Kodachrome in 35mm, at least for commercial/ journalistic work) in the form of RVP, the writing was firmly on the wall. By the end of the 1990s there were E-6 products that ran rings round it, and that's before we talk about the neg films that really obliterated Kodachrome (at least for people who understood how to do colour, and did not need 'you push the button, we do the rest'). K-14 and good post-production can deliver stunningly good results, but just be aware of how the sausage might have been made/ adjusted to taste, especially if you aren't viewing the original transparency.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Kodachrome (later Ektachrome) was great for showing people projected slides. But if you just wanted 4x6" prints returned to you in One Hour to stick in an album or in a frame on the mantle, most people shot Kodacolor negative film.

 

[DREW WILEY]

K25 and Cibachrome were a marriage made in heaven, but only for small prints, since the film itself was only available in 35mm. Old Ektachrome 64 was good too, but for a different category of hues; it was lower contrast and available in PET sheet film. Then the Fujichrome 50 revolution arrived. I miss em all; but since Ciba itself is no longer around, what would be the point? Right now I'm printing Ektar 100 in various formats onto Fuji Maxima color paper - another marriage made in heaven. So I can't complain.

 

[Augustus Caesar]

Psychophysics certainly makes life harder for the sellers of magic beans.

I think some people don't like the idea that the big research labs long ago worked out that if you can observe a phenomena in a particular emulsion/ imaging chain, you can find ways to measure it, research it thoroughly, and enact the good bits that make a greater than just noticeable difference. In particular I think these people really dislike the idea that their solution of (rather poisonous) magic beans might have been thoroughly outflanked and failed the taste test somewhere within the large variety of print sizes tested (as opposed to people working with 5x7 negs at 3x enlargements), and at the same time the mechanism of the bit that's really doing all the work was understood and then commercialised into other products anyway.


K-14 Kodachrome seems to have been an attempt to try and get the best possible results out of the inherent limitations of the process and rein in some of the excesses. It was nice in some ways, but as soon as Fuji etc managed to get an E-6 product that was competitive for sharpness/ granularity (which, let's be frank about it, was the overwhelming reason people were using Kodachrome in 35mm, at least for commercial/ journalistic work) in the form of RVP-50, the writing was firmly on the wall. By the end of the 1990s there were E-6 products that ran rings round it, and that's before we talk about the neg films that really obliterated Kodachrome (at least for people who understood how to do colour, and did not need 'you push the button, we do the rest'). K-14 and good post-production can deliver stunningly good results, but just be aware of how the sausage might have been made/ adjusted to taste, especially if you aren't viewing the original transparency.

False. Kodachrome (or any non-substantive film) is inherently superior in several areas, most especially sharpness, because the emulsions are so much thinner than substantive films. Dynachrome 25 was, I believe, the effort of some Kodak ex-employees who decided to produce a non-substantive film using the older Kodak process K-12 (or K-11, I'm not sure).

 

[MattKing]

False. Kodachrome (or any non-substantive film) is inherently superior in several areas, most especially sharpness, because the emulsions are so much thinner than substantive films. Dynachrome 25 was, I believe, the effort of some Kodak ex-employees who decided to produce a non-substantive film using the older Kodak process K-12 (or K-11, I'm not sure).

That was the case in Kodachrome's heyday.
But that heyday was long past.
Both E6 and C41 technologies surpassed it decades ago.
When Kodachrome was fully viable - due to the volume of it shot as home movies - it was wonderful. But the technical limitations inherent in its components meant that it couldn't be substantially improved. Those limitations weren't present in E6 and C41 materials, so that is where the R&D leading to further improvement went.

 

[djdister]

substantive film

subtractive film?

 

[armadsen]

subtractive film?

Substantive film is film where the dye couplers are already in the film (all color film produced today). Non-substantive film like Kodachrome has the dye couplers added during development.

 

[Dr. no]

By the end of the 1990s there were E-6 products that ran rings round it,

And yet so many pros still used it...primarily for its "look", also for archival properties. National Geographic used it almost exclusively for a long time, and well into the E6/C41 era.
There's quantifiable: how many revenue-reliant users, with a choice, use a stock.

 

[thinkbrown]

There's quantifiable: how many revenue-reliant users, with a choice, use a stock.

I don't have any inside knowledge, but I feel pretty certain that if Kodachrome was profitable, Kodak wouldn't have discontinued it.

 

[Craig]

I don't have any inside knowledge, but I feel pretty certain that if Kodachrome was profitable, Kodak wouldn't have discontinued it.

It's been publicly said that at the end they coated the minimum size mater roll they could and the film cut from that roll wasn't selling before the expiry date.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

That was the case in Kodachrome's heyday.
But that heyday was long past.
Both E6 and C41 technologies surpassed it decades ago.
When Kodachrome was fully viable - due to the volume of it shot as home movies - it was wonderful. But the technical limitations inherent in its components meant that it couldn't be substantially improved. Those limitations weren't present in E6 and C41 materials, so that is where the R&D leading to further improvement went.

Wouldn;t the fact that Kodachrome has three emulsion layers make focusing worse than single-layer E6 chromes?

 

[thinkbrown]

Wouldn;t the fact that Kodachrome has three emulsion layers make focusing worse than single-layer E6 chromes?

E6 isn't a single layer, it still has separate layers per color channel

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

And yet so many pros still used it...primarily for its "look", also for archival properties. National Geographic used it almost exclusively for a long time, and well into the E6/C41 era.
There's quantifiable: how many revenue-reliant users, with a choice, use a stock.

My understanding is the NatGeo had their own Kodachrome processing plant just for their photographers, so much film were they shooting daily. To switch to E6 emulsions would complicate that process. Also the colors would look different between articles in the magazine as each photographer used their own emulsion. I also believe Kodachrome was available throughout the world to all their photographers wherever they were on assignment. They may have really liked that standardization.

Does anyopne know NAtGeo's situation currently? What cameras they use? Who processes the data files? Are they concerned about different color themes among all the different digital cameras?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

E6 isn't a single layer, it still has separate layers per color channel

You're right, I just checked, and it seems Kodachrome actually was sharper because the layers are BW and much thinner than E6 film layers. Film is really chemically complicated. It really is pretty amazing.:

Feature / Layer	Kodachrome (K-14 Process)	E-6 Slide Film (E-6 Process)
Top Layer	Blue-sensitive black & white emulsion.	Blue-sensitive emulsion containing Yellow dye couplers.
Filter Layer	A yellow filter layer to block blue light from passing deeper into the film stack.	A yellow filter layer (often colloidal silver) to block blue light.
Middle Layer	Green-sensitive black & white emulsion.	Green-sensitive emulsion containing Magenta dye couplers.
Bottom Layer	Red-sensitive black & white emulsion.	Red-sensitive emulsion containing Cyan dye couplers.
Dye Location	None. Dyes are sequentially introduced from the outside during K-14 development.	Built-in. Dyes are chemically triggered right inside the layer during E-6 development.
Base Backing	Rem-Jet Backing: A black carbon layer on the bottom to prevent light reflection (halation) and static.	Anti-Halation Undercoating: Built into or just beneath the emulsion, clearing completely during development.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I;m curous why there's a blue blocking layer only?

 

[djdister]

Substantive film is film where the dye couplers are already in the film (all color film produced today). Non-substantive film like Kodachrome has the dye couplers added during development.

Okay, I haven't heard that definition before, thanks.