An old Kodak film

Ces1um · Jun 6, 2019

I can't seem to find it on google but I know I've heard about a type of film, made by Kodak, that came with it's own developing kit. They were sold together and I don't believe you had to mix any chemistry. I believe it came with a little plastic holder that you wound the film through, let it sit, and then wound it back out. I'm pretty sure it was colour film but I don't know if it was c-41, slide or some long defunct other type. Sorry for the vagueness but I'm trying to claw this back from the depths of my memory. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?

bdial · Jun 6, 2019

Polaroid had an "instant" 35mm slide film for a while which used a little daylight processor that came with it.
described midway down this wikipedia page

AgX · Jun 6, 2019

Several of these.

AgX · Jun 6, 2019

There were different instant approaches, but none by Kodak aside of integral films (now Instax).

Ces1um · Jun 6, 2019

bdial said:
Polaroid had an "instant" 35mm slide film for a while which used a little daylight processor that came with it.
described midway down this wikipedia page

Thank you- that was it. Polachrome in 35mm. Even though it had obvious limitations I think that would be a good film to resurrect for them. I think there would be a market for a no fuss/no muss way to develop colour 35mm film for the average person.

Pentode · Jun 6, 2019

I made some interesting images with Pola Blue, a Polaroid product that used that little processing unit to make blue and white negative transparencies with very high contrast and nearly invisible grain.

This was about 20 years ago. It was fun but a little too specific to pursue in any depth.

BrianShaw · Jun 6, 2019

Polachrome was interesting and fun but not up to snuff for commercial usage. I tried it repeatedly for production of presentation graphics. Remember doing those with rub-on letters, wax-glued pictures, and a copy stand? It was expensive and fickle. And the resolution was poor. I recall getting the processors for free but even that didn’t make it work for us. We quickly reverted back to Ektachrome and our local 3-hour turnaround lab. I still have a couple of manuals for that product; I look at them fondly but don’t get a warm feeling like I’d ever want a return of Polachrome. The processors were either returned to Polaroid or lost in the shuffle decades ago. But it was a cool idea!

Ces1um · Jun 6, 2019

BrianShaw said:
Polachrome was interesting and fun but not up to snuff for commercial usage. I tried it repeatedly for production of presentation graphics. Remember doing those with rub-on letters, wax-glued pictures, and a copy stand? It was expensive and fickle. And the resolution was poor. I recall getting the processors for free but even that didn’t make it work for us. We quickly reverted back to Ektachrome and our local 3-hour turnaround lab. I still have a couple of manuals for that product; I look at them fondly but don’t get a warm feeling like I’d ever want a return of Polachrome. The processors were either returned to Polaroid or lost in the shuffle decades ago. But it was a cool idea!

Might be a decent Lomography style product?

OrientPoint · Jun 6, 2019

I still shoot Polachrome. I have a case of it from the 90s that still works perfectly except that the backing layer doesn't separate on its own, so you have to wash it after processing. It's based upon the doomed-from-birth Polavision movie film, so it uses additive color (little color stripes that add color to a black and white image). This makes it pretty low resolution and difficult to scan. It's also pretty grainy being 20+ years expired, and is more like an ISO 6 film than the ISO 40 rating on the box... but I still love it.

BrianShaw · Jun 6, 2019

Ces1um said:
Might be a decent Lomography style product?

Thats what it really was back then... in terms of performance... rather than the professional product it was advertised to be.

Could be once again...

But what would be even better would be 4x5 T-58 and T-52.

pentaxuser · Jun 6, 2019

For the occasional user of colour neg it would be great if there were a container into which you dropped your film cassette and having loaded 2 sections with a pot of developer and blix could simply "pull" the film through then wash and stabilise all at room temp. Even better if the developer pot was good for say 2 films processed in quick succession and the blix was good for say 4 films as long as the gap was no more than a few weeks.

However even if it could be done would I be willing to pay the premium for it? The truthful answer is I don't know but I suspect not once the required premium was known.

It's a bit like resurrecting Kodachrome, HIE etc. People will say and probably mean it that they would pay £20 per film but the numbers required to make it viable might mean that the premium is £100/200 or higher

pentaxuser

AgX · Jun 6, 2019

BrianShaw said:
Polachrome was interesting and fun but not up to snuff for commercial usage. I tried it repeatedly for production of presentation graphics.

But at least their graphic film was explicitedly marketed as commercial film.

cmacd123 · Jun 9, 2019

Back in the 1960sthe local camera store had a gismo like that. small clear plastic unit perhaps 2 inch in diameter. you would put the entire roll of 20 Exp film in and pour in a monobath. Turn the knob on the top and wind and unwind the film inside the cassette. (which is why it could only be 20 Exp, needed some room for the solution)

I picture the device as clear tank with a robins egg blue top.

After so many Minutes you were to open the cassette and wash and dry the film.

No idea of the make. I was not interested as I was always trying to buy film in reusable cassettes (Ansco, Agfa, Ilford) so I could do some bulk loading.

Paul Howell · Jun 12, 2019

In the mid 80s when I was with UPI before it ceased field operations we tired Polorchrome, the idea was to be able to shoot have slides to send to the regional office right away. It was not so good, grainy, high contrast, and the few slides I kept have faded. The black and white version worked somewhat better.

An old Kodak film

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency