Found an old roll of Kodachrome in a Leica IIIf...

GarageBoy · Oct 10, 2016

So I bid and won a Leica IIIf st on eBay that I didn't know was a time machine. I fired the shutter and wound it to see if it worked and the knob turned... Hmm

Went to unwind the film (I knew it was going to be slow, but I didn't expect that slow...) and out popped a long leader, zebra striped can of Kodachrome- god knows how old it is and there was about 27 exp on it - should I have blue moon try to develop it as black and white or just save the canister as a souvenir?

twelvetone12 · Oct 10, 2016

You can also give a try and develope it yourself as BW, there is plenty of info here on apug. I did it once with an old I forgot to have processed and it cam out as a nice bw film.

Kirks518 · Oct 10, 2016

I haven't tried to do Chrome in B&W, but I have done quite a bit of C-41 with D-76 1+2 for 12:30 with good success. If you get good / decent images from that, you may then be able to send it to Blue Moon for conversion back to color.

BAC1967 · Oct 10, 2016

You could send it to Film Rescue International for processing as black and white or stand develop it in Rodinal 1-100 as black and white. Hopefully the previous owner didn't open the bottom of the camera and expose the film. Stand developing it yourself would probably be the best financial option since the film chamber may have been opened.

Dead Link Removed

Theo Sulphate · Oct 10, 2016

Kirks518 said:
I haven't tried to do Chrome in B&W, but I have done quite a bit of C-41 with D-76 1+2 for 12:30 with good success. If you get good / decent images from that, you may then be able to send it to Blue Moon for conversion back to color.

If processed commercially, I know Kodachrome can be only B&W now. What is this conversion back to color?

Wallendo · Oct 10, 2016

If you do it yourself, check out this thread:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
If you just use the standard B&W development, your negatives will be quite dense.

Gerald C Koch · Oct 10, 2016

Actually Kodachrome film IS black and white film. In contrast with other chromes there were no color couplers in the film itself. These were added during a very complicated development process. So developing this film in a color developer will get you nothing but black and white slides.

Prof_Pixel · Oct 10, 2016

Theo Sulphate said:
If processed commercially, I know Kodachrome can be only B&W now. What is this conversion back to color?

Just B&W see http://www.bluemooncamera.com/Kodachrome_BW_developing.php

Prof_Pixel · Oct 10, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
Actually Kodachrome film IS black and white film. In contrast with other chromes there were no color couplers in the film itself. These were added during a very complicated development process. So developing this film in a color developer will get you nothing but black and white slides.

With a yellow cast due to the Carey Lea silver filter layer.

Kirks518 · Oct 10, 2016

Theo Sulphate said:
If processed commercially, I know Kodachrome can be only B&W now. What is this conversion back to color?

Theo, it's called 'Film Acceleration'. Looks like it can't be done with Kodachrome, but it can be done with C-41. Film rescue does it. It involves developing with B&W chemistry, then, if that looks good, you use potassium ferracyanide and potassium bromide, then regular C-41 chems.

I personally haven't tried to do it, as the c-41 I develop in B&W is some long expired junk film that I use for camera testing, and not worth the additional chemistry. I also don't have the Pot Bromide.

Here's Film Rescue's page about it (sort of). Dead Link Removed

Helios 1984 · Oct 13, 2016

If you succeed, I'd be quite interested to see the results

LAG · Oct 14, 2016

GarageBoy said:
...should I have blue moon try to develop it as black and white or just save the canister as a souvenir?

You can do both (develop & save the canister)

Found an old roll of Kodachrome in a Leica IIIf...

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