Future Kodachrome Colour Developing

Stephen Frizza · Nov 6, 2012

Just throwing it out there would anyone here be willing to pay $260 dollars per roll for Colour Kodachrome processing with a minimum of 5 rolls per order and payment before processing?

belichten · Nov 6, 2012

Stephen Frizza said:
Just throwing it out there would anyone here be willing to pay $260 dollars per roll for Colour Kodachrome processing with a minimum of 5 rolls per order and payment before processing?

is this a typo or are you serious about 260$ per roll
at this price i wouldn't do it

David Brown · Nov 6, 2012

MartinP · Nov 6, 2012

wildbill · Nov 6, 2012

No. I do have some 120 K64 I'd be willing to part with though.

railwayman3 · Nov 6, 2012

Sorry, no. Much as I would love to use my final stock of Kodachrome, I can't envisage any pictures being worth that sum. I'd maybe pay $30-ish.

BradleyK · Nov 6, 2012

railwayman3 said:
Sorry, no. Much as I would love to use my final stock of Kodachrome, I can't envisage any pictures being worth that sum. I'd maybe pay $30-ish.

+1. Possibly $20-$25/roll. At the price suggested above, the stash of KM/KR currently sitting at -20C in my freezer would more likely see use as an inconvenient-to-process lot of black and white...

Photo Engineer · Nov 6, 2012

I told you all before how expensive it would be. I guess I overestimated the price, but this seems to be the way things are going. I think this should be the final thread on Kodachrome.

PE

Jeff Bannow · Nov 6, 2012

I wouldn't pay that much to process anything. At $1300 plus shipping for 5 rolls, I'd shoot something else.

MDR · Nov 6, 2012

Ask me after I win in the lottery. How many costumers would you need to lower the price to something like 25$ per film?

Dominik

lxdude · Nov 6, 2012

Yes, absolutely.

If by "roll" you mean master roll.

Brian C. Miller · Nov 6, 2012

That's $7.22 per frame for 36 frames.

8x10 color processing ranges from $6 to $8 per sheet.

Man up or move over!

Thomas Bertilsson · Nov 6, 2012

BMbikerider · Nov 6, 2012

Jeff Bannow said:
I wouldn't pay that much to process anything. At $1300 plus shipping for 5 rolls, I'd shoot something else.

Yes, probably myself!!!

Ektagraphic · Nov 6, 2012

I would be a little more easily to think about if it were that price for all 5 rolls.

dsmccrac · Nov 6, 2012

Frankly, given everything that PE and Steve said about how hard it would be to process,the materials, and the time, and this price does not surprise me. If someone could have done it for $20-30 bucks a roll I don't think it processing of it would have stopped.

I think that is good to put this option out there Steve, but as my freezer is only full of old BW film, I am mot a candidate to be a customer. I hope someone bites as a want to see what they look like!!

lxdude · Nov 6, 2012

OTOH, if Kevin Kittle over on the Kodachrome project gets his K-Lab processor going, and can procure chemicals, it could happen.

pbromaghin · Nov 6, 2012

If I had been standing on the Grassy Knoll, maybe.

Ken Nadvornick · Nov 6, 2012

pbromaghin said:
If I had been standing on the Grassy Knoll, maybe.

Damn! You beat me to it by a few minutes. I was going to write "if the exposed roll was found in an attic with a note saying 'LHO leaving the Texas School Book Depository building.'"

Ken

Poisson Du Jour · Nov 6, 2012

Wwwwhat!? $250!?

:eek:
Come off the glue!

Other things you can do with an idle $250?
For me, a KEP-M gallery print, 81cm x61cm, dibonded, mounting battens and certificate, ready for the bright lights of the gallery. All that (including scan, colourimetrics, proofing etc) from film that remains available and abundant and is cheap to process. Kodachrome has gone. Tugging at the forelocks of a carcass is bizarre. Move on with what film you have and what is available.

Sim2 · Nov 6, 2012

Stephen Frizza said:
Just throwing it out there would anyone here be willing to pay $260 dollars per roll for Colour Kodachrome processing with a minimum of 5 rolls per order and payment before processing?

I do not post that often here but I find this post really interesting.

I seem to remember that Mr Frizza managed to reconstruct a Kodachrome processing line in his lab - my guess is that this is not the process price that has been chosen for maximum profit but the actual price (with or without mark-up) that has been extrapolated from the successful test. What I mean is that Mr Frizza may have gone the extra step, after establishing if it could be done, of costing the sourcing of the chemicals/longevity of mixed chems/estimated throughput/floorspace costings/labour costs and perhaps a commercial mark-up - leading to the $260 cost per roll.

Most things are actually possible but somethings, whilst possible, do not make economic sense or there are not enough people willing to pay the "uneconomic price" to gain the benefit from the product. Just my musings but an interesting cost per roll and no I wouldn't pay it!

Sim2.

polyglot · Nov 6, 2012

I'm not in the market at any price but geez people, stop whingeing about the price. You're paying for a couple of days work by a skilled and qualified (chemistry) lab technician, procurement of annoying-to-find chemistry in annoyingly small+expensive quantities, probably consumption of some other Kodachrome film-stock for process-control purposes, not to mention manufacture of some specialised equipment to perform the reversal exposure. Plus overheads on the commercial lab space where this is occurring.

Frankly I'm surprised it's that cheap. I don't expect Steve to get (m)any takers while E6 is still around but the price is remarkably low for what's involved. Maybe it'd get cheaper if someone scraped together 100+ rolls to run in a batch.

I suspect that in 10-20 years, 3D printing will be passe which means there will be open-source designs for coating machines and film processors, including for Kodachrome. At that point, I expect to see homemade Kodachrome or similar (since the chemistry seems simpler than E6) re-emerge as an ultra-premium LF material, e.g. for bespoke portraits at the very high-end. Same market as the dudes wandering around with 20x24" cameras and charging $10k for a sitting.

Kevin Kehler · Nov 6, 2012

While I have never shot Kodachrome (sorry, too young), this is exactly what I thought it would cost to recreate the development process. I remember when Kodak first canceled it and the gnashing of teeth on this forum as well as several people saying they would pay almost anything for Kodachrome to continue (do you remember one post about someone wanting Kodak to make him a master roll of Kodachrome, saying he was willing to spend $250k+)?

Congratulations to Stephen, not only for persevering in this difficult, difficult task but also for demonstrating why every post should be taken with a lump of salt.

DREW WILEY · Nov 6, 2012

What are rolls for? Change the subject to 8x10 Kodachrome sheet film. Now that's something I could use. Then, given the power of miracles to produce that particular product, subsequently invent a
desktop processor for the same that sells for under a thousand bucks. Third, make me twenty years
younger so I still have a lot of time and energy left to shoot the stuff!

Michael W · Nov 6, 2012

Will you offer a student discount, Steve?

Future Kodachrome Colour Developing

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