Hoping to source well-stored 35mm K14 Kodachrome (25, 64, or 200) + K14 magenta coupler suggestions

Caleb Hauge

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The title sums it up pretty well. I'm looking to purchase well-stored (either refrigerated or frozen) K14 process Kodachrome, ideally with expiration dates in the 2000s/2010s but anything is okay as long as it's cold-stored.

If you're curious, I'm planning testing different color couplers for K14 development. Right now I'm planning on trying ester acetoacetate/acetoacetic ester for yellow, 4-Chloro-1-naphthol for cyan, and 4-nitrophenylacetonitrile for magenta. The one I'm least confident in is the magenta coupler. If anybody has any suggestions for an alternate magenta coupler that can be purchased online, please let me know.
 
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Rudeofus

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Stephen Frizza did a private experimental K-14 test run several years ago. He swore to never ever do it again, but he may be willing to share his experience. This thread may be a starter ...
 
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Caleb Hauge

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Rudeofus said:
Stephen Frizza did a private experimental K-14 test run several years ago. He swore to never ever do it again, but he may be willing to share his experience. This thread may be a starter ...
Click to expand...
I've run through all of his posts regarding it, as well as many of the posts from Photo Engineer and everything I could find from what Kelly-Shane Fuller did.
 

Sonynolta User

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There's a guy on youtube that's doing 16mm Kodachrome. Built his own fancy remjet washing machine, and it also doubles as his re exposure machine.

It's quite the thing. A little bit Rube Goldberg and a bit mad-scientist/machinist.

 

MattKing

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For the benefit of the membership:
This thread has been the subject of some moderator discussion.
Technically, this type of thread should be in the Classifieds, and only paid subscribers should be entitled to start it.
But in this case, we have decided to exercise discretion, and let it continue as is.
We have decided to treat it as asking for help finding or sourcing something, rather than the more typical "Want-To-Buy" situation.
We are influenced by factors like the purpose of the request, and the relatively unusual use for the film sought.
As well, we thought there might be some use to the community from the results of the intended experiment.
Members here should consider this as essentially a "one-off". It would be best not to assume that we would exercise this sort of discretion again in the future, but we have no problem if people wish to ask ahead of time.
In case people are not aware, these between moderator discussions - which usually include the site's owner Sean - are fairly frequent, and often influence our exercise of discretion on many issues - a good example being when threads seem to wander on and off topic a bit from time to time.
 
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Caleb Hauge

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Thank you for letting this thread stay up.

As an update to the couplers, it sounds like the magenta and cyan couplers will be good enough, but the yellow one will be problematic. I'm still waiting for a reply from a Chinese chemical lab who claims to have the correct one (CAS 58161-93-6) in stock, but they seem to be the only one I've found so far who might have it in stock. I'm also looking at alternatives based off of what various patents in the history of Kodachrome suggest. I'll try 4-Acetamidobenzenesulfonamide, and I'll check out a textbook on organic chemistry from the library to see if I can figure out what else might work.
 

Bob Tomaine

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I have some that I never got around to finishing and it's been frozen since new. If you're interested, send a PM, I'll give you the specifics and we'll figure out what to do.
 
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Caleb Hauge

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To the people that offered film: thank you. Unfortunately, I've had an unexpected vehicular problem and won't be able to afford to work on Kodachrome until later in the summer. I'll use that time to learn more about this process to try and nail down a yellow coupler.
 

MattKing

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Sorry to hear that - hope the problem gets solved.
It is unfortunate you weren't here a few years ago, because the late "Photo Engineer" (Ron Mowrey) was one of our most active and valued participants, and he was very well versed in Kodachrome - he was the "Mowrey" on the main K-14 patent that Eastman Kodak relied upon.
Of course, he was also tired of being asked about Kodachrome - he firmly believed its technology had been surpassed by Ektachrome.

Otherwise, to avoid confusion about our rules, I'm going to make a small change (replace "purchase" with "source") in your thread title.
 

kfed1984

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What are the most difficult to source ingredients for the Kodachrome process? Are they still available?
 

MattKing

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kfed1984 said:
What are the most difficult to source ingredients for the Kodachrome process? Are they still available?
Click to expand...

Eastman Kodak used to formulate some of them, from components that they themselves formulated, and components they sourced elsewhere. And that formulation was time consuming, complex and expensive, and the formulation wasn't particularly long lasting.
 

kfed1984

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Thank you,

any alternatives/substitutes to the chemicals they used? That aside, you mentioned PE said that Ektachrome surpassed Kodachrome technically. I'm looking through a few books by Ernst Hass, Sault Leiter, and Fred Herzog, all pioneers of expired Kodachrome at their time. All their photos look different and better than Ektachrome in my eye. Is there a way to expire Ektachrome and give it the Saul Leiter look ? Looking at pics of Ektachrome today, they don't even come close to the expired Kodachrome look of the photographers mentioned. Also I'm not sure if Ektachrome grain is as fine as Kodachrome from back then. I don't want to do any funky digital stuff to alter the look. Maybe Ektachrome can be heated in an oven to accelerate the aging, and give it the "warmer" look of good old Kodachrome. But perhaps it does not expire in the same way.
 

Bill Burk

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I highly recommend talking with Adrian Cousins because his experiments continue with the available color couplers and dyes plus he’s dealing with having to add restrainer to the first developer since the available Kodachrome is aging.

He gets beautiful artistic muted colors from Kodachrome but not the accurate colors that the process was famous for in its heyday.
 

MattKing

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I'm surprised to see Fred Herzog referred to as a pioneer of using expired Kodachrome. He used to bring his Kodachrome into the Kodak lab regularly, and get my Dad or his staff to send it off to the Kodachrome lab in Palo Alto, because he was convinced that they did a better job processing it there .
When the slides came back, he would show them at his regularly scheduled, church hall showings, where people paid the small admission fee to attend.
He didn't have many prints made until a long time later.
The prints and books you see now reflect the scan and print process used now.
 

kfed1984

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he actually processes Kodachrome in color?
 

kfed1984

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Awesome to talk to someone who knew Fred Herzog! I watched some documentaries on the three artists, expired Kodachrome was mentioned a lot, I assume it applied to all. Sault Leiter for sure. So some post-processing was done to the Kodachrome scans, is this for sure? I see modern scans of Ektachrome and they look good, but not with the Haas-Leiter-Herzog kind of look. I wonder if film scans in general allow more digital processing than do purely digital images.
 

kfed1984

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Seems that the development/chemical process of Kodachrome is more complex than the coating and layer composition of the film itself, Kodachrome that is.
 

MattKing

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Not me, but my Dad knew Fred a bit, and a good friend of mine (and an infrequent poster here on Photrio) was a co-worker with Fred - they were both photographers and technicians at the University of British Columbia.
Those scans and Prints were done under the auspices of the Equinox Gallery here in Vancouver, and the prints themselves are both wonderful, and quite faithful to 1960s and 1970s era Kodachrome. But they are very carefully scanned, processed and printed, by very talented artist/technicians.
 

MattKing

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kfed1984 said:
Seems that the development/chemical process of Kodachrome is more complex than the coating and layer composition of the film itself, Kodachrome that is.
Click to expand...

It is best to look at is a a single process, with two stages - a combination of making the film and processing it. In fact, it is best to look at all the colour processes that way - except for instant photography, of course.
 
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