KA: Kodachrome "just not practical to try to replicate in today's market."

[NJH]

yup

i never understand how anyone could ask a company that is already struggling
to begin manufacturing something that would be prohibitively expensive to make,
..... they are drinking
too much tainted with lead &c municipal tap water.....

Thanks for making me laugh, that comment reminded me of that scene from Dr Strangelove where the nutcase USAF general explains to Peter Sellers that the Ruskies are destroying America by putting drugs in the water.


Comedy genius, almost as ludicrously funny as bringing back Kodachrome.

 

[bvy]

Would some moderator please close this thread?

Please?

The OP approves. The "news" of the original post has been successfully delivered to the ones who already knew it, and the ones who refuse to believe it.

 

[cmacd123]

I belive that the moderators only reliably repond when someone uses the report post tool. No one can read all the posts on this board.

 

[Prest_400]

Would some moderator please close this thread?

Please?

APUG's got its own version of Godwin's law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Kodachrome approaches 1"

The original discontinuance thread ended up being a mastodontic mess but there were some great useful discussions and you introduced some good insights. It's great to have you around here Ron!

At least the idea of Barn coated Kodachrome and two letter trolls seem to be gone.

BTW don't get it deleted, something weird happened with that a while ago.

 

[removed account4]

i read yesterday in an underground e-zine i subscribe to ( with a duummy email address of course ) that there
is someone on the southern tip of argentina who has a subterranian coating facility and he has prototype
kodachrome film. in the deep cavern that he uses for his laboratory he also has devised a way to process his kodachrome
( he calls it kodachrome because he backwards engineered it from old rolls of kodachrome that he saved and by reading
technical articles and patent reports even thorugh it might not be the true kodak product ) using a 3 step developer instead of
the multi steps from the original process. he has coated and processed and projected small rolls and large sheets.and the author
says in a few months it will be released sporadically. the author of the article described how he equated his tour of the facility to
the history channel "search for the holy lance" where the shw's narrators were blindfolded and brought to a secret location in
at a fortress/monestary in the midle of a north african desert .. the owner of the photographic facility transfered information via
a series of carrier pigeons and later the author was blindfolded and travelled by way of boat and donkey cart to the secret facility.
the place runs off of countless petrol powered generators and the cave is not well ventilated. the own of the nouveau kodachrome
film plant allowed for digital snapshots to be taken of some of the slides for the e-publication ... which were published with the small write up...
turns out with a massive dose of exaust fumes, cases of argentinian wine, fermented sheeps milk cheese on ergot infested rye crackers regular old
black and white film can look like kodachrome. i'd forward the article on the website, but they shift ip addresses every publication.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There is a guy here on APUG who was trying to replicate Kodachrome from his home in Australia, and he posted pictures here in the making and coating forum.

PE

 

[kruiwagen]

There is a guy here on APUG who was trying to replicate Kodachrome from his home in Australia, and he posted pictures here in the making and coating forum.

PE

Wasn't there also a guy on this forum that recently developed Kodachrome himself? I beleive he lives in the U.S.A.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes, but we all know that magenta is not a color.

 

[cmacd123]

Yes, but we all know that magenta is not a color.

tell that to anyone who has had to use "M" filters in their enlarger to make a print.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

i read yesterday in an underground e-zine i subscribe to ( with a duummy email address of course ) that there
is someone on the southern tip of argentina who has a subterranian coating facility and he has prototype
kodachrome film. in the deep cavern that he uses for his laboratory he also has devised a way to process his kodachrome
( he calls it kodachrome because he backwards engineered it from old rolls of kodachrome that he saved and by reading
technical articles and patent reports even thorugh it might not be the true kodak product ) using a 3 step developer instead of
the multi steps from the original process. he has coated and processed and projected small rolls and large sheets.and the author
says in a few months it will be released sporadically. the author of the article described how he equated his tour of the facility to
the history channel "search for the holy lance" where the shw's narrators were blindfolded and brought to a secret location in
at a fortress/monestary in the midle of a north african desert .. the owner of the photographic facility transfered information via
a series of carrier pigeons and later the author was blindfolded and travelled by way of boat and donkey cart to the secret facility.
the place runs off of countless petrol powered generators and the cave is not well ventilated. the own of the nouveau kodachrome
film plant allowed for digital snapshots to be taken of some of the slides for the e-publication ... which were published with the small write up...
turns out with a massive dose of exaust fumes, cases of argentinian wine, fermented sheeps milk cheese on ergot infested rye crackers regular old
black and white film can look like kodachrome. i'd forward the article on the website, but they shift ip addresses every publication.

I'll trade you, some mushrooms I grow under my bed for some of those crackers.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes, but we all know that magenta is not a color.

tell that to anyone who has had to use "M" filters in their enlarger to make a print.

Obviously you never ran across the two letter troll who said that and threatened both PE and myself.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

For some reason APUG/Photrio activity drops by two magnitudes over the weekend. Doesn't make sense to me...unless during the weekday people use this site to escape from work.

Anyway, on a Friday evening this is the only active thread. So...

i never understand how anyone could ask a company that is already struggling to begin manufacturing something that would be prohibitively expensive to make, to re-manufacturer the machines to process (the film), when there wasn't enough market share to continue making it when it was last being made.
...

Let's forget about Kodak doing it - that would be financial ruin. The Chinese could do it and do it profitably. Besides, there are hundreds of millions of Chinese people who've never seen or used Kodachrome. That's the new market.

Discuss...

 

[alanrockwood]

For some reason APUG/Photrio activity drops by two magnitudes over the weekend. Doesn't make sense to me...unless during the weekday people use this site to escape from work.

Anyway, on a Friday evening this is the only active thread. So...



Let's forget about Kodak doing it - that would be financial ruin. The Chinese could do it and do it profitably. Besides, there are hundreds of millions of Chinese people who've never seen or used Kodachrome. That's the new market.

Discuss...

I kind of doubt if they would care enough to be a good market, unfortunately.

 

[removed account4]

For some reason APUG/Photrio activity drops by two magnitudes over the weekend. Doesn't make sense to me...unless during the weekday people use this site to escape from work.

Anyway, on a Friday evening this is the only active thread. So...



Let's forget about Kodak doing it - that would be financial ruin. The Chinese could do it and do it profitably. Besides, there are hundreds of millions of Chinese people who've never seen or used Kodachrome. That's the new market.

Discuss...

maybe? but there would be a giant tarrf so the film wold cost 100$/roll

 

[trendland]

The processing machines should be easy enough, if one can get the process timings and specifications for turbulation, filtration and replenishment. The process chemicals shouldn't be that hard, but a little harder than the machines (I'm guessing here). The film itself is the major hurdle. A hurdle that doesn't seem to be economically viable and we all know businesses base their decisions on that. So, like cmacd123 said:

Let's make a short market analysis :
2000/2001 there were sellings around (estimated) 2 - 3 billions 135-36 film equivalents/year worldwide. E6 probably was 7 - 8% of all films. We first don't care about percentage of Kodachrome at this time - ok?
That makes around (just somewere in the near of) 200.000.000 E6 35mm equivalents at the top in 2000/2001.
Today we hear about scales somewere around 1% remaining. Because the lost from demand makes 98 - 99,5 %.
Some state their is just a lost of 98,5%.
We make a decision on 1% remaining sales because thats all just estimated.
So there are around 2.000.000. E 6 sales left. It seams to be much to high - better count on 1,5 million slide films (all coming from Fuji).
What is the possible demand on Kodachrome ? Nobody can say of course.
Bit I would bet - it can't be more that 5% of all E6 today. That makes 75.000 Kodachromes per year.
If Kodak would decide to relaunch this film it would be a risky bet with calculated losses of invested money.
A bet on a mega hype with Kodachrome.
But from calculated pricing this film must be over 50 bucks then.
From my point no problem - some would give such money just to have "new" Kodachrome. But there is also the impossibility at the same time.
A 60 bucks film can't have sales of 5% of all todays E6 sellings. I would suppose it is a hard spekulation if just 1 of 100 bought E6 films would go to K14.
But then we are talking about a (min.)
300 buck film.....
So if a group of people will guarantee Kodak a yearly demand of min. 200.000 films (at around USD 35,- including developement) Kodak would seriously began with calculation of possible cost of investment. [ may be the result is negative and Kodak would come to 500.000 135-36 film equivalent/year to a min. of 5 years constant demand.]
That is meant from Kodak's interview beginning 2017 as they have thoughts in every direction.
Depending from demand everything seams to be possible.
with regards

 

[removed account4]

But from calculated pricing this film must be over 50 bucks then.
From my point no problem - some would give such money just to have "new" Kodachrome. But there is also the impossibility at the same time.
A 60 bucks film can't have sales of 5% of all todays E6 sellings. I would suppose it is a hard spekulation if just 1 of 100 bought E6 films would go to K14.
But then we are talking about a (min.)
300 buck film.....
So if a group of people will guarantee Kodak a yearly demand of min. 200.000 films (at around USD 35,- including developement) Kodak would seriously began with calculation of possible cost of investment. [ may be the result is negative and Kodak would come to 500.000 135-36 film equivalent/year to a min. of 5 years constant demand.]
That is meant from Kodak's interview beginning 2017 as they have thoughts in every direction.
Depending from demand everything seams to be possible.
with regards

even if i did shoot a lot of chromes and i was independently wealthy there is no wa i would
spend 50-300$ on a roll of flm even if it was the last roll of kodachrome ever made and ever processed.
maybe there are kodachromafiles out there that would do that, but judging from the people on a variety of photographic
websites i have been to in the last 20-25 years, and folks i know "in person"
the person spending 50-300$ isn't anyone i have come across seeing most people nickle and dime you for gear you might be selling,
others complaining that the price of fixer has gone up 50¢/gallon, or tri x isn't the same price it was in 1960,
and some others cobbling together once pro-gear for pennies on the dollar, ...
while others complain about paypal charging them .30+30% as a fee for their credit card service, or eboo charged 10¢ for bold face lettres..
no disrespect intended but most photographers i have come across are cheapskates ( myself included ).
its too bad people won't let kodachrome die a respectful death...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Wasn't there also a guy on this forum that recently developed Kodachrome himself? I beleive he lives in the U.S.A.

He was also from Australia. That was Steven Frizza.

PE

 

[kruiwagen]

He was also from Australia. That was Steven Frizza.

PE

I have read about him. I did some googeling and I found the one I was talking about. Kelly-Shane Fuller from Piratology Studios. Or is he the same guy?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Different guy. The one you found, IMHO, has somewhat inferior results compared to Steve's.

PE

 

[Theo Sulphate]

maybe? but there would be a giant tarrf so the film wold cost 100$/roll

For us, maybe. But tariffs & trade wars rarely last and work. Besides, the Chinese and rest of world would get to use the new Chinese Kodachrome. If you go there, you can put a roll in your camera - avoid tariff!

 

[Prest_400]

Chinese Kodachrome... they are making this 1960s Plus-X under the name of "Shanghai" and I'm not seeing any flocks of apuggers running to buy all of it!

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Chinese Kodachrome... they are making this 1960s Plus-X under the name of "Shanghai" and I'm not seeing any flocks of apuggers running to buy all of it!

That's because Plus-X wasn't such a great film.

 

[iandvaag]

Sometimes lost in this mess is,.... WE HAVE, lovely slide films, in the current Fujifilm offerings. This is what should be saved! Volume is the key. If people keep buying the film, Fuji will keep making it.

+1 And hopefully soon Ektachrome and Ferraniachrome will enter the fray. It still may be possible to "save" E6. Fuji makes some great slide films; I hope people recognize them as such and buy them, lest they be discontinued. It is hard to imagine a color process being reintroduced after it has "died".

 

[trendland]

I don't have to get over it. I've never been into it. When Fuji will discontinue Velvia, however... I guess I'll have to call for volunteers to form an invasion force, take Japan and seize the Fuji plant!

Lantau then you should be prepared soon. Began to train your volonteers in paratrooping, manage wheather forecast,
a.s.o. because D-Day will come.
with regards
PS : Folks you can buy as many Velvia as you can - the only result from this is not you will see Velvia a few years longer as Fuji planed - it would be the paradox oposite : You will force next E6 price increasing and Velvia will get off much earlier as expected........?

 

[trendland]

To add one perspective on the return of P3200.... I, for one, am very excited about TMax 3200; Kodak films intensify beautifully. With VMI and I can rate the film up to 51,200 and reclaim the negative in the intensifier with great tonality. Ilford Delta 3200, on the other hand, just does not seem to respond to intensifiers... I've tried with chromium, silver and VMI and it barely makes a difference.

The relaunch of Tmax3200 was no big deal for Kodak.It was well known from production parameters and formulation.
It was the cheapest deal to built a bridge in regard of the later coming Ektachrome.
It was a way to use capacity on bw emusion backing parallel with preparation of Ektachrome bw basis.
If Kodak would have introduced a complete new color emulsion instead it would have been > 10 times more expansive from investment. So we should see this reintroduced tmax as a paralel product of Ektachrome. Nevertheless Tmax3200 isn't Ektachromes basis - but a tmax 100 derivated emulsion should be used. So Kodak finaly is able to earn a little money meanwhile (a Ferrania like procedure indeed).
with regards