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Kodachrome Home Development - I've an idea

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After looking at the patent, its nice to know exactly what is in the kodachrome chemistry, but tough for anyone but an industrial chemist to obtain the chemicals and mix the solutions.

Interestingly it specifies a processing temperature of 27C, I thought that it was 38C?
 
Patents only have to show a working example that is different, and better than the prior art.

This will work, but the actual formulas and process cycle of the real Kodachrome are somewhat different.

PE
 
Thanks for the links, CRhymer. This sounds like at least a few of these K-Lab machines might still be in service, but I'd heard that only one lab in the US (Dwayne's) and one or two others worldwide still did Kodachrome. Are the remaining K-Lab machines all sitting idle, or are a few still working but just not doing much business, compared to the quantities going to the (very few) bigger K-14 labs?
 
I think the last Kodachrome labs are Dwayne's and Kodak Switzerland, and Kodak Switzerland will cease processing Kodachrome motion-picture film August 1. I don't know if they will end 35mm Kodachrome processing at the same time.
 
Buy it!
 
Gerald Koch said:
This is where you are wrong. Each of the three emulsions layers must be developed separately and must be exposed to light from a specific side. I believe the center layer is the last to be developed and may use a fogging developer.
Click to expand...

I wonder how to control that the light reaches only the specified side of the film? There has got to be some light scattering in the machine? How do you do it in manual processing?
 
To Petzi, I'd imagine that you'd put the side to be exposed down, and shine that color light up, and it would be very low intensity. I wouldn't think that a little scatter would matter, as the light would be of a certain color that the other layers are not compeltely sensitive to.

Maybe PE would be able to answer this specifically ...
 
Petzi said:
I wonder how to control that the light reaches only the specified side of the film? There has got to be some light scattering in the machine? How do you do it in manual processing?
Click to expand...
You can expose both sides if you like, the important one is to expose is the emulsion side.

By the way, I assume you guys have no idea of what difficulties and expense it would be to process Kodachrome at home properly, otherwise I doubt if you would waste your time even thinking about it.
 
It is essential to expose the back, and only the back of the film to red light and the front and only the front (emulsion) side to blue light. It is also essential that only one of these be done at a time and that only the corresponding color developer be used afterwards to finish development in that layer.

The exposure is done using a small lamp with the film clamped in a holder. We had 35mm holders or 4x5 holders that kept the film rigid and then placed them in front of the appropriate lamps for exposure. I believe a WR29 or a WR70 was used for the red exposure. The other side of the film was protected from light exposure.

Red was done first.

Yes, we could get Kodachrome in 4x5 sheets, even up to the end of the project, and no, no one wanted them so it was a very rare thing.

PE
 
Craig said:
After looking at the patent, its nice to know exactly what is in the kodachrome chemistry, but tough for anyone but an industrial chemist to obtain the chemicals and mix the solutions.

Interestingly it specifies a processing temperature of 27C, I thought that it was 38C?
Click to expand...

Couldn't one get the needed chemistry from say oganica.de ? All I can tell is they make chemistry for colour couplers and masks, the names and cross checking of them is unfortunately beyond me :sad: Someday (somemonth anyways) soon I promise will read up on organic chemistry, esp colours.
 
The names of the couplers and developers are in the patent. You can just look them up, copied as-is from that information. I cannot get to the URL you refer to, so I cannot help.

PE
 
sanderx1 said:
Couldn't one get the needed chemistry from say oganica.de ? All I can tell is they make chemistry for colour couplers and masks, the names and cross checking of them is unfortunately beyond me :sad: Someday (somemonth anyways) soon I promise will read up on organic chemistry, esp colours.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why I got involved in this thread at all, I don't shoot kodachrome (among other things due to non-availablity) anyways... organica.de doesn't have all or even close to all of those. www.chemos-group.com seemed to have anything listed that I bothered to pasdte into their search but again, I won't be using the stuff so I'm not going to ask them for a quote. www.chemexper.com appears to be a portal for finding suppliers and for most thinsg apparently somebody will be willing to sell in small quanities.

I'll take more care in the future as to what threads I go anywhere near, never mind posting in.
 
Some time ago I promised to upload the Kodachrome Process (K14) as published in an issue of Camera and Darkroom (Magazine sadly missed - a great deal). Without trying to retype and re-format, here is a .jpg scan (there was a great deal of struggling as it was). I hope it is readable.

K14 Processing:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The formulas and an overview of the process (along with the K-12 process)were given in the Dignan Newsletter. If you have access to a large library they may have the Newsletter on microfiche or you may able to get it on interlibrary loan.
 
The formulas are also available in the patent I posted the # of earlier.

This patent is available on-line.

PE
 
It is interesting that the temperature that is specified for washing is significantly lower than that for the "active" solutions.
 
Petzi said:
It is interesting that the temperature that is specified for washing is significantly lower than that for the "active" solutions.
Click to expand...

The temperature is actually not lower, the range is broader. Look at it again.

The reason for part of that (IIRC) is due to cooldown during reversal exposure.

PE
 
Photo Engineer said:
Yes, we could get Kodachrome in 4x5 sheets, even up to the end of the project, and no, no one wanted them so it was a very rare thing.

PE
Click to expand...


Aaaaargh. I would have killed for that. Not sure I was living in Rochester at the time, but I would have just driven slowly past your building with the sunroof open; you could have thrown a few hundred sheets in.

Earl
 
Earl Dunbar said:
Aaaaargh. I would have killed for that. Not sure I was living in Rochester at the time, but I would have just driven slowly past your building with the sunroof open; you could have thrown a few hundred sheets in.

Earl
Click to expand...

Earl, experiments were usually coated at 100 or 200 ft of 4.5 inch wide. If it was slit and chopped it was as 35mm without perfs for lab experiments or with perfs for camera experiments. The 4x5s would have been nice though. I admit, but no one every asked for any as far as I know even though it was one of the options on the coating sheet. It would have been a lot of 4x5 sheets. Oddly enough, I never saw anyone get 120 and don't remember that being one of the options on the work sheet.

PE
 
Photo Engineer said:
Oddly enough, I never saw anyone get 120 and don't remember that being one of the options on the work sheet.
Click to expand...

This is due to the backing paper I guess? How would you use the 120 without backing paper?

I thought Ansel Adams shot Kodachrome in 8x10"?
 
Petzi said:
This is due to the backing paper I guess? How would you use the 120 without backing paper?
I thought Ansel Adams shot Kodachrome in 8x10"?
Click to expand...
According to memory, a "Hasselblad Newsletter" chronicled the sale of Ansel Adams' Cadillac... and in the same article, commented on his color work with the Hasselblad and Kodachrome.

I think If I search for it, I could find that newsletter.
 
I am sure Kodachrome was available in sizes up to 8x10. The largest box of it (empty) that I ever saw was in a vacant lab at EK when I moved in. It was a 10 sheet box of 5x7 labeled Kotavachrome. That was a variant, I was told, on Kodachrome.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong about that. I had that box for years, and kept samples in it carrying them back and forth from the 1B room to my lab and etc. Then it vanished into the mists of whatever.

We could spool 120 with backing paper if needed, I'm sure, I just never saw it done in KRL. In fact, I never saw it done with pre-production samples either. They were all 35mm.

PE
 
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