Kodachrome interview

[rwyoung]

The snake is eating its tail!

 

[wogster]

The snake is eating its tail!

Personally I think that Kodak would have been far better off to keep Kodachrome going, maybe with a simpler processing setup, call it Kodachrome III (K3), with a process that is simple enough (5 steps) that it can be done at home, then sell home processing kits. No magic super lab needed, just buy the kit. Better yet if the kit uses D76 (standard B&W developer) as the first step, a magic K3 concentrate, C41 bleach and fix. Yeah it wouldn't take long for someone to build a K3 mini-lab, complete with a cutter and mounter. Then again, make it scanner friendly, and you would probably take over most of the film market.

Of course what is more likely is that Kodak will intend shoot itself in the foot, but will blow it's brains out instead.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Paul;

There is a simplified Kodachrome process. It is called E6. The Kodachrome process "collapses" into the E6 process when you take the 3 critical color developer steps out.

PE

 

[wogster]

Paul;

There is a simplified Kodachrome process. It is called E6. The Kodachrome process "collapses" into the E6 process when you take the 3 critical color developer steps out.

PE

Seems then that what Kodak should really consider is a film that has the look and feel of Kodachrome (colour response, grain, latitude) that is process E6. Would seem to give us the best of both worlds

Pop the speed up to about 160 ISO, and they could sell tons of the stuff.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Paul;

Several things come to mind here.

1. If it could be done and should be done, Fuji would do it. They have not. Now, the reasons are twofold, first it cannot be done in the E6 format and second there is no market. Fuji has no stupid people there!

2. If Kodak could not sell a full line of "regular" Kodachrome films, why continue them or do research on furthering them. Several improved Kodachromes were cancelled about 20 years ago.

The list goes on and on but the reasons become less and less important than these two. Remember, FUJI got out of the Kodahchrome market when E6 was introduced, but to date cannot make a Kodachrome quality film for E6! That was unique to the process itself.

PE

 

[wogster]

Paul;

Several things come to mind here.

1. If it could be done and should be done, Fuji would do it. They have not. Now, the reasons are twofold, first it cannot be done in the E6 format and second there is no market. Fuji has no stupid people there!

2. If Kodak could not sell a full line of "regular" Kodachrome films, why continue them or do research on furthering them. Several improved Kodachromes were cancelled about 20 years ago.

The list goes on and on but the reasons become less and less important than these two. Remember, FUJI got out of the Kodahchrome market when E6 was introduced, but to date cannot make a Kodachrome quality film for E6! That was unique to the process itself.

PE

Maybe Kodachrome's day is done, I'll admit, I have never shot one roll, then again the last time I shot slides disco was still popular. Debating about trying it again, if I could fnd a decent lab that I can take films to, without needing to spend 2 hours on a subway..... I scan film these days, so I want a lab that will not cut the film, and that can be hard!

 

[uwphotoer]

Maybe Kodachrome's day is done, I'll admit, I have never shot one roll, then again the last time I shot slides disco was still popular. Debating about trying it again, if I could fnd a decent lab that I can take films to, without needing to spend 2 hours on a subway..... I scan film these days, so I want a lab that will not cut the film, and that can be hard!

Kodak has just started selling another batch of Kodachrome with an expiration date of 2010..... so it will be around a few more years....

As for uncut film, all my kodachrome that I send to Dwayne's via any method is marked "Do not mount" and I get it back in a strip, wrapped in paper and placed in a cardboard tube to protect it from being crushed. It took just over a week from the east coast for my 20 rolls last week..... I keep mine unmounted because it's easier to get it flat to print my cibachromes.....

If you have never shot any kodachrome you should try it, it's an amazing film.....

 

[d_chiesa]

If you have never shot any kodachrome you should try it, it's an amazing film.....

Well, i got back to shooting film lately for fun, and got all the rolls of kodachrome they had at Calumet UK (wanted 10, only got 7...)! So i guess i'll be shooting some soon

 

[Photo Engineer]

My good friend P. Chiesa, of Kodak Research, was a reknowed Kodachrome user.

PE

 

[StorminMatt]

1. If it could be done and should be done, Fuji would do it. They have not. Now, the reasons are twofold, first it cannot be done in the E6 format and second there is no market. Fuji has no stupid people there!

The again, Fuji never tried to be Kodak. Simply put, Fuji has its own look, and doesn't care about trying to emulate Kodak films. As for trying to emulate the K14 look with E6, it could possibly be done. But lets face it. Most manufacturers look at film (and not JUST Kodachrome) as a dying medium. So it's not like Kodak, Fuji, or anyone else is going to put the R&D dollars into trying to come up with such a film.

 

[Ian Grant]

Kodak has just started selling another batch of Kodachrome with an expiration date of 2010..... so it will be around a few more years....

As for uncut film, all my kodachrome that I send to Dwayne's via any method is marked "Do not mount" and I get it back in a strip, wrapped in paper and placed in a cardboard tube to protect it from being crushed. It took just over a week from the east coast for my 20 rolls last week..... I keep mine unmounted because it's easier to get it flat to print my cibachromes.....

If you have never shot any kodachrome you should try it, it's an amazing film.....

The new expiry dates are only just inside 2010 so it would be more accurate to say a few more weeks, it's not really months and certainly not years.

I really liked Kodachrome but only KII and K25, I'd love to have kept using it but when I was shooting Commercial work the clients didn't want it, they needed a fast turn 24hr around, not possible in the UK.

Now I have a projects where 35mm K25 would be ideal for part of it, but all that's left is the 2nd best, K64. Most of my projects have a minimum time-scale of 2 years & this one is scheduled for 5 years, and Kodachrome will be long gone just as I'm getting my teeth into the project.

If you plan to use it before it goes get shooting, have good stocks of film but keep a good eye on Dwayne's, and know when processing will be wound down.

Ian

 

[tim_walls]

The new expiry dates are only just inside 2010 so it would be more accurate to say a few more weeks, it's not really months and certainly not years.

Which rather puts to bed the idea that the AP article somehow proves a maximum of one roll is coated per year, doesn't it?

 

[uwphotoer]

The new expiry dates are only just inside 2010 so it would be more accurate to say a few more weeks, it's not really months and certainly not years.

Well if you want to look at it that way it could be gone next week, as Dwayne's is in the middle of tornado alley..... so one day it might not be Kansas any more.....

Personally I will keep shooting Kodachrome up until the day the lab shuts down and not one second sooner, as I use it for my underwater work. I guess I should shoot up that brick of K25 I have in the fridge. I just wish I could use up my kodachrome 120 I have.

 

[Ian Grant]

Which rather puts to bed the idea that the AP article somehow proves a maximum of one roll is coated per year, doesn't it?

Or perhaps it backs it up. Very little new film is actulally being released.

Ian

 

[tim_walls]

Or perhaps it backs it up. Very little new film is actulally being released.

Ian

So what you're saying is either they switched emulsion in the middle of coating that one roll, to one which was a couple of months older, or else they've just done a new annual coating run on one roll with an emulsion which doesn't keep as well as last year's?

I suppose the latter is conceivable.


Or I guess maybe they only finished - i.e. slitted and packaged - half the one roll, put the other half in the deep freeze, and then finished it a couple of moths later (and stamped a new emulsion number.) I guess that's plausible - Ron could probably indicate if it was (plausible, that is - this is a thread of speculation after all!)

 

[Photo Engineer]

Yes Tim, there is no Santa Claus.

Kodak can cut and package part of a roll, freeze the rest and cut and pack it later with a different emulsion number and a different, albeit shorter, expiration date. You see, there is not an indefinite time for keeping, but Kodak knows what the real time is under rather ideal keeping, so each batch would have expiration dates based on the actual age of coatings.

And, since it is almost always "out of stock" every time someone here seems to report on it, it seems likely that Kodak fills orders as needed.

Also remember that they can slit, chop and pack right from storage as the conditions of humidity and temperature are ideal for the packing process. In fact, it may be slit and then sealed in packs ready for the final finishing operation. You have to remember that when I last worked there, this type of problem did not exist. It was hard keeping the pipeline filled. Stuff flew out the doors and it was all you could do to avoid a forklift in the shipping department. At Christmas time, B-9, paper shipping, was filled from floor to ceiling with pallets of paper in cardboard cases being zipped out to the steady stream of trucks at the loading dock. Today, the building is gone.

So, I cannot truly say how they actually do it. I can only suggest scenarios that are plausible based on what I know.

I do know that Kodachrome was coated once each year, supposedly one master roll, and that was in early Nov. Then the schedule started to slip from 12 month cycles to about 18 month cycles, and the last I heard about 2 or 3 years ago, the 18 month cycle was missed due to another drop in sales.

Recently, I heard that there was an uptic. The recent interest on the internet from various sites, APUG being one of them, was cited, and the reason for the interest included the upcoming anniversary. Of course, the article in AP, the interview with Scott DiSabado of EK and other ruminations on other forums probably all had something to do with this. The problem is that all of the figures given seem to conflct. What can I say?

Now, you know as much as I do. I'm not looking into it any more than what I already know which is about 2 years old.

PE

 

[tim_walls]

Thanks Ron - can't write a full reply as I'm on't mobile phone, but I can assure you it was all read with interest . And you've cheered me up immensely by confirming my guess could be right . (And I emphasise the words 'guess' and 'could'.)


Oh, and don't worry - I'm not looking for Santa. I've been telling anyone who'll listen Kodachrome is dead for about two years. I don't even particularly like the stuff - I prefer Ektachrome any day of the week - I've only been using it lately because I haven't got my darkroom sorted since moving house and the mailers with Koda are therefore convenient. The only reason I care is I find the selective reading of badly written articles to 'prove' points, when they blatantly do not, intensely bloody annoying...

 

[wogster]

Kodak has just started selling another batch of Kodachrome with an expiration date of 2010..... so it will be around a few more years....

As for uncut film, all my kodachrome that I send to Dwayne's via any method is marked "Do not mount" and I get it back in a strip, wrapped in paper and placed in a cardboard tube to protect it from being crushed. It took just over a week from the east coast for my 20 rolls last week..... I keep mine unmounted because it's easier to get it flat to print my cibachromes.....

If you have never shot any kodachrome you should try it, it's an amazing film.....

Too expensive to get processed and not many pboto stores have it.... I can get E6 anywhere and get it processed locally. Probably has a lot to do with why they aren't selling much these days..... I wonder how big a batch of Kodachrome is.....

 

[PKM-25]

New article...

Mike Hutmacher of the Wichita Eagle put this together for the paper:

Here's the link to the Kodachrome story, which would be nearly impossible to find if you were to just go to kansas.com and start looking: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/story/614962.html

Here's the multimedia:
http://www.kansas.com/static/slides/1130kodachrome/

Knock your self out.

 

[budrichard]

It would be interesting and telling to know whether film or digital was used to take the accompanying photos!-Dick

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Digital - it's bloody hard to get decent color balance under fluorescent lights with Kodachrome.

 

[PKM-25]

I just got back from a week long commercial shoot in Mexico. When I got home tonight, I found my 41 rolls of Kodachrome had returned from Dwayne's.

I was kind of afraid to look at it since I expended at least 5 rolls of my KM25 stash and spent nearly a month on the road driving some 6,000 miles. But I can honestly say that this might be the best Kodachrome I have ever shot.

So to the folks on here who put the film down in several threads....and you know who you are: Brush up on your skills man, because if you think there is a better film, you might just be high as a kite.

This film behind a good lens with great craftsmanship is simply uncontested.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

[...]So to the folks on here who put the film down in several threads....and you know who you are: Brush up on your skills man, because if you think there is a better film, you might just be high as a kite.

This film behind a good lens with great craftsmanship is simply uncontested.

Fine then, if you can tell the rest of us former PKL users what other countries on the planet actually have Kodachrome stocks? Definitely not here in Australia. I used Kodachrome for 20 years (1977-1997) and loved and treasure the trannies, then it just dropped off from the market. The US market is doubtless much, much bigger for this film than Australia, yet Dwaynes is the only one left on the entire planet that processes it.

 

[Ian Grant]

This film behind a good lens with great craftsmanship is simply uncontested.

Well you had two different films there, K25 & K64, one better than the other, and you were also in the right part of the world to shoot them. Kodachrome seems to give it's best with the light of the region. So I'd expect you to get excellent results, and Kodachrome still has that unique look.

But it's not available any more in much of the world. It would be interesting if you'd shot a couple of rolls of the new Ektar 100 to make a comparison.

Many of us so called detractors actually liked K25, but the processing service outside the US was quite slow with no choice of lab. Clients wouldn't wait more than 24hrs for processing.

Keep shooting Kodachrome while you can

Ian

 

[michaelbsc]

But it's not available any more in much of the world. It would be interesting if you'd shot a couple of rolls of the new Ektar 100 to make a comparison.

Many of us so called detractors actually liked K25, but the processing service outside the US was quite slow with no choice of lab. Clients wouldn't wait more than 24hrs for processing.

Keep shooting Kodachrome while you can

Ian

I will still maintain that the main reason Kodachrome fell from grace is that, for a consumer's perspective, you didn't get "picture in hand" like you did with negative film. And today, all the consumer cares about - still - is that physically manifest picture. Ergo, the difference between scans on a CD of the negatives with digitally printed pictures and scans on a CD of the slides with digitally printed pictures is that the negatives are in a little envelope they don't open and the slides are in a little box they don't open.

If monkeys can be trained to fly a rocket, Grandma can be trained to write "K-14 and scan" on the envelope.

This doesn't address Ian's point that clients won't wait two weeks to get results, but honestly the pros in almost any field are not the driving factor. After all, GM, BMW, and Toyota may have a few cars for Le Mans and NASCAR, but what Grandma wants determines that market, too.

In fact, the types of markets where the pros drive the choices are astronomically expensive. Witness medical operating room equipment. Not much home use for that stuff, and a good scalpel is more expensive than a whole set of regular kitchen knives.

If you want it to show up on the shelf at Walmart, get Grandma interested in buying it. So, from this twisted perspective, the reason Kodachrome is dying is because the digital scanner revolution happened to *LATE* to make it the market leader.

MB