Kodachrome Processing in Texas??

[Alexander Ghaffari]

Photo Engineer,

I highly respect the chemical engineers and other researchers at Eastman-Kodak. The only people that I take issue with are those who ultimately are responsible for last second discontinuation notices. I would be much happier if they gave me three months to stock up on supplies before exhaustion. What about all of the scientists that require a very specific Kodak film for their decades of research to come to fruition? At least give these people who supported Kodak for decades, and are trying to improve the struggles of humanity, a chance to stock up on their film of choice, so that they can complete their research. No person who has devoted their life to improving society should have years of their life discarded in a mere instant with the issuance of a notice of discontinuation. I all ask for is a little more time, and I shall stand firm in saying that is not too much to ask when it can benefit society.

-Alexander

 

[Polybun]

You guys have never had any experience in the real world of business, have you?

PE

No, we haven't, this is obvious from the fact that we make logical choices. Logic and business have nothing in common I have noticed. A gorilla probably understands business more than most of us. Sling poo, see what sticks.

 

[nickandre]

I'm not saying I may not love the new Ektar, however, one must remember that ektar is a replacement for the UC line of films. It is yet another try by kodak to gain market share. However, for the people who have been shooting Velvia 50 since 1990, a product lifespan of 4 years isn't gaining kodak any of their favor if photographers can't get used to a film before it's discontinued. It is my firm belief that it kodak had real confidence in Ektar that they would release it in other formats. I can only hope that people will like it enough and buy it so that they release it in 120, however, there seems to be little market and when kodak says "the plan is to release Ektar in 35mm," that is a polite way of saying they have absolutely no plans to do so.

Kodachrome is great and cool but it's not available in anything but 35mm which simply doesn't contain much surface area. I could see myself using it for panoramic shots if I try that, but regular 35mm is too grainy. If 25 was still out that might persuade me but since the kodachrome is several decades old, a 64 speed has the grain of a 200 or 400 today. Ektar 25 was just 20 years ago and it got 2 more stops in that time.

 

[Photo Engineer]

AFAIK, the Kodachrome effluent is rather similar to E6 except for the couplers present. That increases BOD and COD a bit.

As for the other comments, I'm used to Kodak bashing here on APUG and there is no surer way of ruining the company and products than undue criticism. I never said they were perfect, but they are trying hard. OTOH, perhaps the other companies products seem to hang around due to lack of R&D. Could this be true? About 30 years ago, no one complained this way when E4 products led to E6 products and etc and C-22 to C-41. Strange isn't it?

PE

 

[MikeSeb]

Honestly, at this point, the best thing that could happen to film photography would be for kodak to just stop and get out of the way.

Polybun--with all due respect, in this thread you really don't know when to quit stepping on it, it seems. Do you think you really know more about what's going on at EK than Photo Engineer, who worked there for three decades? I won't bother recapitulating the counterarguments that have been offered in this thread, since you haven't bothered with them anyway.

I have no affiliation with Kodak other than as a satisfied customer of four decades' duration; honestly, it seems for you and others, Kodak can do no right. They update old products and offer a new one, and you and others complain. You really don't have any idea how a business is run, do you?

Mindless Kodak bashing is really tiresome. Go enjoy the new or improved products; buy some so Kodak will continue to make them. This simple act of market capitalism will do more to secure the future of film-based photography than filling APUG's servers with online whining.

 

[Vonder]

Anyone who thinks Kodak, or any company for that matter, is staffed by managers or chemists or engineers who don't care what their customers want is simply angry because their own personal needs are not being addressed. Such feelings, in less literate hands, become rants of frustration that are summed up as "This company sucks! They are so stupid!"

No company can continue to make things that aren't being bought. That's not evil. That's not poor planning. That's not poor marketing. Digital supplanted most of the business film used to have because it has advantages no amount of marketing for film could overcome.

Back to the OP. I'm mainly a Fuji guy myself, but my last two rolls of Kodachrome came back from Dwaynes in plain white cardboard mounts. When I send Fuji Astia in Fuji mailers, they come back in Fuji-marked boxes and Fuji-marked slide mounts. I really miss the Kodachrome-marked slide mounts. Makes it easy to see which ones are Kodachrome and which are E-6. When did the Kodachrome-marked mounts disappear?

 

[Lee L]

I'm mainly a Fuji guy myself, but my last two rolls of Kodachrome came back from Dwaynes in plain white cardboard mounts. When I send Fuji Astia in Fuji mailers, they come back in Fuji-marked boxes and Fuji-marked slide mounts. I really miss the Kodachrome-marked slide mounts. Makes it easy to see which ones are Kodachrome and which are E-6. When did the Kodachrome-marked mounts disappear?

My recent Fuji and Kodachrome rolls all came back from Dwayne's in identical generic mounts and boxes. I like to have some indications on the mounts as well, so I used 0.5 x 1.75 inch return address labels (equivalent to Avery 5267) to make up my own labels on a laser printer with more specific film type, subject, and dates on them. You could always use a color printer and a downloaded logo of some sort to give them a branded look. I kinda miss that myself.

In the late 70's I lived in Dallas and worked at a camera store, and got overnight turnaround from the Kodachrome lab at cost.

Lee

P.S. Agree with you and Mike on the petulant and illogical company bashing, whether directed at Fuji, Ilford, Kodak, or others. The more choices we can sustain the better.

 

[Polybun]

Anyone who thinks Kodak, or any company for that matter, is staffed by managers or chemists or engineers who don't care what their customers want is simply angry because their own personal needs are not being addressed. Such feelings, in less literate hands, become rants of frustration that are summed up as "This company sucks! They are so stupid!"

I don't think the managers care, I'm sure the chemists do. What I think is going on is that at the upper levels, the products people really want are being held up in order to concentrate on products they think we want. The proof is in the pudding, no new products in 120 roll.

Honestly, negativity is a good thing, so long as a company can respond to it in the right way. Being endlessly optimistic serves no purpose at all.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Go here: Dead Link Removed to hear what a Kodak manager is thinking and saying. As for 120, just be patient. The 120 market was drying up, but the MF and LF market is there and is stable.

I think after you listen to this interview your polybun will be done, complaining at least, about things that you know little. The managers do care. If they don't return a profit, they are eventually going to lose their jobs.

PE

 

[Alexander Ghaffari]

Well, as Diogenes quoted Socrates, "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance;" however, I still claim that giving unacceptably short notice of discontinuance of a product vital for scientific research, which, in turn, hinders the progress of humanity, is one example of an injustice that happens to be an absolute truth.

Discontinuance of any product in the pursuit of unfettered raging Capitalism is fine, in fact, I applaud such a practice. All I ask is that a few months' notice be given. Is that so impossibly difficult for a large corporation to preform?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Oh, on that I agree. They could have handled the discontinuance of products more "tactfully". However, the company was virtually imploding and had gone from 120,000 people WW to about 30,000 WW over just a few years. They had lost a good bit of their sales and advertizing staff as well as whole departments such as the paper department. Still no excuse but an explanation in part.

BTW, that was the same year Agfa went out of business and Ilford ran into a spot of bother as well. Kodak's sales dropped 30+% in one quarter. Not a peaceful quarter, I assure you!

PE

 

[Polybun]

Go here: Dead Link Removed to hear what a Kodak manager is thinking and saying. As for 120, just be patient. The 120 market was drying up, but the MF and LF market is there and is stable.

I think after you listen to this interview your polybun will be done, complaining at least, about things that you know little. The managers do care. If they don't return a profit, they are eventually going to lose their jobs.

PE

Phh, like they will never find another job. I watched Mehdi Ali run Commodore into the ground. C= went bust, and he found work with some other company (which he also ran into the ground only a decade later) 2 years later! The man paid himself 3 million per year to do it too! Which is REALLY funny since that is about the amount of money old chicken lips was loosing per year!

The only thing i will say in kodak's defence is that, if their digital cameras were of the quality of their existing films, they wouldn't be having any problems. 160NC is especially good, but I don't honestly think I will be able to get it much longer. They are trying to make the brownie of digital cameras. That would be fine if even the crapiest digital camera didn't cost way more than it is worth to develope. This IS kodaks own fault.

 

[nickrapak]

PE, do you know what, if anything, is going on at the Kodak - Dallas Texas location?

Terry

Nothing. But I do know that there is some graphics art work in OK. That is quite tiny though.

PE

PE- Really? I thought that that is still an online Qualex C-41 location (3131 Manor Wy. is on the same corner as 6300 Cedar Springs Rd.). If not, do you know when they shut this down, and where the C-41 from TX goes now?


On the topic of the slide mounts...The last batch of Kodachrome from Dwayne's came in a Kodak box with Kodak-branded (not Kodachrome) mounts. These were sent out via a Kodak PK-20 mailer and mailed back in 10 days.

The envelope it was returned in was a paper envelope with a Dallas, TX return address and a Parsons, KS postmark. I have a feeling that the envelopes are provided by Kodak so that in case of an error in mailing, Qualex/Kodak has to deal with it rather than Dwayne's.

 

[aluk]

I really miss the Kodachrome-marked slide mounts. Makes it easy to see which ones are Kodachrome and which are E-6. When did the Kodachrome-marked mounts disappear?

I believe that if you send in your Kodachrome with a Kodak mailer, or through some Kodak-affiliated service (i.e. a pharmacy drop-box), you will get them back with Kodak (though not strictly Kodachrome) branding. When I send in my film through the drugstore here in Canada, it always comes back in a traditional yellow paper/card Kodak box with Kodak printed on the mounts, and a "processed by Dwayne's for Kodak" notice on the bottom. Some of the previous posters haver referred to this. Perhaps that is the only way to get those unique Kodak/Kodachrome markings on your slides?

 

[Alexander Ghaffari]

Well, someone is mailing my C-41 film (processed in Kodak mailers sent to Dwayne's) from Texas (postmarked Texas) to me. It takes about one month, and I can honestly say, and if I were to show the horrendous results to you, everyone would agree, that the prints are ridiculously craptastic. I have seen much better results from 110 film at a grocery store minilab...that is sad (remember that 110 film negatives needed more elements, I think just one though, in the processing lens of the printer, and most grocery store minilabs did not invest in these). It motivated me to get a color enlarger; however, I seem to have trouble finding a place that sells precut color print sheets in sizes smaller that 8x10 (so any suggestions are welcome).

Photo Engineer, thank you for seeing my point about the method of product discontinuance, and not the actual discontinuance, in itself. That is the only thing that upsets me concerning Kodak, and I am glad that I made that clear to everyone. Kodak knows that I love them, haha.

 

[wogster]

My point exactly. I don't think the engineers are to blame, its the people at top. They want digital, they want that cheap investment with big returns, to hell with the quality.

Fuji continue to blow my mind with the amount of new products and improvements they make every year. Every year its something new from them. To come along and make even a tenative commitment to picking up the slack where poloroid is leaving off, that really suprises me. Granted, Fuji were making a good portion of poloroids film stock for them anyway, but its still not something you see kodak doing is it!

Then they don't want digital, you spend an infinitely expanding amount of money for an infinitely contracting level of improvement. Case in point, take digital sensors, the jump from 1MP to 2MP is a 100% improvement, from 10MP to 12MP is a 20% improvement, thing is, while many customers were happy with upgrading from 1MP to 2MP, the improvement from 10MP to 12MP is not enough for most customers to want to upgrade, also as those improvements get narrower, more of your market gets to the point where they are long term happy with what they have. If the biggest print you will ever make is an 8x10 your not going to even notice a 10MP to 12MP change....

Film is just about the perfect market, your customers tend to buy the same products over and over again, so you don't need to spend a lot on R&D. The last advancement was the chromogenic stuff, colour films pretending to be B&W, coming up with a black dye coupler couldn't have cost much, and they use it in all three layers. That's been around for what, 5 years now, before that it was T-grain, and that was over 15 years ago. E6 processing was 30 years ago, and C41 is just as old if not older. Small advances have been made over time to all of them, but it's no where near as expensive as the tens of millions to develop a new digital sensor.

I don't know about others, but I use mostly Fuji for my colour film work, and it was that way for a long time. For B&W, Ilford all the way.

 

[Ray Rogers]

...with all due respect...

On the other hand, Ilford wants and would benefit if Kodak got out of the B/W market.

Ray

 

[Lee L]

The last advancement was the chromogenic stuff, colour films pretending to be B&W, coming up with a black dye coupler couldn't have cost much, and they use it in all three layers. That's been around for what, 5 years now...

Try 28 years. Ilford XP-1 was introduced in 1980.

Lee

 

[Iwagoshi]

As for the other comments, I'm used to Kodak bashing here on APUG and there is no surer way of ruining the company and products than undue criticism. I never said they were perfect, but they are trying hard. OTOH, perhaps the other companies products seem to hang around due to lack of R&D. Could this be true? About 30 years ago, no one complained this way when E4 products led to E6 products and etc and C-22 to C-41. Strange isn't it?

PE

PE,

I don't get it either, the K-bashing that is. I am just thankful that my 12-year old mailers were honored from wherever they were processed. I am coming back from a 12 year hiatus away from film and I am, quite frankly amazed that K-14, E-6, C-41 films are still readily available, at least where I live.

Anyway, here is what started this inquiry. The first batch came back in the black box with no-name mounts, returned via Swan Photo Labs from Dwayne's. The second batch I sent directly to Dwayne's and was returned in the Kodak box and mounts. Both were sent in pre-paid mailers. Note the Texas return address.

 

[Alexander Ghaffari]

The top box and mount are provided for send out services, such as Wal-Mart.

The bottom box and envelope (though these days, I get large packages sent via Priority Mail from Dwayne's) are provided when you use a Kodak mailer.

Not too confusing, I hope. Go shoot more film, since you missed so much film-goodness in 12 years!

Happy shooting!

 

[wogster]

Well Kodak R&Ded Kodachrome 400, but that was never released. Also, Ektar 100 was not released in 120, although Kodak could use the same base as 135 format. Actually, I would prefer Kodak to keep a film the same after it is released, since I get used to it and know what to expect, and instead focus on new films like...like...umm...oh, like Ektar 100...and...ummm...yeah, Ektar 100.

I think Kodak is in it for the money, of course, but it is not that which bothers me (I am a Capitalist pig, myself), it is their attitude problem. Like when Kodak discontinues a unique film with a few weeks' warning before all existing stock is sold. I have a problem with that. Especially how they were saying that they were not going to discontinue Kodak HIE up until, BAM, the announcement that they had in autumn 2007. Fuji has no attitude problem...

Foma, Efke, AGFA-Gevaert, and FilmoTec have/had no attitude problems.

There are two schools of thought on discontinuing a product, the first is to wait until your stocks are very low, as people will not want to buy a discontinued product. The second school says, announce that a product is discontinued while you still have lots on hand, as it may re-start the market for the product, so that you can very quietly cancel plans to discontinue later on.

The first school is advisable when the announcement coincides with announcing a new and improved replacement product. The second school is advisable when there is no real replacement product in the pipeline. Of course sometimes there is no replacement product, because they think the market is dead in that area. Thing is, there is often someone waiting to prove you wrong.

 

[wogster]

Try 28 years. Ilford XP-1 was introduced in 1980.

Lee

Really? I stand corrected.....

 

[nickrapak]

PE,

I don't get it either, the K-bashing that is. I am just thankful that my 12-year old mailers were honored from wherever they were processed. I am coming back from a 12 year hiatus away from film and I am, quite frankly amazed that K-14, E-6, C-41 films are still readily available, at least where I live.

Anyway, here is what started this inquiry. The first batch came back in the black box with no-name mounts, returned via Swan Photo Labs from Dwayne's. The second batch I sent directly to Dwayne's and was returned in the Kodak box and mounts. Both were sent in pre-paid mailers. Note the Texas return address.

The return address is in Texas, but if you look at the postmark, it says "mailed from 67357", which is Parsons, KS. I think that Kodak just provides the mounts, boxes, and mailing envelopes (with a real Kodak address) for Dwayne's, who processes, mounts, boxes, and ships the film.

 

[Venchka]

Just send it straight to Dwayne's. Or you could hand it to a nice person at Wal-Mart for half of Dwayne's price. Maybe you'll get slides back and maybe you won't.

Mail directly to Dwayne's.

 

[Alexander Ghaffari]

It used to cost half, Wal-Mart film developing prices shot up a few dollars per service. Id est 36 exp. Kodachrome used to cost $4.88 for development now costs $6.88.