Kodachrome Usage

Ektagraphic · Feb 18, 2009

Hello everyone- I was curious as to how often (if at all) you all use Kodachrome. It is truly a wonderful film. Yes there is only one place left in the world to have it processed but that shouldn't stop you from using it! Those of you that left it years ago or those of you that have never used it do not know what you are missing!!

stealthman_1 · Feb 18, 2009

I shoot 3 to 4 rolls a year. I'd shoot more, but I've never been happy with how it scans. Epson V700 is horrible and Coolscans IV and 5000 have never impressed me...and I've fiddled a lot.
Projected, it's amazing.

james23p · Feb 19, 2009

3 or 4 rolls a month I love the stuff!

Jim

kevs · Feb 19, 2009

I think it's wonderful too, but only use it occasionally. I rarely use 35mm these days, medium format floats my boat. I used two last year and have a couple on ice. I'm just awaiting inspiration to load the old S.L.R.

I'm also hoping to fit an old T.L.R. with an adapter for 56mm-long exposures and do some panoramics, so who knows? I tried this last year with Kodak HIE, but forgot about the halation 'problem' when using printed paper as a backing.

Ektagraphic, I'm glad you, PKM-25 and many others are enthusiastic about Kodachrome, and more power to your collective elbows. i hope it sticks around too - but time, lack of inspiration and expense (it's about £13:00 a roll here now!) don't usually permit me to use much these days.

railwayman3 · Feb 19, 2009

^^^^ Kevs - yes K64 is just under £13 for a single film in Boots, but they do have a 3-films-for-the-price-of-two offer at the moment.
And the current price at www.7dayshop.com is only £6.99, delivery paid, with a further small reduction for more than one film. (I've no connection other than I'm a satisfied customer for this and other items).
As this includes process and mounting by Dwaynes, it seems a real bargain for any film. The only extra cost is a stamp to mail the film to Kodak in Switzerland.

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · Feb 19, 2009

Looking at Freestyle, it's roughly $80US for 10 rolls, plus $40USD for postage to get it here. So that's $120USD, then you mail it to Kansas, then it's $90USD to process that film, and then around another $40USD to get it mailed back. So all up that's $250USD, ignoring the cost of mailing those rolls to Kansas from Australia. That's $389.59 in Australian dollars, at this moment. So I can expect to pay around $40 per roll of kodachrome, from start to finish.

Actually, I'm not posting this to complain, I love kodachrome to bits, and the dozen or so rolls I have managed to shoot in my time have been absolutely lovely. I've got boxes of my mum's kodachromes from her time abroad, and my grandfather's kodachromes of the riverland, taken between 1950 and 1980, and they're of dear importance to me. It's nice to add to the box of family heirlooms. But If you can shoot this film for less than $40 a roll, please take advantage of it. There are Australian photographers who foot the bill, but I'm hard done to pay the $8 for a roll of HP5 most of the time.

Matt5791 · Feb 19, 2009

I love Kodachrome, but I haven't shot any for ages - reason is I just can't be doing with the risk of sending it accross the world so far for processing. Somehow sending to Lausanne wasn't so bad, although I still wouldn't do this for anying vaguely important.

I know if I could have it processed locally I would use a lot.

It's tempting to shoot some again, but I'm not sure I will.

I think Ektachrome E100G is a good substitute if you want nice saturation, but without jeopardising skin tones.

Matt

railwayman3 · Feb 19, 2009

Matt^^^ - I wouldn't worry unduly about any risk in international mail to Switzerland, my office sends and receives mail from all over the world, and it is very unusual for an item to go missing. It's easy to blame and knock the good old Royal Mail, but we find them very reliable.
And I'm sure that Kodak use a very secure courier service for the bulk transit from Lausanne to Dwaynes.
I've had more films lost and damaged by so-called pro labs in the UK.

Ian Grant · Feb 19, 2009

Like Matt I loved Kodachrome, K25 but not K64, it was the best slide film ever made, but the slow processing meant it wasn't a practical proposition clients expected transparencies within 24 hours, there were no private labs in the UK offering a faster service. So I didn't use it after Fuji 50D was released.

Now if I wanted similar qualities I'd most likely go down the route of using the new Ektar 100 instead, particularly as it's easily processed, at any lab or at home, and will be available in 35mm & 120. I'll be testing the film in April when I'm next in the UK.

Ian

pcooklin · Feb 19, 2009

I shot my first roll of Kodachrome a few weeks ago and was impressed with the colours. It does have a 'look' which is unique to Kodachrome - see http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/paulcooklin/gallery-show/G0000wB0Lm4u8o9g/ for results.

Mark Antony · Feb 19, 2009

I shoot about half a dozen rolls a year mainly between May-September as 64ISO is a little slow for my use. I also use more 120 than 35mm but always have a couple of rolls K64 in my fridge and tag a roll or two onto ever order from 7 day shop.
I love the colours, even the 200 was nice in its own way...

I will miss it when it goes and will use it while I can
Mark

nickandre · Feb 19, 2009

I feel like we have one of these per week.

I love it. I can't afford it (coming from somebody who spends $1.50 on each roll of print film and processes himself on over-used chemistry.) The cheapest it gets is $8 a roll plus **cough** walmart processing at $4 a roll. I buy a roll every few months. I have been finding rolls of super-8 kodachrome and storing those up. We'll see.

kevs · Feb 19, 2009

tiberiustibz said:
I feel like we have one of these per week.

I love it. I can't afford it (coming from somebody who spends $1.50 on each roll of print film and processes himself on over-used chemistry.) The cheapest it gets is $8 a roll plus **cough** walmart processing at $4 a roll. I buy a roll every few months. I have been finding rolls of super-8 kodachrome and storing those up. We'll see.

Look out for near and outdated stocks in shops' 'rummage bins'; last year I bagged a couple of rolls, with about four months left, for under half-price because the staff had wrongly put them into the rummage bin!

Rummage bins are k3wl!

germanglass · Feb 19, 2009

For color, I only shoot Kodachrome! It's the best! I've tried them all, and nothing seems to capture real life look of K64. I shoot maybe 20 rolls a year. I'll show the Sam's Club photo desk clerk my K64 slides and bow them away. They get stuck looking at digital images all day, week after week, and bam! They want to know all about this Kodachrome thing. They don't see images like those every day.

I store the sides in my fridge for my great, great, great, great, great great, and more grand-kids to see what 2008 was like.

Ben

Ektagraphic · Feb 19, 2009

germanglass said:
For color, I only shoot Kodachrome! It's the best! I've tried them all, and nothing seems to capture real life look of K64. I shoot maybe 20 rolls a year. I'll show the Sam's Club photo desk clerk my K64 slides and bow them away. They get stuck looking at digital images all day, week after week, and bam! They want to know all about this Kodachrome thing. They don't see images like those every day.

I store the sides in my fridge for my great, great, great, great, great great, and more grand-kids to see what 2008 was like.

Ben

Have you been to the Kodachrome project website?? The Kodachrome Project forums are a great place too!
Main page http://kodachromeproject.com/pages/contents.html
Forums
http://www.kodachromeproject.com/forum/index.php

gunzel · Feb 20, 2009

Fleath said:
Looking at Freestyle, it's roughly $80US for 10 rolls, plus $40USD for postage to get it here. So that's $120USD, then you mail it to Kansas, then it's $90USD to process that film, and then around another $40USD to get it mailed back. So all up that's $250USD, ignoring the cost of mailing those rolls to Kansas from Australia. That's $389.59 in Australian dollars, at this moment. So I can expect to pay around $40 per roll of kodachrome, from start to finish.

Buy the process paid stuff from the UK. As railwayman3 mentioned it's £6.99 a roll from 7dayshop, I get it sent to a relative in the UK and then posted out here, I can land four rolls together for around AU$70. Then I post them to the address Kodak still maintain in Queensland when done. A few weeks to a month later it comes back in the mail. It's cheaper than E6 for me (which doesn't include mounting).

athanasius80 · Feb 20, 2009

Just bought 3 rolls today...

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · Feb 20, 2009

gunzel said:
Buy the process paid stuff from the UK. As railwayman3 mentioned it's £6.99 a roll from 7dayshop, I get it sent to a relative in the UK and then posted out here, I can land four rolls together for around AU$70. Then I post them to the address Kodak still maintain in Queensland when done. A few weeks to a month later it comes back in the mail. It's cheaper than E6 for me (which doesn't include mounting).

I'll have to look into that when I have the money, my sister lives in the UK, but I always assumed the processing paid mailers wouldn't work out here...I'd like to get in at least another dozen rolls, so thank you very much for the advice.

nworth · Feb 20, 2009

It truly is a wonderful film, but I haven't used it in years. The reason had little to do with the film. I still like its color and its behavior. But I started doing most of my work in MF, and I also tend to do moderately large prints. Kodachrome isn't available in MF, and color negative film seems to work better for big prints. Now that it's such a hassle to get Kodachrome processed (at least around here), I even use color negatives for the little 35mm color film I shoot.

tim_walls · Feb 20, 2009

I have to confess, I actually prefer a few E6 films - I'm not sure the dull English weather really highlights Kodachrome's strengths - but I do shoot it occasionally, and particularly at the moment while my colour processing kit is out of action until I fix a new water heater it's the only colour film I'm shooting.

At current prices (esp. 7dayshop) with dev included it's unbeatable value as well.

Sjixxxy · Feb 20, 2009

I've never used it.

But! I am planning to add a few rolls next time I order supplies.

Fredrik Sandstrom · Feb 20, 2009

tim_walls said:
I'm not sure the dull English weather really highlights Kodachrome's strengths

Do you use filters in dull weather? I find that Kodachrome performs exceptionally well in cloudy weather with an 81B (warming) filter.

tim_walls · Feb 20, 2009

Fredrik Sandstrom said:
Do you use filters in dull weather? I find that Kodachrome performs exceptionally well in cloudy weather with an 81B (warming) filter.

Do you know, I haven't... Excellent thought, I really should try that.

ilovekodachrome · Feb 23, 2009

Kodachrome is a fabulous film; the visible but sharp grain is very appealing to me -- as are the rich but unsaturated colors. I guess I’m lucky living only a few states away from Kansas. I can mail an order directly first-class mail and get it back in a week. Film is $8.50/roll U.S. at B&H. Processing works out to about $9.58/roll U.S. This is not much more expensive than using Ektachrome, which is $7.50/roll at B&H, with processing about 9.08/roll at Dwaynes. Yes, Elite Chrome is cheaper, but then it’s not Ektachrome.

ilovekodachrome · Feb 23, 2009

Also, I get excellent results scanning with Silverfast AI 2X multi-exposure and a Kodachrome IT8 target (which are now available directly from Lasersoft).

Kodachrome Usage

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