Kodachrome

[piratelogy]

If someone could develop my last remaining 25' roll of double-8mm Kodachrome II movie film (ASA 25 back in 1978) and produce a viewable image, I'd pay to make it worth their time. It just has to be stable enough for me to view it and transfer it to another media (even if by projection).

I can't yet deal with the lengths required for cine film, I'm stretching myself to evenly re-expose a 36exp roll as the re-exposures are all by hand. I am however working on it. I have a couple rolls of double-8mm and 16mm Kodachrome that I'm trying to find a way to process properly.

 

[piratelogy]

If pirateology starts a thread called "NEWS: Kodachrome processing now avaiable", i predict it will reach over 25 pages and eventually OVER 9000 posts.

*IF* I did that, Which forum do you think I should toss it in?

 

[flavio81]

I use a pair of LED flashlights, one red and one blue, I remove the film from the processing tank in the dark, expose the correct side of the film(The first exposure is through the base, second and third through the front) to the light 2-3 passes, and then put it back in the tank for the next developer. The third exposure is to room light and I just take it out of the tank and expose it with the lights on.
The actual development steps are in a Jobo rotary processor.

Completely amazing. Here is my question then: How do you ensure you are only (and ONLY) exposing the correct side of the film in each case?

 

[flavio81]

*IF* I did that, Which forum do you think I should toss it in?

I'd put it here:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

But beware, you would be opening Pandora's box. Prepare for general mayhem. Abandon all hope, those who enter.

On a more serious note, you could offer this as a service, indeed. Or thoroughly publish here your process, so other people can try it as well. You could even repackage the chemicals you bought from Sigma-Aldrich on convenient, ready-to-mix form and sell them...

 

[keenmaster486]

Or as a one-time, special APUG project.

 

[piratelogy]

Completely amazing. Here is my question then: How do you ensure you are only (and ONLY) exposing the correct side of the film in each case?

The beam of the flashlights is pretty narrow, I pass the film across it so that the edges of the film and the edges of the beam are more or less lined up. I'm sure I probably have a LITTLE bit of spill over but the layers are fairly insensitive to the other colors. The blue/green layers DO have a little spectral crossover but after the first dev there's a layer of carey lea silver that sits between the blue and green layers that becomes opaque before you do the blue or green re-exposure to block the stray light.

 

[piratelogy]

I'd put it here:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

But beware, you would be opening Pandora's box. Prepare for general mayhem. Abandon all hope, those who enter.

On a more serious note, you could offer this as a service, indeed. Or thoroughly publish here your process, so other people can try it as well. You could even repackage the chemicals you bought from Sigma-Aldrich on convenient, ready-to-mix form and sell them...

I'm working on a detailed writeup of the process for people who'd like to try it themselves, but its a difficult process to pull off. Its got a TON of steps, and stages, and developers. Makes 6 bath E6 seem like cake.

 

[flavio81]

I'm working on a detailed writeup of the process for people who'd like to try it themselves, but its a difficult process to pull off. Its got a TON of steps, and stages, and developers. Makes 6 bath E6 seem like cake.

Pirateology,

Perhaps you would like to take a look at this thread where Stephen Frizza speaks about his experience on manually doing the K14 process:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Perhaps there is something there you can take advantage of to improve your process.

I would think that perhaps a modified 35mm projector could be use as a makeshift machine for easily achieving the colored exposures.

 

[piratelogy]

Pirateology,

Perhaps you would like to take a look at this thread where Stephen Frizza speaks about his experience on manually doing the K14 process:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Perhaps there is something there you can take advantage of to improve your process.

I would think that perhaps a modified 35mm projector could be use as a makeshift machine for easily achieving the colored exposures.

Thats an interesting thought! Though 35mm projectors are anything but cheap these days.
I'm working on a setup for 16mm film using some 16mm reel rewinders, so we'll see how well that works.

 

[LAG]

If Kodak showed a millionth of the enthusiasm for relaunching Kodachrome that people show for endlessly launching threads about the relaunching of Kodachrome, there'd be no appetite for anyone to launch a thread about the relaunching of Kodachrome.
But of course, there's no appetite at Kodak for the relaunching of Kodachrome, and thus the appetite of those launching threads about the relaunching of Kodachrome will forever be unfulfilled

This is Fabulous! Congratulations!

 

[flavio81]

Thats an interesting thought! Though 35mm projectors are anything but cheap these days.

Quite the opposite, with digital cinema prices should be even lower. Plus, you don't need a complete projector (the lamphouse is an expensive item), nor lenses, nor soundhead... just the main transport with motor.

Another alternative: A turntable. Create a kind of "cake" of opaque material to sit a top of the turntable, of the same diameter as the platter (12") but taller. What you are doing is creating a turntable with a very tall platter, so you can tape the whole 35mm roll to the outer side of the platter (in a helicoid). Then place your light source (led, etc) outside, next to the platter's vertical wall. In this way the turntable will spin at a very constant speed and you can expose the emulsion side of the roll in an uniform way. For exposing the base side, wrap the film with the base side facing out.

You can fit a timer to the LED source so the amount of exposure stays consistent when developing any roll.

 

[piratelogy]

This is Fabulous! Congratulations!

Thanks!!

 

[Photo Engineer]

And now here our hero comes showing ACTUAL PROOF of being able to develop Kodachrome, and yet the waters are still calm and quiet. Surprising.

There have been several "proof" examples shown here including Steve Frizza's.

PE

 

[falotico]

Piratelogy produced some good looking slides in this thread. Perhaps the yellow was a little thin IMHO, but it is good enough for a commercial result. The dyes might not be stable enough to last six months, but long enough to scan. I think this is marvelous work.

 

[piratelogy]

Piratelogy produced some good looking slides in this thread. Perhaps the yellow was a little thin IMHO, but it is good enough for a commercial result. The dyes might not be stable enough to last six months, but long enough to scan. I think this is marvelous work.

I agree. Yellow tends to be a little thin, I think my Yellow coupler isn't super active. I'm tweaking development times to get that all in balance. The Cyan coupler is SUPER active, I've had to cut the dev times for the cyan developer WAY down or I end up with quite the cyan cast.

 

[flavio81]

There have been several "proof" examples shown here including Steve Frizza's.

PE

Yes bur Frizza stated that he wasn't willing to develop for other people.due to the time and cost involved. Our hero here is, quite the opposite, open to that possibility.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There are several better yellow and magenta couplers that can be used.

PE

 

[piratelogy]

There are several better yellow and magenta couplers that can be used.

PE

I'd love to know what they are, if you're willing to share.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I've posted the entire K12 set here on APUG. I would have to look it up again.

The chemical names are not trivial. They were once available from EK and Eastman Chemicals.

PE

 

[falotico]

Try US patent 3658525 which gives many patents for couplers.
One set which I believe was mentioned on APUG was:


cyan

1-Hydroxy-N-(2-acetamidophenethyl)- 2-naphthamide

yellow :1-Hydroxy-N-(2-acetamidophenethyl)- 2-naphthamide

magenta :1-(2,4,6-Trichlorophenyl)-3-(p-nitroanilino)-2-pyrazoline-5-one

link :http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/pr...sp?sku=8835888

All you need to do is take over the chemical manufacturing industry of a small eastern European country and you can make this stuff yourself.

 

[Fredrik Sandstrom]

Hi piratelogy,
Can you handle medium format in your process? I have some 120 format Kodachrome that I absolutely didn't expect to be able to use anymore, but have kept them in the freezer just in case. I'd be thrilled to actually shoot them!

Back when Dwayne's still did K14 (but only 35mm), I shot some medium format rolls and slit them down to 35mm before sending them to Dwayne's, who could handle the unperforated film just fine, and I got some cool wide images roughly twice the size of normal slides.

 

[piratelogy]

Try US patent 3658525 which gives many patents for couplers.
One set which I believe was mentioned on APUG was:


cyan

1-Hydroxy-N-(2-acetamidophenethyl)- 2-naphthamide

yellow :1-Hydroxy-N-(2-acetamidophenethyl)- 2-naphthamide

magenta :1-(2,4,6-Trichlorophenyl)-3-(p-nitroanilino)-2-pyrazoline-5-one

link :http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/pr...sp?sku=8835888

All you need to do is take over the chemical manufacturing industry of a small eastern European country and you can make this stuff yourself.

Looks like you've got the same chemical for cyan and yellow there, and the link is no good.

 

[piratelogy]

Hi piratelogy,
Can you handle medium format in your process? I have some 120 format Kodachrome that I absolutely didn't expect to be able to use anymore, but have kept them in the freezer just in case. I'd be thrilled to actually shoot them!

Back when Dwayne's still did K14 (but only 35mm), I shot some medium format rolls and slit them down to 35mm before sending them to Dwayne's, who could handle the unperforated film just fine, and I got some cool wide images roughly twice the size of normal slides.

Technically I can, I'm setup for 120 with other processes, but I've never had a roll of K14 120 to try out. I expect it'll work just as well as it does on 35mm, but I've not proven it yet.

It sounds like there's enough interest in all this I should start looking into what it would take to process some rolls for other people willing to put up with my hackjob K14 process

 

[keenmaster486]

I would shoot 120 K14 no problem.

Maybe you should codify your process and give it a name, like KN-1 or something

EDIT: So can I start buying old K14 rolls on ePay now please please? (On a side note, most of the expired KC 64 on eBay seems to be from the 80's and 90's. Would I just use the usual one stop per decade rule?)

 

[twelvetone12]

Why don't we make an article "the definitive answer to developing kodachrome" with a a resume of the couplers et al?