Kodachrome

[piratelogy]

No, no, gee, sorry, I did know that! No offense intended to PE; he certainly is an excellent and respected engineer who knows way more than anyone else about this process.

I guess I thought he was talking about participation in this particular amateur project, in the here and now.

Yeah, as far as advice goes I'm happy for any PE is willing to give, I'm well aware that he's on some of the patents and having read his threads here for years I know he's awesome at helping where he can.
I also know he's given a lot of this advice here on APUG before, I'm just happy he's willing to entertain one more crazy garage chemist's attempts at this

So if I haven't explicitly said it. Thanks for the pointers PE, they're well and truly appreciated.

 

[falotico]

How do we know that couplers outside the patent will diffuse properly?

 

[Nzoomed]

How do we know that couplers outside the patent will diffuse properly?

We have already seen they do work, but image stability is yet to be seen. Only time will tell i guess.

 

[Nzoomed]

Yeah, as far as advice goes I'm happy for any PE is willing to give, I'm well aware that he's on some of the patents and having read his threads here for years I know he's awesome at helping where he can.
I also know he's given a lot of this advice here on APUG before, I'm just happy he's willing to entertain one more crazy garage chemist's attempts at this

So if I haven't explicitly said it. Thanks for the pointers PE, they're well and truly appreciated.

+1

completley agree...

 

[Roger Cole]

If one could process all those remaining rolls of Kodachrome with good colors I for one (well, I shot all mine but I might be willing to pick up more in this case) then stability can be sacrificed within reason (meaning it can't fade before you can sca...er, do anything with it...)

It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing.

 

[piratelogy]

If one could process all those remaining rolls of Kodachrome with good colors I for one (well, I shot all mine but I might be willing to pick up more in this case) then stability can be sacrificed within reason (meaning it can't fade before you can sca...er, do anything with it...)

It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing.

Thats how I feel about it, no its not perfect but its what I've got so far. Hopefully with some of the suggestions here I can make it better, but its something

 

[MattKing]

Keep up the good work. Maybe my big bag of unexposed Kodachrome will be worth something soon .

 

[railwayman3]

I'm certainly going to sort out my own unexposed K64 from the freezer this weekend....thought it was just a collectors' item now, but maybe some will be in my camera again this Spring?

 

[AgX]

How do we know that couplers outside the patent will diffuse properly?

To a certain degree one should be able to conclude that from their structure.

 

[Photo Engineer]

NZoomed, see USP 3152896 and 3658525 for pyrazolones. The color former is just that for the magenta. The dyes formed are Azo-Methine dyes. Your lack of knowledge of Organic Chemistry is confusing you.

Sorry.

I am still making emulsions and can make color coatings myself, but prefer to help others and teach emulsion making when I can.

PE.

 

[Nzoomed]

NZoomed, see USP 3152896 and 3658525 for pyrazolones. The color former is just that for the magenta. The dyes formed are Azo-Methine dyes. Your lack of knowledge of Organic Chemistry is confusing you.

Sorry.

I am still making emulsions and can make color coatings myself, but prefer to help others and teach emulsion making when I can.

PE.

Thanks for your input, yes I do understand what you are talking about now regarding pyrazolones.
Im interested to hear about the colour emulsions you make.
Do you coat your own glass plates or do you coat acetate film bases as well?

 

[Photo Engineer]

NZoomed, there is a whole forum on emulsion making and coating and there is my book on the subject. I have handmade dye bleach coatings (like Ilfochrome) and machine coated films and papers. I recently made a magenta single color dye bleach coating at home and have posted the result here on APUG.

This is not news. I coat on glass, acetate, estar, paper and the old Ilfochrome plastic support available now in a similar form called Yupo.

PE

 

[Nzoomed]

NZoomed, there is a whole forum on emulsion making and coating and there is my book on the subject. I have handmade dye bleach coatings (like Ilfochrome) and machine coated films and papers. I recently made a magenta single color dye bleach coating at home and have posted the result here on APUG.

This is not news. I coat on glass, acetate, estar, paper and the old Ilfochrome plastic support available now in a similar form called Yupo.

PE

Yes I see there is a bit of discussion over there. Looks interesting.
Ive got some silver nitrate that ive been meaning to experiment with when i get the chance.

I have been aware of some of your work for a while. I will have to look further on the colour coatings you have done. Its great to have people like you sharing the knowledge.

 

[piratelogy]

Well I attempted to up the PH of the developer, which seems to have mostly just caused the dyes to form immediately after mixing, and not produce much in the way of dyes in the film

 

[Photo Engineer]

You must have sulfite present and the other antioxidants disclosed in the patent such as hydroxylamine sulfate. However, dye formation at high pH is common and is why the Kodachrome process was so hard to control. It is also why those couplers were changed.

PE

 

[piratelogy]

You must have sulfite present and the other antioxidants disclosed in the patent such as hydroxylamine sulfate. However, dye formation at high pH is common and is why the Kodachrome process was so hard to control. It is also why those couplers were changed.

PE

So it sounds then that I really do just need to find a source of the correct couplers if I have any hope of getting better saturation.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I'm not sure, having no experience with the old couplers. I've worked in the lab where the new ones were used, and we kept either the CD or the coupler out of the developer until just before use. In a real process replenishment fixes that but the solutions are decidedly c/m/y.

PE

 

[Nzoomed]

I've worked in the lab where the new ones were used, and we kept either the CD or the coupler out of the developer until just before use.
PE

Which to me sounds like the best idea, since its all being used in one run through a jobo in this instance.

 

[piratelogy]

Which to me sounds like the best idea, since its all being used in one run through a jobo in this instance.

That's how I do it, experience shows that the developer lasts maybe an hour after mixing. It's good to hear that even the correct developers do that, the formula before PH changes showed SOME dye, but was still see-through. Going above PH 10 and suddenly there was a LOT of dye visible in the developer. My test roll came most mostly just magenta, very little dye creation in the other layers. I'll run another roll through before calling that change unviable though.

 

[piratelogy]

Ok, ran another test and this time I got dye creation in the film as expected, and they ARE quite noticably more saturated than before however they've skewed my color balance. It was far towards magenta this time. But I can adjust my development times to compensate for that.

 

[Nzoomed]

Ok, ran another test and this time I got dye creation in the film as expected, and they ARE quite noticably more saturated than before however they've skewed my color balance. It was far towards magenta this time. But I can adjust my development times to compensate for that.

That's great to hear that you are making progress
You were finding that they Cyan was reacting the strongest didnt you?
You can probably lengthen the cyan time to make up for it, or else drop the magenta development time.

Getting the colour balance would be very tricky I expect, and this is probably the hard thing to properly replicate unless there was control strips on hand. I guess that shooting colour charts is the closest way for the time being, but once you find a method that works, you can reasonably replicate it again with the same parameters.

I take it you are still trying to get the yellow developer to react stronger?

Your efforts are truly appreciated, you deserve a good pat on the back!

 

[piratelogy]

That's great to hear that you are making progress
You were finding that they Cyan was reacting the strongest didnt you?
You can probably lengthen the cyan time to make up for it, or else drop the magenta development time.

Getting the colour balance would be very tricky I expect, and this is probably the hard thing to properly replicate unless there was control strips on hand. I guess that shooting colour charts is the closest way for the time being, but once you find a method that works, you can reasonably replicate it again with the same parameters.

I take it you are still trying to get the yellow developer to react stronger?

Your efforts are truly appreciated, you deserve a good pat on the back!

Yes, Cyan is strongest, I'd already dropped it's time by quite a lot. The promising thing about this last test is that there was a very STRONG yellow. The first time I've gotten that.
I have about 100 rolls of K64 from the same batch, I tune color by shooting color charts with one of those rolls and adjusting. If I cut 6 frames from a roll I get 3-4 tests per roll. Its boring. But it works

I've got one more test strip in the tank right now, so we'll see what happens!

 

[Nzoomed]

Yes, Cyan is strongest, I'd already dropped it's time by quite a lot. The promising thing about this last test is that there was a very STRONG yellow. The first time I've gotten that.
I have about 100 rolls of K64 from the same batch, I tune color by shooting color charts with one of those rolls and adjusting. If I cut 6 frames from a roll I get 3-4 tests per roll. Its boring. But it works

I've got one more test strip in the tank right now, so we'll see what happens!

Thats awesome to hear!
I will be looking forward to shooting my first roll.
Im also interested to conducts tests on colour fade and archival properties, not that it really bothers me, but Im curious nonetheless.

I might have to look at buying some more rolls on ebay.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I would reduce the quantity of coupler rather than the development time, but then, this is an experiment.

PE

 

[piratelogy]

I would reduce the quantity of coupler rather than the development time, but then, this is an experiment.

PE

That could be hard to manage effectively since I'm only using about 1cc of coupler, though I suppose I could dilute my couplers farther. I was getting pretty decent color balance by varying development times before I started messing with the PH of the film, we'll see if it still holds true now.