Kodak ‘Investigating What it Would Take’ to Bring Back Kodachrome

[Theo Sulphate]

... all the "New Kodachrome" rolls in the world would travel to USA to be developed, back and forth, generating more carbon emissions...
...

My solution for that:

http://www.illusionsgallery.com/Cutty-Sark-L.jpg

 

[Prest_400]

It would be really too amusing to see a Kodachrome 100, after being shelved back in the 90s. PE said that approaching Kodachrome's look in an E6 product required tweaks in the cyan dye.

"Kodak Announces the reintroduction of Kodachrome"

Would be a jaw dropping, chair falling headline. Who knows, but a K14 film requires a lot more than an E6 product...

 

[falotico]

Oh no! Are we going to start the Kodachrome wars again? I loved the film stock. The Kodachrome slides and amateur films I have look beautiful--some are more that fifty years old. But all of the patents are in the public domain. Someone can make the film themselves; if it is successful, doubtless Kodak would make their own product.

 

[flavio81]

Oh no! Are we going to start the Kodachrome wars again?

We're at DEFCON 3 right now. Preparing for the chance of war.

As for "the patents are expired", yes; but the patent does not give you any clue on how to make the film, nor discloses key aspects, and most likely it does not have 100% correct data. In any case, perhaps K12 film can be resurrected (non-Kodak manufacturers did make K12 film); the problem is, assuming you can make the development chemicals again, and you bring out a small 'home processing' 3d-printed microcontrolled machine that develops the film... how can you compete against E6 films that look very good, are quicker and cheaper to process, etc etc?

Now, i just had an idea -- sell a tiny-scale machine to develop the stuff, and manufacture again the K14 chemicals. Cater for the needs of all the photogs that have big stashes of K25 / 64 / 200 / KII on their fridges and want to shoot it again.

This might be commercially viable.

 

[Eric Rose]

My thoughts on this is that Kodak is exploring the rebirth of Kodachrome for motion picture applications and not little cassettes holding 36 exposures. If they are thinking of launching "New Kodachrome" they should read a case study on the launch of "New Coke".

 

[bdial]

There is nothing that would prevent them from putting the Kodachrome name on some other reversal product. That they would re-introduce such a product using the Kodachrome process seems pretty unlikely, it would make no logical sense. Maybe it will be E6-processed Ektar without an orange mask.

Or, if they are going to "introduce" something that requires special processing, maybe it will be a negative film that gets printed onto movie stock to get transparencies.

My preference would be that they keep Kodachrome dropped, and concentrate on marketing what they're already making, along with matching production capability to demand. But I don't remember getting the memo from them asking for my advice.
If their goal is creating "buzz", it's working well.

 

[lovely_sausages]

It's not going to happen. The k-¹⁴ process was way too toxic. That being said, I would welcome any new e6 emulsions from any film manufacturer. What's in a name?

 

[Arklatexian]

Has there been a dramatic upsurge in demand for slide films??? The reason for their decline is that they require some sort of viewing device either a screen and projector or at least a simple viewer. Today's society is unwilling to bother. They're even loath to have prints made. Perhaps it makes sense to sort of sneak in the backdoor by offering MP film.

"Today's society" won't last forever just like "yesterday's society" didn't. Once a month I go to a group who usually watches a "slide show" of old trains and locomotives. Why don't we watch digital projected material? We do sometime but those certainly aren't inexpensive to purchase and when I told the group that Kodak had announced the revival of Ektachrome and maybe even processing, the group responded with enthusiasm. As to if Kodak is smart or dumb in this decision, I don't tell Kodak how to run their business and they sure don't tell me how to run mine.......Regards!

 

[Luckless]

Do they really think there is a market? I don't see a bunch of digital photographers running out and buying film cameras and lenses to shoot and scan slides, so they are likely going to have to steal customers from existing Fuji and rebranded Fuji transparency film.

Anybody out there want to scan a Kodachrome and post an image so we can compare it with 36+mp full frame digital.

As someone who had been shooting mainly digital - Yeah, I did run out and buy a film camera. I've been on the fence about getting into slides, but I've been exceptionally happy with what I've been able to do with black and white negatives. I've not gotten into slides as of yet because it felt like the market was rather weak, and I'm not in the mood to invest in a field that felt like it was at rather extreme risk of vanishing randomly. Having another major player on the field? Well, that's already making me reconsider how I feel about it.

Lets be honest. If you sit down with most digital photographers to talk about what can be done using film and old cameras then you have pretty decent odds of making them at least curious about what can be done and how things can be used. (If you sit there and try to berate them and rant about how they're wrong about everything, then they're likely going to be very justified in giving you a rude gesture and telling you where to shove your obsolete camera.)

Photography is a huge wide open world of possibilities and methods. Seems to me that supporting and encouraging things is probably a lot more productive than a complete doom and gloom attitude.


As to "Today's society" and projectors... Well, that honestly really isn't a hard sell when you think about it. My generation already happily looks at photos on screens, and it won't take much to convince them that slides are a great medium to work in. Which do you think would appeal to a young adult who often moves and keeps a lighter possession profile than the last several generations have: A collection of prints that takes up the volume and weight of a dresser that they would have to lug around when they move next, or a collection of slides that can be projected in high resolution onto the home theatre screen they already lust after, and lets hundreds of images be stored in a something about the size of a shoebox?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Is this Kodachrome revival a replay of the new Coke and back to Coke Classic which was really a ploy to remove cane sugar from Coke and replace it with corn syrup? If one tasted one next to the other, one would notice the difference, however leaving months in between for the old stock to disappear for a while meant that the Coke Classic could be foisted on the public. That way the average Joe Public was hoodwinked. Yet the original formula was and is still available in Mexico so you can go there, bring back a can of the original stuff and see how they ruined it.

 

[Born2Late]

I am just ticked to death that they are bringing back Ektachrome; Kodachrome would have been even better. I would also love to see Plus-X and Panatomic-X. The cherry on top would be MGB's circa 1967-1971 design (without Lucas Electrical systems). But, I'll settle for what comes.

 

[Nzoomed]

Anybody out there want to scan a Kodachrome and post an image so we can compare it with 36+mp full frame digital.

I dont care about digital, this is an analog photography forum, and i dont give a flying $%^# if you can get more resolution on a DSLR, i like the qualities and "flaws" of film and this is what gives a unique feel to a photo shot on it.

Besides a 35mm Kodachrome slide is claimed to have the resolving power of a 50MP camera.

Lots of people are eating their hats over Ektachrome already, same may be said for Kodachrome also, we will wait and see!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Anybody out there want to scan a Kodachrome and post an image so we can compare it with 36+mp full frame digital.

First of all a scan would remove all the resolution of the slide so your your hypothesis is completely flawed. Therefore your conclusion will be logically irrelevant.

A pixel will never be as small as a photochemical molecule. Get over yourself and your digi-snapping box. This is an analog forum. If you cannot play by the rules let the door hit you on the way out, very very hard.

 

[jsmithphoto1]

For those who say it would be "too difficult." Think about it. Kodak doesn't care what happens to their money. We've seen this for how many years?

I'm being facetious.

However, for a company like Kodak, I think the only real trouble would be R&D for safer chemicals to replace the more toxic ones. Of course, bringing back processors would be a unique challenge, as well. But I can't help but think: if it failed before, it will fail again... although it took "like, a hundred years"...

 

[jsmithphoto1]

First of all a scan would remove all the resolution of the slide so your your hypothesis is completely flawed. Therefore your conclusion will be logically irrelevant.

A pixel will never be as small as a photochemical molecule. Get over yourself and your digi-snapping box. This is an analog forum. If you cannot play by the rules let the door hit you on the way out, very very hard.

AMEN!!! WHERE IS THE LIKE BUTTON?!?!?!

 

[Sirius Glass]

For those who say it would be "too difficult." Think about it. Kodak doesn't care what happens to their money. We've seen this for how many years?

I'm being facetious.

However, for a company like Kodak, I think the only real trouble would be R&D for safer chemicals to replace the more toxic ones. Of course, bringing back processors would be a unique challenge, as well. But I can't help but think: if it failed before, it will fail again... although it took "like, a hundred years"...

And getting PE and his colleges to come out of retirement since there are no others with the needed knowledge in the work pool.

 

[jsmithphoto1]

Yes!!!

 

[Nzoomed]

For those who say it would be "too difficult." Think about it. Kodak doesn't care what happens to their money. We've seen this for how many years?

I'm being facetious.

However, for a company like Kodak, I think the only real trouble would be R&D for safer chemicals to replace the more toxic ones. Of course, bringing back processors would be a unique challenge, as well. But I can't help but think: if it failed before, it will fail again... although it took "like, a hundred years"...

It's not going to happen. The k-¹⁴ process was way too toxic. That being said, I would welcome any new e6 emulsions from any film manufacturer. What's in a name?

I know as far as toxicity, that with the last version of Kodachrome at the time, that the Kodachrome MSDS claimed that the chemicals were no more "dangerous" than any other film chemistry, I doubt any regulations have changed much since 2009, so dont expect the emulsion will be affected much either.

Needless to say that things will have to change a little like what E100 will face.

Its quite possible that Kodak would decide to dump the remjet backing on the film too.

Kodak have the resources to make it, and they have all the important formulas and recipes etc, so as long as they have people qualified in the field, they can do it.
Kodak can, if needbe hire ex-employees involved to help with the production.

Now, if we can get hold of Kelvin Kittle and put him in contact with Kodak, this may help the cause a bit more as at least there is a K-Lab machine to experiment with processing the film!

 

[faberryman]

First of all a scan would remove all the resolution of the slide so your your hypothesis is completely flawed. Therefore your conclusion will be logically irrelevant.

A pixel will never be as small as a photochemical molecule. Get over yourself and your digi-snapping box. This is an analog forum. If you cannot play by the rules let the door hit you on the way out, very very hard.

Wow! You're a real jerk. And by the way, transparency film does not resolve at the molecular level.

 

[Nzoomed]

First of all a scan would remove all the resolution of the slide so your your hypothesis is completely flawed. Therefore your conclusion will be logically irrelevant.

A pixel will never be as small as a photochemical molecule. Get over yourself and your digi-snapping box. This is an analog forum. If you cannot play by the rules let the door hit you on the way out, very very hard.

+1

 

[Alan W]

Oh for f&&k sake!

 

[Chrismat]

Never say never!

https://petapixel.com/2017/01/09/kodak-investigating-take-bring-back-kodachrome/

As a fan of the Retina camera series the first thing I noticed was the camera in the photo. It's a Retina slr, but I can't quite figure out which model.

 

[Cholentpot]

Which Kodachrome structure? The original, K-12, K-14 or?
They could easily slap a "New Kodachrome" name on anything. Then there would be lots of new Kodachrome threads on APUG.
Maybe they could tweak the Vision product to provide customers with a choice of three products - optically printable negatives, projectable slides and scans - all from the same roll.

Come on, you've seen this done what seems like a million times.

We take a current brand and slap a nostalgic name on it and sell it. Go to the home depot, all those hoary stalwart Americana machines with names that have been around for ever are now owned by a few companies and all made in one or two plants in China.

Schwinn and huffy are both equally as bad these days. What's to stop Kodak from tweaking Ektachrome and saying 'NEW IMPROVED ENVIRONMENTALLY YUMMY!' iKodacromE2.0MKIII.

I'm one for one with my predictions mind you. A month ago I posted in the Kodakatry thread 'How about selling Ektachrome instead of the T-shirts?' I'm tootin' my own horn here...BEEP BEEP.

I predict that Kodak is going to turn out some sort of tweaked sensors for digital cameras, maybe make a swappable sensor camera for really really cheap and charge for a Kodachrome Sensor or a Portra Sensor. Make like bandits...

 

[jsmithphoto1]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how these chemicals are "oh so bad" but those plastics and sensors people dispose of in the trash from old cameras and such is much better? At least with analoggers, we collect too much to throw away.

 

[BrianShaw]

Is it April 1st already? My, my, how time flies!