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

[trendland]

OH NO not another series of Kodachrome again! We will all be killed! We will all be killed!

Deepest condolences - I can feel your pain. .........

with regards

 

[Theo Sulphate]

If there really are multiple parallel universes, one of those universes probably contains a planet where Kodachrome is alive and well.

This is not that universe.

 

[keenmaster486]

Oh s#!+, Morty! Kodak's discontinued Kodachrome! We gotta leave this universe and find a new one! This universe is f$%&ed Morty!! Totally screwed without Kodachrome! Pack your s#!+ Morty!! Pack your camera s#!+ and get the f$%& out of here! We need a new universe where Kodachrome exists!!

 

[Photo Engineer]

Or, we need the Orb of Time.

 

[pdeeh]

Or, we need the Orb of Time.

 

[ME Super]

I think we all need to have an adventure in thyme and spice. That's what I think LOL.

 

[removed account4]

Never say never!

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

should i forward them the phone number of the psychic advisor who is down the street from me ?
she won't do a ritual sacrifice like the botanica i lived down the road from but she might be able
to tell the higher ups that the answer is found in the basement of hte alamo ... or something..

 

[Photo Engineer]

View attachment 200938

Not quite what I had in mind, but good enough. Too many Tribbles here.

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

To be able to bring back Kodachrome, as a starter with following would be needed:

• All digital photography digital cameras and all memory of digital imaging disappear.
• People start enjoying being invited over to see slides for evening entertainment.

 

[keenmaster486]

Also,

• Everyone loses their postmodern hubris that everything that was made more than six seconds ago is to be regarded as trash to be discarded solely due to its having existed in the past

 

[Nzoomed]

To be able to bring back Kodachrome, as a starter with following would be needed:

• All digital photography digital cameras and all memory of digital imaging disappear.
• People start enjoying being invited over to see slides for evening entertainment.

same could be said for ektachrome and all slide films

 

[Nzoomed]

Anyway, im going to be happy with Piratelogy if he can develop the remainder of my kodachrome in my freezer, I believe he is working with Kelvin Kittle and his K-Lab machine that was rescued from Rocky Mountain film lab.
I believe there has been good progress made and they managed to source some K-14 chemistry from a Lab in China!

 

[RattyMouse]

same could be said for ektachrome and all slide films

Agreed. I see no signs at all of any E6 renaissance. Lots of talk, but nothing on the ground.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Agreed. I see no signs at all of any E6 renaissance. Lots of talk, but nothing on the ground.

That would depend where you look, walk and in which circles you are involved in!
Where I am here in Australia there are a number of professionals (the figure would be around 35 to 30) working in digital and analogue that are heavily involved in E6 production work. This is just locally — New South Wales is another notable presence in E6. That number (there is likely more, and definitely so when all markets interstate are look at), is still not enough to save E6 from fairly certain doom in the medium-term future. If anything, the involvement in E6 shows there is a robust skills and production base for work besides wholly digital photography. It's nice to see others' well crafted prints from E6 compared to the heavily Photoshopped and tweaked prints coming from the digital crowd.

I do not know, and do not follow, what amateur photographers are doing in regards to E6. A lack of understanding among many of what E6 films are for is well known.

 

[faberryman]

Where I am here in Australia there are a number of professionals (the figure would be around 35 to 30) working in digital and analogue that are heavily involved in E6 production work. This is just locally — New South Wales is another notable presence in E6.

What does it mean to be "heavily involved in E6 production work"? Are they shooting LF transparency material and scanning it? Are clients specifying E6?

 

[RattyMouse]

That would depend where you look, walk and in which circles you are involved in!
Where I am here in Australia there are a number of professionals (the figure would be around 35 to 30) working in digital and analogue that are heavily involved in E6 production work. This is just locally — New South Wales is another notable presence in E6. That number (there is likely more, and definitely so when all markets interstate are look at), is still not enough to save E6 from fairly certain doom in the medium-term future. If anything, the involvement in E6 shows there is a robust skills and production base for work besides wholly digital photography. It's nice to see others' well crafted prints from E6 compared to the heavily Photoshopped and tweaked prints coming from the digital crowd.

I do not know, and do not follow, what amateur photographers are doing in regards to E6. A lack of understanding among many of what E6 films are for is well known.

Pros arent going to save a single emulsion. Two things keep film alive- Motion pictures, and the mass consumer. INSTAX film is a huge hit with consumers and so that film is safe from every disappearing. Right now motion picture film is what is keeping Kodak alive. Once that goes, it's like all of Kodak goes with it.

E6 has none of this going for it and so will be still born at best. For proof, look at lab closures all around the world.

 

[BrianShaw]

Some would say that it’s really only one thing that keeps film alive: motion pictures. I wonder if INSTAX really is a major profit item or not... but nonetheless it sure seems bo be popular in that niche.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

What does it mean to be "heavily involved in E6 production work"? Are they shooting LF transparency material and scanning it? Are clients specifying E6?

Yes, medium and large format E6, often expired. The sheets are unwieldly and fiddly for drum scanning compared to medium format. No 35mm that I can see (except from students and the blow-ins from Hipsterville, Snobsville and Dullsville) who still think 35mm is the only film available. Work is wet drum scanned and output to either/both RA-4 (up to 80cm width, when and where it is available; only 1 lab doing it now) or giclee prints (up to 3.7metre width) — way beyond the size that is possible to print in a darkroom. Some clients are having commissioned work produced to DuraTrans backlit material and also wallpaper. DuraTrans is illuminated by LEDs and used for in-store displays (it has featured, for a long time, on the full-length murals of the Victoria-Tasmania ferries). The wallpaper is extraordinary; whole rooms of homes and businesses have been covered in this. It is also horrendously expensive; I had a wall 'papered' with a waterfall at the bottom of our stairwell. That was quite enough money spent in one hit!!

I am not aware that specific clients would ask that work be produced through E6 — it is what the photographer uses and makes of it as a craft and the end result that makes a difference. That has been my case for decades: viewers have no idea the work is produced from film until the process is explained to them!

 

[adycousins]

Kodachrome 25, 35mm, expired 2000, storage unknown (am willing to bet it wasn't kept in a fridge though!). Exposed as 20ASA, processed using the Mannes & Godowsky colour developers and the Bent & Mowrey patent first developer. I quite like some of the results, despite the missing yellow - if you don't overexpose sufficiently you have to extend first development time - which should normally be about 3:40 - 3:50 mins, in this case I extended it to 4:40 (which was still not enough), which I think basically wipes out most of the yellow, shifting the colours to the lower layers (thus causing a heavy cyan cast). I've also discovered that I need to extend the reversal bath time too, otherwise you get strange solarisation effects (like when your E6 colour developer is exhausted). More to come this week - K64 (unknown storage) exposed at 32ASA.

 

[markjwyatt]

same could be said for ektachrome and all slide films

Agreed. I see no signs at all of any E6 renaissance. Lots of talk, but nothing on the ground.

Famous last words?

I do not expect the same to happen with Kodachrome also.

 

[bernard_L]

Respect ! Even if probably of no practical value.

 

[Sirius Glass]

What would it take to bring Kodachrome back?


All of the following together at once at the same time simultaneously:

The parting of the Red Sea.​

Return of the gold standard.​

Politicians becoming honest.​

The second coming.​

A massive earthquake separating California from the mainland.​

The end of cell phone use including digital imaging.​

The reversal of Climate Change.​

Wars end and be wiped out for ever.​

Internet only containing verifiable facts.​

Everybody coming together and loving each other.​

End to hunger.​

And most important: People stop asking for Kodachrome to come back!​

 

[DF]

What would it take to bring Kodachrome back?


All of the following together at once at the same time simultaneously:

The parting of the Red Sea.​

Return of the gold standard.​

Politicians becoming honest.​

The second coming.​

A massive earthquake separating California from the mainland.​

The end of cell phone use including digital imaging.​

The reversal of Climate Change.​

Wars end and be wiped out for ever.​

Internet only containing verifiable facts.​

Everybody coming together and loving each other.​

End to hunger.​

And most important: People stop asking for Kodachrome to come back!​

....and Richard Nixon being completely exonerated....

 

[Cholentpot]

What would it take to bring Kodachrome back?


All of the following together at once at the same time simultaneously:

The parting of the Red Sea.​

Return of the gold standard.​

Politicians becoming honest.​

The second coming.​

A massive earthquake separating California from the mainland.​

The end of cell phone use including digital imaging.​

The reversal of Climate Change.​

Wars end and be wiped out for ever.​

Internet only containing verifiable facts.​

Everybody coming together and loving each other.​

End to hunger.​

And most important: People stop asking for Kodachrome to come back!​

The name will be back. It won't be the same product but when has that ever mattered? Tri-X of 2022 isn't the Tri-X of 1975 but we still seem to love the stuff. Ektachrome formulated to look like Kodachrome would sell like hotcakes. Your average film shooter that picked up an AE-1 two years ago wont care.

 

[Sirius Glass]

....and Richard Nixon being completely exonerated....

You are right! I forgot that!