Kodak will no longer produce any colour reversal still films

NB23 · Mar 1, 2012

PKM-25 said:
By the way, in looking for a rare enlarging lens, I was talking to the owner of a very good lab in the state where I live about E6, he literally just wrote back one minute ago and said the following:

"Right now E-6 is doing very well. We process for other labs around the country so our daily runs are fairly consistent. As long as we can buy juice and Refrema parts we'll keep on with it. We use Fuji chemistry."

Rare lens?
About two years ago I was looking for an Elcan 50mm enlarging lens (searching for one for years) and I found one I was willing to buy. I then forgot to bid on it. It turned out the seller dumped 20 Elcan enlarging lenses on ebay and they all sold for about 50$ apiece. I was totally shocked.

I am still shocked today.

keithwms · Mar 1, 2012

jeff.blackwell said:
I would kill, KILL I SAY, for fresh Astia, especially in sheet film.

Well then...

http://www.japanexposures.com/shop/index.php?cPath=28

I still use it in many LF sheet sizes, and even as quickloads

Prof_Pixel · Mar 1, 2012

railwayman3 said:
APS, disc, 126, and all the other Kodak mistakes

Of the three, 126 wasn't a mistake - it solved an actual consumer problem - the difficulty consumers had in loading 35mm cameras. APS tried to solve the same problem. However, by the time APS came out, the Japanese camera makers had solved the loading problems by offering great autoloading cameras.

During the '70s and '80s (when I was sill involved in traditional photographic products) consumer use of color reversal films (as compared to color negative film) was much higher in Europe than it was in the US. I don't know how long that trend continued.

A former Kodak Photographic Engineer

NB23 · Mar 1, 2012

PKM-25 said:
By the way, in looking for a rare enlarging lens, I was talking to the owner of a very good lab in the state where I live about E6, he literally just wrote back one minute ago and said the following:

"Right now E-6 is doing very well. We process for other labs around the country so our daily runs are fairly consistent. As long as we can buy juice and Refrema parts we'll keep on with it. We use Fuji chemistry."

The thing I don't like about this quote is that they do it for labs around the country. This alone means bad news and shows what is really happening. All until a few years ago, a regular city of 100,000 people could count at least 10 labs doing E6. Now we're down to 10 labs doing the job for the whole planet (or something like that).

BrowniesAreCool · Mar 1, 2012

Hmm. Better get some Ektachrome off of the Guernsey-based discount photography and electronics website before prices rocket.

removed account4 · Mar 1, 2012

hard to believe they were still making it until now ...
i wouldn't be surprised if c41 is next, so they can concentrate
on keeping their b/w line ( sort of ) in production.

PKM-25 · Mar 1, 2012

NB23 said:
Rare lens?
About two years ago I was looking for an Elcan 50mm enlarging lens (searching for one for years) and I found one I was willing to buy. I then forgot to bid on it. It turned out the seller dumped 20 Elcan enlarging lenses on ebay and they all sold for about 50$ apiece. I was totally shocked.

I am still shocked today.

I am being ruthless about this search, I stand about as good a chance at finding one of these as I do a 45mm Apo-N, but that is another story.

I just got off the phone with the photo director of a well known arts center near where I am. I asked if they had the lens and they said they would look. But the more interesting thing was that when I asked about the lens, I had mentioned I thought of them because as far as I had heard, they had mothballed their darkroom workshops. As it has turned out, the studio clerk has since cleaned and got the darkroom back up and they are offering at least an alternative process workshop this Summer, the first in years, a week long digital neg. to Platinum workshop, certainly a start.

A quote by the photo studio manager:

"In recent discussions with program coordinators, it was universally agreed upon that the traditional darkroom will make a noticeable comeback, film it self has simply become alternative process."

Brian C. Miller · Mar 1, 2012

jnanian said:
hard to believe they were still making it until now ...
i wouldn't be surprised if c41 is next, so they can concentrate
on keeping their b/w line ( sort of ) in production.

Eh, what? Kodak is coating everything on just one machine. Color sells lots more than black & white. If Kodak stops making color, then it will also be shutting down everything for good. Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish. A smattering of cross-processing Lomographers is not enough to prop up a major manufacturing plant.

PKM-25 · Mar 1, 2012

NB23 said:
The thing I don't like about this quote is that they do it for labs around the country. This alone means bad news and shows what is really happening. All until a few years ago, a regular city of 100,000 people could count at least 10 labs doing E6. Now we're down to 10 labs doing the job for the whole planet (or something like that).

Ned, I don't agree with you here, this is not D76 we are talking, it is control strips and volume...you want the lab to have volume in one place, not an accumulation of several dozen. Between fresh imagery, fresh marketing and consolidation, color film can and will survive in some form...

Roger Cole · Mar 1, 2012

Araakii said:
I see Astia 120 readily available at Adorama.

Available, maybe (and I also have a few rolls in my freezer, picked up along with a box of various film) but still discontinued. Anything you see now from a dealer is existing old stock.

Roger Cole · Mar 1, 2012

tim elder said:
I'm never quite sure where Fuji stands on product availability. Do they still make sheet E-6 film? It would be a shame if there were no options left for transparency sheet film users.

-Tim

Yes, and it's much more readily available than E100G was for the past year or so anyway. E100G did and does (at least I assume there's remaining stock) exist in sheets, but Fuji is everywhere.

Unfortunately, Astia is not everywhere.

DREW WILEY · Mar 1, 2012

Keith - there's still a fair amt of 4x5 Astia left in this country, and Badger recently imported a sizable batch of
8x10 at a reasonable price, but that's all gone with no more in sight. I would have bought a bunch if Cibachrome
were still a going concern. The point is, even in Japan the amt of Astia is finite because no more is being made.
Too bad ... it was a wonderful for printing but never caught on big here because it doesn't look as snappy for
raw viewing. It also was by far the best dupe film ever made, much better than CDU or EDupe.

Alan Klein · Mar 1, 2012

I have about (10) 80-photo slide trays with Ektachromes and Kodachromes but haven't looked at them with my slide projector in about 15 years. I have recently scanned about two trays of the 10 and find that they show well on a 52" HDTV with music in the background, dissolves, titles, etc. Actually I think they look better than with a slide projector. But my memory isn't s good as it use to be. I've even created video from them and posted on YouTube. I think they're more interesting in these other ways than straight slide projectors. Easier to set up too. Certainly easier to keep guests from bailing out to go home early when they see you setting up a slide projector. Now you just flip on the HDTV and start the show before they can make excuses why they got to go.

Of course that was all 35mm. I also have medium format. But these 6x7's were taken with Velvia 50 mainly. When I printed chemically, I had to do a 4x5 internegative. So I was really using negatives anyway. I recently did a roll of Portra 400 in 120 and it scans well. As long as some companies are making something, it should be OK. I guess there's nostalgia and most people don't like change or to see things they have had a relationship with disappear. But we all have to move on at times and we will survive.

PKM-25 · Mar 1, 2012

Alan Klein said:
I have about (10) 80-photo slide trays with Ektachromes and Kodachromes but haven't looked at them with my slide projector in about 15 years. I have recently scanned about two trays of the 10 and find that they show well on a 52" HDTV with music in the background, dissolves, titles, etc. Actually I think they look better than with a slide projector.

I use all kinds of projection methods, I am not totally luddite like that in showing work in that manner. Having said that, I recently had a Kodachrome editing party where my wife cooks something insanely good from the Food Network, and I show a tray of 80 professionally shot, modern Kodachrome slides, mostly through modern Leica glass, on a top-of-the-line Leica RTS projector on a brand new screen. Let me tell you, that not only looks a lot better than what my 47" HDTV could do, but better than when viewed on a light table with a Schneider loupe....seriously jaw dropping...

ricardo12458 · Mar 1, 2012

RIP Ektachrome 35mm still film 1942-2012

OK, got that off my back.

Switching to Fujichrome Provia 100 until such time that Fuji stops making transparency film. I get all my film processed @ Dwayne's. Haven't had any quality issues at all. I just hope they keep doing well for the time being. I would patronise (there was a url link here which no longer exists) (in Oak Lawn district), but the price seems a bit high for (unmounted) E6.

Ektachrome 100HC, exp. 1988.

-R

zsas · Mar 1, 2012

PKM-25 Can I come , kidding, sounds like a heck of a night!

Araakii · Mar 1, 2012

I got a few bricks of Sensia 100 and Astia 100, so I think that can last for at least another couple years.

nickrapak · Mar 1, 2012

PKM-25 said:
Ned, I don't agree with you here, this is not D76 we are talking, it is control strips and volume...you want the lab to have volume in one place, not an accumulation of several dozen. Between fresh imagery, fresh marketing and consolidation, color film can and will survive in some form...

Bingo. I always wondered why my local lab was generally able to get E-6 done next day, despite the fact that they're half of a warehouse in northeast Philly. It turns out that they do E-6 for their three locations as well as two other local chains. The advantages to this are twofold: One, you are able to keep the E-6 line stable by having enough throughput; and two, those other local labs would have probably stopped offering E-6 altogether had my lab not stepped in. Yes, E-6 use is falling, but I think it will be around for some time yet.

amsp · Mar 1, 2012

Awwww.. I just started shooting reversal again and I prefer Ektachrome skin tones over Provia
There's nothing like slides on a light table, almost like looking at the actual scene frozen in time.

kerne · Mar 1, 2012

Just last week I was showing a friend some 6x6 chromes and commenting on how the general public has completely forgotten about the magic of slides. By the time the analog revolution come full swing they may have to be reinvented.

Then again, I wouldn't mind using one of these...

amsp said:
Awwww.. I just started shooting reversal again and I prefer Ektachrome skin tones over Provia
There's nothing like slides on a light table, almost like looking at the actual scene frozen in time.

bblhed · Mar 1, 2012

Well this just Fuji'n sucks.

Nelson · Mar 1, 2012

I can't say I'm helping either Kodak or Fuji very much. I'm still using Velvia from my freezer that I bought probably ten years ago.

PeteZ8 · Mar 1, 2012

clayne said:
Yet with all of this new-found technology and incredibly shortened speed of delivery, photography has never been at a lower level of signal:noise then ever before - and, btw, the signal ain't so hot either. In general the "art" of photography is receiving a quality beat-down due to both massive over-consumption and massive over-production of imagery. The heavy majority of which is mediocre.

Remove limitations, receive crap.

I agree 110%. But the only people that truly care about quality aren't the ones that need convincing. So the message is lost

removed account4 · Mar 1, 2012

Brian C. Miller said:
Eh, what? Kodak is coating everything on just one machine. Color sells lots more than black & white. If Kodak stops making color, then it will also be shutting down everything for good. Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish. A smattering of cross-processing Lomographers is not enough to prop up a major manufacturing plant.

YIKES !!

shows how wrong i am .
i better keep my mouth shut

thanks brian ... i had no idea ...

John Shriver · Mar 1, 2012

C-41 is safe until the movie industry goes 100% digital. Then Kodak won't have enough volume for their very sophisticated color film factory. Until then, C-41 film is a profitable business for them. Maybe not 80% profit margins anymore, but still profitable.

The B&W Kodak films are made at a different plant.

Kodak will no longer produce any colour reversal still films

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