Love, hate and Kodachrome - or why all of the passion here?

perkeleellinen · Sep 16, 2010

I suffer from something I'd like to call Kodachrome Curse, but it could also be named HIE Curse.

Kodachrome shines in the sun, if you get the light, the slide will be magic! HIE is the same, get the right light and it'll glow. Here's the curse: on this rainy and grey Isle, sunny days are few and far between and I have an ability to influence the weather for the worse by simply loading a roll of Kodachrome or HIE in my camera. The results are instant - grey skies, low cloud, rain. I think Kodachrome looks terrible under these conditions as does HIE and I should know as most of my experience with these films has been under such inclement weather.

railwayman3 · Sep 16, 2010

perkeleellinen said:
I suffer from something I'd like to call Kodachrome Curse, but it could also be named HIE Curse.

Kodachrome shines in the sun, if you get the light, the slide will be magic! HIE is the same, get the right light and it'll glow. Here's the curse: on this rainy and grey Isle, sunny days are few and far between and I have an ability to influence the weather for the worse by simply loading a roll of Kodachrome or HIE in my camera. The results are instant - grey skies, low cloud, rain. I think Kodachrome looks terrible under these conditions as does HIE and I should know as most of my experience with these films has been under such inclement weather.

I think that's the same for most films...doesn't necessarily need bright sun,
but "interesting" light of some kind is a must. There are good pictures on rainy and, especially, on stormy days, light through cloud, spots of rain caught by light, fog and mists, we all know these. The real problem is the bland, grey skies and all-enveloping low cloud which we get so much of in the UK, just hopeless for any sparkle in pictures on any film. (And, as you say, the strange phenomenum that just loading a camera seems to bring on the bad weather....)

Ian Grant · Sep 16, 2010

perkeleellinen said:
I suffer from something I'd like to call Kodachrome Curse, but it could also be named HIE Curse.

Kodachrome shines in the sun, if you get the light, the slide will be magic! HIE is the same, get the right light and it'll glow. Here's the curse: on this rainy and grey Isle, sunny days are few and far between and I have an ability to influence the weather for the worse by simply loading a roll of Kodachrome or HIE in my camera. The results are instant - grey skies, low cloud, rain. I think Kodachrome looks terrible under these conditions as does HIE and I should know as most of my experience with these films has been under such inclement weather.

I found K64 the worst slide film made in those conditions and you needed the speed increase over K25 for hand held work, so I totally agree.

Photo Engineer said:
Ian;

I have heard complaints all around. My post that you quote was simply replying to a complaint about the European labs. I have never had any quality issues with my Kodachrome regardless of processing station be it US or Far East.

PE

You just happened to articulate the previous posters complaint differently.

Knowing how good Kodak's QC is I'd suspect that there was little difference between any of Kodak's own Kodachrome plants.

I've seen C41 films ruined due to poor processing and only one batch of E6 lost due to a mechanical breakdown since it was released.

Far more Kodachrome films were lost by the UK postal service than ruined by processing issues

Ian

Photo Engineer · Sep 16, 2010

Nowdays, the USPS is catching up to UK postal service in "quality"!

PE

Heinz_Anderle · Sep 19, 2010

Photo Engineer said:
... If you compare the first figure to the third figure, you can compare the Ektachrome with Kodachrome. You can immediately see that the curves of the 3 Kodachrome dyes are NOT matched, and that the Cyan is considerably higher than the other two. As a result, a visual neutral may look cyanish. To see why I say “may” look at the 4th figure which is a unit neutral of the Kodachrome dye set. You can immediately see that the cyan dye requires more density to give a visual neutral of 1.0 due to the fact that the cyan dye is very narrow in absorption. It is also low in unwanted densities and this introduces a big dip or gap in the neutral at about 600 nm. The lower unwanted absorption of the cyan in the green and blue region of the spectrum are responsible in part, for the improved overall color saturation. ... PE

There is one key difference between the two visual density diagrams: the Ektachrome dye absorption is adjusted for daylight (5000 K), while the Kodachrome is balanced for tungsten light (3200 K), so that excess cyan has to compensate the red bias in the warm light of a projector lamp. The human eye readily adapts to that difference in the color balance, especially at "ambient darkness" as required for a slide show.

On the viewing light table (or for reproduction by scanning and offset printing), the grey balance especially of Kodachrome 25 appears visually very neutral and accurate, with an excellent differentiation in brightness and hues. Kodachrome 64 might look slightly cooler, but it isn't bad either. ;-) The slight inconsistency of the different production batches of amateur Kodachrome as well as the shift towards magenta with age and storage conditions makes accurate comparisons somewhat problematic.

This was also the reasion for the introduction of professional Kodachrome, which hasn't been manufactured any more for years now - PKM 25 was discontinued in 1999. I have read memories from a German mountain photographer that the Kodak office at Stuttgart, Germany, had tested pro film batches to recommend matching emulsions for color consistency - in the 1980s.

I would judge color slides only by their impression on the standardized light table or from the spectral or at least colorimetric accuracy of a standardized color target.

I am still hoping for some nice sunny autumn days in the remaining two months, as I have still several rolls of 25 and 64 to feed into my manual Nikons. I now send envelopes with 19 films to the Stuttgart office and get back a parcel with the processed uncut rolls about two weeks later.

Photo Engineer · Sep 19, 2010

Heinz;

The gap in dye densities at about 600 nm and the high peak are real and is the key issue here as is the half band width of the cyan dye.

If the two films are projected with the same illuminant, take my word that the unit neutral has a gap at 500 nm and this causes problems. After all, it is the projecting (or viewing) illuminant that is the determining factor to achieve a neutral and this is the mistake often made in a cursory glance. We are not concerned with the exposing illuminant in diagnosing this. You may note that the step wedges were both READ by the same illuminant (or set of filters - ie. Status A) and this reduces them to a common denominator.

What you are actually talking about is not curve shape but speed. A film pair with one dye set made for 2 illuminants would have identical curve shapes but different speeds. This would not show up in exposures to the proper illuminants when read by the same densitometer.

PE

2F/2F · Sep 19, 2010

So...where can I get some? Know anywhere that can process it for me?

Photo Engineer · Sep 19, 2010

I understand that a group is out to get me and chain me in someone's barn and make me coat it for them. I am not the guy they want for this, but I know who it is. I'll never tell though!

PE

Heinz_Anderle · Sep 19, 2010

Photo Engineer said:
Heinz;

The gaps in dye densities at 500 nm and the high peak are real and is the key issue here as is the half band width of the cyan dye ... PE

The "gaps" at 500 as well at 600 nm (due to the narrow peak of the cyan dye) are quite pronounced, but what irritates me more, that is the strong absorption of the cyan and magenta dyes below 450 - 420 nm, what might explain the somewhat ochre-brownish-tinted impure color rendition of plain yellow in K64 and also K25.

At least in scanning, yellows rarely are rendered without such an ochre shift. Orange and green aren't affected that much. However, both Kodachrome classics give more than only satisfactory results in nature and landscape photography, as they are capable to render pastel-like highlights perfectly, where some E-6 films still blow out.

Tomorrow or on tuesday I will take some K25 to Schoenbrunn castle in Vienna and its park, also to freeze all that on Kodachrome for a last time.

Photo Engineer · Sep 19, 2010

I meant the gap at 600 nm which is the major problem. That was a typo I missed, sorry.

There is a lot of interlayer interimage in Kodachrome and Ektachrome both to try to correct for that problem. Unfortunately, Kodachrome overdoes it a bit and therefore reds lose detail. The detail in a red object is due to cyan dye, and the interimage coupled with the narrow band width reduces the "neutral" detail component in the lower density areas (see the cyan curve) and this causes reds to lack detail.

It is an old argument among the engineers at EK, as to how much correction you can use. In this case you need it to fix up other problems. In negative films, this is done by masking and that is why the colors can be more exact, and actually more vivid.

PE

Heinz_Anderle · Sep 20, 2010

Photo Engineer said:
... Unfortunately, Kodachrome overdoes it a bit and therefore reds lose detail. The detail in a red object is due to cyan dye, and the interimage coupled with the narrow band width reduces the "neutral" detail component in the lower density areas (see the cyan curve) and this causes reds to lack detail. PE

I cannot complain about the Kodachrome red - it captures the subjective impression of this naturally alarming color very well. Now we have pumpkin season, and the intense red-orange of some varieties must look really juicy on the color slides (I have reserved some Kodachrome for the pumpkins).

kevs · Sep 20, 2010

I have about ten frames of K64 to shoot; I think some autumn leaves will be a good way to say farewell to Kodachrome.

I just found a Kodachrome blog on the BBC's website that I thought might interest people here. Sorry if this has been posted before; I'll be reading it eventually.

PE, if you suddenly disappear, we'll know what's happened. Let us know when the *ahem* product is ready...

Heinz_Anderle · Oct 1, 2010

A very strange question: would "hair colorant" work with Kodachrome (color processing)? Some such colorants use the same principle: a phenylene diamine "developer" (a major cause of allergy), an oxidant, and a color coupler forming an insoluble reaction product (!) giving deep cyan, magenta, or yellow hair (!). In theory, it could be possible to replace the original compounds with this "homebrew" or at least the raw components of such cosmetics (aside from color purity and stability). Of course it would take some R & D work...

Photo Engineer · Oct 1, 2010

Yes, hair dye can be used. But, the type is important as not all hair dyes use this mechanism to dye things.

There was a thread here in which it was claimed that hair dye could be used as a color developer to enhance images or alter them during processing. I originally discounted this until the poster mentioned the particular dye used and posted the MSDS. This MSDS was different than some others in that it contained a coupler and the PPD. Those must be present. The ones I looked at did not.

The effect will be variable based on dye, PPD and etc. The PPD in that MSDS was a loose variant of CD4 used in C41 color developer. The coupler was close to a Kodachrome coupler but varied enough to give a muddy look to the color IMO.

PE

guyburns · Jan 17, 2011

I'm hoping someone can explain in detail what information the Spectral-Dye-Density Curves are meant to convey (second and fourth graphs in the first post). I can't work them out. If someone knows how to interpret them, please choose a point on the vertical axis and explain how to read the horizontal intercepts; and then choose a point on the horizontal axis and explain how to read the vertical intercepts.

Photo Engineer · Jan 17, 2011

Horizontal axis is wavelength and vertical is density. These graphs represent the actual dye densities in a neutral. It shows that the cyan in Kodachrome is quite different than the average being very narrow in bandwidth and thereby requiring more dye to reach any given density.

PE

Jeff Kubach · Jan 17, 2011

I don't know much about the tech stuff about Kodachrome, but I do like the looks of it!

Jeff

Craig · Jan 18, 2011

Going back to the gist of your original post, I used Kodachrome because it rendered Canadian Pacific red like nothing else. Fuji always went orange while Kodachrome went the other way and made it slightly deeper red. Always looked fantastic. EPN is reasonably close, but that's gone too. I still have 20 sheets of 8x10 in the freezer though!

2F/2F · Jan 18, 2011

Craig said:
Going back to the gist of your original post, I used Kodachrome because it rendered Canadian Pacific red like nothing else. Fuji always went orange while Kodachrome went the other way and made it slightly deeper red. Always looked fantastic. EPN is reasonably close, but that's gone too. I still have 20 sheets of 8x10 in the freezer though!

EPN is my favorite daylight transparency film. I wish it was still made. EPP is gone too, sadly.

alanrockwood · Jan 18, 2011

PE,

I just saw this thread today for the first time and skimmed through your first post. It is very very extremely interesting.

Love, hate and Kodachrome - or why all of the passion here?

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