New Thoughts On The Return Of Kodachrome

[BrianShaw]

I sure hope they're doing well with it. It was gutsy to put that much investment in E6 and P3200 too, and I hope it pays off for them. They're great films.

I hope so, also. But I’m asking a dollars-and-cents question. Is that product line profitable?

Probably not answerable but something I ask myself whenever I Read suggestions that someone else make an investment with assumptions that “if it’s available buyers will magically appear”. It’s too easy to make suggestions when someone else absorbs all of the risk.

I once was a very heavy E-6 user but that stopped long ago. The great new Kodak E-6 product and all of the ensuing accolades has not inspired me to buy and use... not even a single roll. It no longer meets my needs and I think I’m a rather typical film consumer.

 

[alanrockwood]

Kodachrome was legendary for its color permanence in storage, and Ektachrome (at least earlier incarnations of Ektachrome) was legendary for its lack of permanence in storage. I can personally attest to that. How does the permanence of contemporary E6 compare to Kodachrome?

 

[BrianShaw]

A national historic icon that people loved!

Ha ha... but “loved” is past tense. That day has come and gone. Check your calendar and verify with your watch!

 

[Helge]

"Loved," emphasis on the tense, may be the operative word. At 46 years old, I seem to be a little on the young side here at Photrio, and rather on the old side on the analog photography groups on Reddit. And I'm comfortable with asserting that for most film shooters my age and younger, Kodachrome ranks slightly below the Lincoln Town Car as a beloved historic icon - in other words, we don't think of it at all, don't have any emotional connection to its history, and it differs from the myriad of other vanished slide emulsions solely in being the subject of a catchy song. Hell, I still listen to vacuum tube audio components and make my own pie crust from scratch; I can draft jeans to measure and darn a sock, I read the Iliad and Paradise Lost to my kids: I'm not exactly a cutting edge, "out with the old and in with the new" kind of guy, and I utterly don't get the obsession with exhuming Zombie Kodachrome. It's a pipe dream of a niche of a niche of a niche.

One thing is being realistic and intelligent about what you wish for.
Another is not being interested in history and how stuff works.
Kodachrome and Technicolor are absolutely fundamental and fascinating in an of themselves.

They are fundamental not only in the technological sense, but also in how they shaped how we view images and movies today.

A hundred years is but a comma in the liberary of human history. It isn’t long ago at all, and we haven’t at had a chance to trusty assess the importance of what happened “back then”.

Hell, flint tools still in a major way impact our way of shaping and dealing with cutting and chopping metal tools.

“He who knows only his own generation, will forever remain a child”.

 

[BrianShaw]

Ummm... I still Knap and use flint tools.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Ummm... I still Knap and use flint tools.

But not Kodachome. Mama please take my Kodachrome away!

 

[grat]

Ummm... I still Knap and use flint tools.

Oh, look at you and your fancy hoity-toity tools. Sticks were good enough for my parents, they're good enough for me. Pass me the berries, will you?

 

[PFGS]

One thing is being realistic and intelligent about what you wish for.
Another is not being interested in history and how stuff works.
Kodachrome and Technicolor are absolutely fundamental and fascinating in an of themselves.

They are fundamental not only in the technological sense, but also in how they shaped how we view images and movies today.

A hundred years is but a comma in the liberary of human history. It isn’t long ago at all, and we haven’t at had a chance to trusty assess the importance of what happened “back then”.

Hell, flint tools still in a major way impact our way of shaping and dealing with cutting and chopping metal tools.

“He who knows only his own generation, will forever remain a child”.

I have a longstanding and not entirely fruitless interest in the history of technology and its relationship to culture, and I probably wouldn't have spend time and money messing with trichomes over the last couple weekends if I didn't care about how we arrived at modern color film. I also value a big stack of old Kodachromes as being my primary document of my parents' relationship before I was born. "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Technicolor Triumph," The Wizard of Oz, is required viewing at my house, and I'm neglecting Proust to write this. I'm pretty sure I know a little more than only my own generation. Still don't see what that has to do with the bizarre fixation on reviving this one cumbersome process. I'd much rather join @Donald Qualls in learning wet plate.

 

[BrianShaw]

But not Kodachome. Mama please take my Kodachrome away!

... and not Polaroid either, which I’d much rather have than Kodachrome if I had a time machine! Too bad Paul never wrote a song about Polaroid... Oh, but Taylor did...

 

[George Mann]

I utterly don't get the obsession with exhuming Zombie Kodachrome. It's a pipe dream of a niche of a niche of a niche.

Once ago in a country that has been for too long lost and gone did such a product mean so much to its people.

 

[BrianShaw]

Oh, look at you and your fancy hoity-toity tools. Sticks were good enough for my parents, they're good enough for me. Pass me the berries, will you?

My apologies. I didn’t realize that my loin cloth was bunched up and my arrogance was showing. Ha ha ha...

 

[George Mann]

... and not Polaroid either, which I’d much rather have than Kodachrome if I had a time machine! Too bad Paul never wrote a song about Polaroid...

The demise of Polaroid is another great loss.

 

[Dirb9]

Kodachrome was legendary for its color permanence in storage, and Ektachrome (at least earlier incarnations of Ektachrome) was legendary for its lack of permanence in storage. I can personally attest to that. How does the permanence of contemporary E6 compare to Kodachrome?

By the mid 90s, E-6 was about on par with Kodachrome in terms of stability. Film (and dye) development continued into the early 2000s, at this point it's pretty likely that modern E-6 films have better keeping properties than Kodachrome. Of course, much of this is lab dependent, slapdash processed, minimally washed E-6 film won't be particularly stable. The most recent version of K-14 films are basically late 80s tech, Kodak stopped development on the process by about 1990, in favor of furthering E-6 film R&d.

 

[PFGS]

My apologies. I didn’t realize that my loin cloth was bunched up and my arrogance was showing. Ha ha ha...

And yet, you do it again! Loin cloth, forsooth! Half-tanned pelts were good enough in the old days...

 

[Helge]

I have a longstanding and not entirely fruitless interest in the history of technology and its relationship to culture, and I probably wouldn't have spend time and money messing with trichomes over the last couple weekends if I didn't care about how we arrived at modern color film. I also value a big stack of old Kodachromes as being my primary document of my parents' relationship before I was born. "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Technicolor Triumph," The Wizard of Oz, is required viewing at my house, and I'm neglecting Proust to write this. I'm pretty sure I know a little more than only my own generation. Still don't see what that has to do with the bizarre fixation on reviving this one cumbersome process. I'd much rather join @Donald Qualls in learning wet plate.

That’s not what your previous post implied.
Even if we agree that is would be rather silly to resurrect Kodachrome, that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from it.
The ability to freely choose dyes is something we would like very much with current film and paper.
There might perhaps today be other ways of bringing something similar or containing similar parts back.

 

[PFGS]

Once ago in a country that has been for too long lost and gone did such a product mean so much to its people.

Maybe? My grandparents have been too long lost and gone, but if I somehow could sit down again and have my grandfather serve us all root beer floats, I'd not give one rat's ass what brand of root beer, any more than I did when I was 8. In my box of slides of my parents, the Kodachrome ones mean absolutely no more or less to them or to me, than the ones that say Agfa.

 

[Helge]

Ummm... I still Knap and use flint tools.

We did it for so long, that it together with our friendship with fire and penchant for hunting almost certainly are encoded in our genes in some way.

What kind of flint knapping? What period?

 

[BrianShaw]

1700’s. Flints for flintlock weapons.

 

[PFGS]

That’s not what your previous post implied.

Really? I think I clearly implied a lot of interest in the history of the medium and a valuation of the techniques and methods of the past - just not a sharing of the outsized interest in reviving this one particular product - and really I meant that as originally in the context of yet another barrier to its return: an even smaller, less interested market than many might think.

But with the usual quick-take half-reads of other posts and nostalgic blinders in full effect, the modest assertion that Kodachrome won't sell because the young don't have the reasons to care about it that the old have - and I'm offering a perspective from the middle - goes un-noticed in the rush to check my history homework.

 

[Helge]

1700’s. Flints for flintlock weapons.

That’s sissy flint. ;-P
No seriously, it’s fascinating that long after flint went out of use as the main cutting edge, that probably some kind of memory and vestigial use of flint went on for millennia for various uses. Long enough for flintlocks to take advantage of finely crafted flint to put in the cock hammer.

 

[Helge]

Really? I think I clearly implied a lot of interest in the history of the medium and a valuation of the techniques and methods of the past - just not a sharing of the outsized interest in reviving this one particular product - and really I meant that as originally in the context of yet another barrier to its return: an even smaller, less interested market than many might think.

But with the usual quick-take half-reads of other posts and nostalgic blinders in full effect, the modest assertion that Kodachrome won't sell because the young don't have the reasons to care about it that the old have - and I'm offering a perspective from the middle - goes un-noticed in the rush to check my history homework.

You imply(ed) that they are excused and even justified in not giving a rats arse about what went before them and how things came to be.

Edit: You don’t have to have lived something to have a real emotional response to it.

On the contrary liking and admiring the Beatles or Edmund Burke at a distance and seeing them clearly for what they are, whether you lived them or not, is probably a purer and bigger love/like, than just the easily disappointed rose tinted memories.

 

[PFGS]

You imply(ed) that they are excused and even justified in not giving a rats arse about what went before them and how things came to be.

I didn't so imply, and no reasonably careful read of this thread would support your contention, but - I've seen enough of your post history to know that you've got a lot more time, energy, and inclination to continue this than I do, so I'm done. Not every historically important technology needs its day sweating in heavy cotton in the reenactment village; it's ok for some things to just be museum pieces.

EDIT: Ok, fine - we can agree on Edmund Burke, and on the Beatles so long as it's not Sgt. Pepper's.

 

[Helge]

I didn't so imply, and no reasonably careful read of this thread would support your contention, but - I've seen enough of your post history to know that you've got a lot more time, energy, and inclination to continue this than I do, so I'm done. Not every historically important technology needs its day sweating in heavy cotton in the reenactment village; it's ok for some things to just be museum pieces.

Oh please! Shaming me for putting in more effort to make an argument than you (before you decide to quit and call the grapes sour on your way out) is just low, arrogant and easy to see through.
It’s the last resort in the hierarchy of disagreement and one of Schopenhauers strategies for “winning” an argument.
In other words old and trite as the hills.

Fine, if you didn’t mean what I think I read and understood.

 

[PFGS]

Oh please! Shaming me for putting in the effort to make an argument is just low, arrogant and easy to see through.
It’s the last resort in the hierarchy of disagreement and one of the Schopenhauers strategies for “winning” an argument.
In other words old and trite as the hills

Fine, if you didn’t mean what I think I read and understood.

Where did I shame you, exactly? I've seen that you are tenacious, it's not a value judgment, I'm simply giving up, not claiming a win, I have to go make dinner, you can have this one.

 

[Cholentpot]

1700’s. Flints for flintlock weapons.

feh!

Long matches.