Super 8mm Kodachrome bites the dust

[SkipA]

For all of you super 8 lovers out there...

Kodak has announced that it will cease production of Kodachrome 40 in Super 8mm cartridges. They say that Kodachrome 40 will continue to be available in 16mm film. I am saddened by the loss of the extraordinary K40 film in S8.

Kodak 40th Anniversary of Super 8 film

Kodak is releasing a new 64 ASA Tungsten film to take K40's place. I doubt it's the same as EPY, since the new film is described as super-saturated. I haven't been able to find any detailed information about the new film yet. K40 was 3400K balanced film. EPY is 3200K balanced. I have no idea about the new 64T Super 8 film.

Most of the low-end auto-exposure only Super 8 cameras that were designed solely for use with 40T or 160T film will probably not properly expose the 64T correctly.

Fortunately, most of my S8 cameras can be set for manual exposure and will handle the 64T just fine. I'm looking forward to shooting it, but I'll miss K40.

Has anyone heard any news of the new 64T Super 8 film?

 

[SkipA]

Doesn't seem like anyone here is particularly interested in this topic, but if you are, there is a lot of discussion about it on www.filmshooting.com and some on www.cinematography.com.

Hey, it is an analog film technology, you know!

 

[adrian_freire]

Hey, it is an analog film technology, you know!

Yes, I know, I wish I could shot a pair of rolls of s8 or 16mm but the film is sooooo hard to find and sooo expensive ( $/time ). (nevertheless you can buy great used s8 and 16mm cameras for few $ at ebay ( search for krasnogorsk 3 )

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

It is unfortunate even for still shooters, because it's yet another shrinkage in the market for K-14 processing. Are there just 2 places that do it now--Dwayne's Photo in Kansas and Kodak Switzerland?

 

[fingel]

Dwayne's website said that they will continue to process k-14 super8 as long as Kodak still produces Kodachrome in 35mm and 16mm formats. I think I will buy some to freeze as I just re-discovered home movies after watching movies that my grandpa shot in the 30's and 40's (earlier ones were black and white regular 8mm)

There is something about having to set up a screen and projector that makes it more of an event than just puting a dvd in and watching it on TV.

I never thought I would say this but, fortunatly I bought a couple regular 8mm movie cameras off ebay. Small format users that still want to use Kodachrome my have to switch to reg 8mm or move up to 16mm.
(yes regular 8mm film is still availabel, just not directly produced by Kodak. I believe that it is re-spooled 16mm film stock put onto smaller 25ft reels.)

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I had a Krasnogorsk 3 for a while. The camera was really cheap because I bought it used in Poland before they were being exported to the West to any extent, but working in 16mm was just too costly a proposition for me at the time. I sold it for a profit to a film student (who still got a great deal) and put the cash toward studio strobes.

 

[SkipA]

Ooops. Been a while since I checked for responses here.

Yes, David, Kodak Switzerland and Dwayne's in Kansas K14movies.com still process Kodachrome cine film. I believe Kodak will close the Switzerland facility when they stop processing in about a year. The reduction in the number of places that process Kodachrome is writing on the wall. Shoot Kodachrome in any format you want while you can. I doubt it'll be around for many more years.

I just bought 50 carts of Super 8 K40, and they are now in my freezer. I may buy another 50 soon. I plan to shoot a lot of K40 this summer. I've shot four carts in the past two weeks already. Just normal home movie stuff, since that is what I like to shoot.

 

[SkipA]

Scott, I think there are some sources for reperfed regular 8mm film (maybe Pro8mm.com), but the K40 that John Schwind sells in DS8 and R8 at International Film is recently manufactured and perfed by Kodak.

John had to put in a large special order to get it. Also, he sells Cine-X 50 which is Kodak Plus-X, also manufactured and perfed by Kodak. Actually, I think it is now Cine-X 100, which is the Kodak 7265 stock. But you can still shoot it at 50 ASA and process it yourself in D-94 / R-9 process. That is what I do. If you go with a black and white cine lab for processing they'll typically use D-94A / R-10 process, so you'll need to expose at 100 ASA.

Fomapan R100 in DS8 and R8 is sold by John Schwind and by JandCPhoto, although they both seem to be occasionally out of whichever stock I happen to want to buy.

But you are right, Regular 8mm is not dead, and neither is DS8. For that matter, Super 8 isn't dead even without K40. I can't wait to try out the EPY 64T stock (Kodak gave it stock number 7280) when it comes out.

 

[removed account4]

i used to have and shoot regular 8mm ( i had a bolex h8 ) and i also had a bolex h16. there is still a large community of regular 8mm film users out there. another name to keep in your hat for regular + super 8mm as well as 16mm is http://www.prepfilm.com/ . he sells film and can also have it processed.

i used to drop all my 8mm off at wal-mart / sam's club ... it was always picked up by fuji and forwarded to dwayne's and it was dirt cheep to have it processed. i think it cost me $4 no matter if it was a big roll ( 25 ' or 50' ).

 

[SkipA]

WalMart is still a great deal for Super 8 carts or 25 foot regular 8 (or DS8) Kodachrome. $4.88 per roll. I don't know about 100 foot 16mm film.

If you send your K40 or K25 cine film directly to Dwayne's, it'll cost you $9.00 per roll, but you get faster turnaround by almost a week.

 

[Paul Howell]

Made the New York Times today 05/31/2005 front page of Arts B1.