'Sure Be Nice If Ektachrome Wasn't the Only One Available...

[BHuij]

You could. But no screen has ever come close to displaying a transparency as nicely as the real thing, in person, at least by my estimation.

 

[Taylor Nankervis]

I've seen piles of ruined, faded old Kodachrome slides. There's nothing inherently permanent about those either. All it takes is a lack of air circulation and some humidity, and mold and mildew take over. PVC storage sleeves ruined many others. And many outright faded due to too much projection.

Experiences vary, I'm sure. And the above isn't my own.
I have approx. 30,000 slides (all up) in original yellow 'K' plastic boxes, in original 'K' card mounts dating from (earliest) 1962 to the last in 1986. I have written about this heaving archive created by my two late aunties who globetrotted on PanAm from Australia in the 1960s to mid-1980s. All Kodachrome, with several boxes of Ektachrome (the E4 chems type) having faded out. None of these Kodachrome slides have seen a projector in many decades, though some were printed (Ilfochrome Classic prints), just so the rest of my curious family were spared the indignity of squinting at a saucy tranny against the bright outdoor light. I had several irritating experiences — learning experiences, if you will, in the late 1970s storing my own slides in PVC sleeves. That idea went out the way of the dinosaurs!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Interesting. None of my Ektachromes have faded; most are sheet film. None of my Kodachromes either. But my brother's collection, stored in a closet in a more humid climate, fared badly, and all my aunt's even earlier Kodachromes were worthless by the time I inherited them - many of those were projected in her Art History classes. I managed to preserve a few of my brothers best 4x5 chromes on Cibachrome. What really made me sad is that he kept his best dye transfer print in a vinyl sleeve and it didn't do well there at all. But that was the custom of the era, even among pros.

 

[mshchem]

I too am a B&W film only photographer for my "normal" photography ... it gives me far more enjoyment than any digital.

My colour slide photography is very specialised ... medium format stereo photography. Once you see a stereo pair of 50x50mm colour slides (Ektachrome or Provia, I prefer the latter), viewed in a good optical stereo viewer, you will be hooked! It is literally as though you are standing in the exact place you took the photo, it's hard to find words to describe the realism. And once you're hooked, you spend too much money on film and all the trappings of film-based stereoscopy.

OMG! yes! I remember discovering my grandpa's stereo viewer, old time he was born in the 1880s. I was hooked on photography then. So amazing. I would like to know more about your setup.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I loved climbing up the attic ladder and opening up the family cedar chest, which included a red velvet lined Victorian era stereopticon, plus a big pile of old stereo images, many of them containing Western pictures taken by, of all people, Carleton Watkins. Those were mass produced, and all basically rote scenic fare, and even today would be of only modest antique value. It's not like finding a stash of his personal work contact printed onto albumen - now that would be a gold mine! Most of those mammoth plate prints were destroyed during the 1906 SF earthquake and fire, just a week or two before he was due to transfer them all in a sale to Stanford. That incident landed him in an insane asylum. Nowadays we big camera types are left alone to go about as we please, insane of not.

 

[Ten301]

Not if Kodak did it in-house. And any excuse for why they can't do it is just a convenient excuse!

There could also be the environmental factor. If some of the chemistry may no longer be available to process Kodachrome as others have suggested, it could be because it is now banned by the various government agencies. We saw how Fuji chose to withdraw Velvia 100 from the U.S. market because it contains a very small amount of a chemical the U.S. EPA banned instead of reformulating it. Apparently it is not an easy task. So consider Kodachrome with very complicated, multi-step, chemical-intensive processing unique to that film alone. It would be a nightmare to ‘reinvent’ the process.

 

[ChrisGalway]

Couldn't you scan smaller formats and display them in 3D through a smart TV. My Sony TV displays 3D using active 3D glasses.

Yes, and this is what the overwhelming majority of stereo-enthusiasts (known as stereopaths!) do, or some digital variation of it (for example laptops with "lightfield" 3D displays). But I think it's accepted in the world of stereopaths that the very best display for still stereo photos is an immersive optical viewer and large medium format colour transparencies. It's a combination of the resolution, colour rendering, dynamic range and image brightness ... even the best digital displays are not quite there, yet. Very few people actually do this though, because of the large cost, not only of the film/processing but of the cameras and viewers. And of course, it's "selfish" ... you can only share the experience in person using an optical viewer.

I am a huge fan of sterephotography, and while I've gotten proficient at the "cross your eyes" viewing approach, I'd love to learn which viewers you prefer and where I might get one. Medium and large format slides in stereo sound like pure magic.

Only only (micro-)company actively selling medium format stereo viewers is Mercury Cameras https://mercurystereo.com/stereo12.html and will cost around US$600. A more portable viewer of similarly high image quality and a wider focussing range is made to order by Matej Bohac in Europe http://stereofotografie.matej.boha.cz/projects.php , similar price. Secondhand viewers made by 3DWorld around 20 years ago occasionally come up on eBay for less money. As I said above, this is an expensive hobby!

So as not to get too much off-topic, this micro-discussion arose because (IMO) colour transparencies are THE way to display stereo images.