Kodak advertised Kodachrome heavily until the early '90s when sales began to lag. About then it shared ads with Ektachrome, which had sales far greater than Kodachrome.
Kodachrome was coated once a year and supplied the entire world for that year at about that time. Then the coating schedule slipped because unused outdated Kodachrome was being returned. Gradually slippage to the coating schedule to about 1 time every 2 years, and just one master roll. When returns on that became too great, costs could not be supported.
As for keeping of the solutions, you have three developers with the developing agent and the coupler mixed together. These don't stand around long. In KRL we used to make blanks with no coupler or developer both for keeping and to allow easy experimentation. But to keep it running well, you had to keep it running or it went bad.
It is such a complex product that it overwhelms the making of vinyl records by orders of magnitude. You talk about this as a simple undertaking, but it is not. Steve Frizza worked a near miracle to get the results he got! And that is just with the process. The film already existed.
PE
I feel that Kodak could have done some more promotion on Kodachrome in the last couple of years before they quit Kodachrome, they could have even just promoted it on their website or facebook, even warning people that they need more sales to keep it alive etc.
I heard nothing from them about Kodachrome at all, in fact i actually thought it was finished in 2006 when i sent in my last roll of super8 for processing Kodak told me that no more is made and they were shutting the lab down the month after i sent it so i got it there just in time, what they did not tell me was it was just their super8 products were finished and that they were closing the Switzerland lab down.
So i feel Kodak could have done more promotion, Dwaynes photo lab were certainly getting a huge amount of business from Kodachrome also, so there must have been a decent amount of people shooting the stuff around the world.
Anyway, your right on the life of the chemicals when mixed. How long do they last? Is it a matter of minutes or will they keep for an hour?
I know they oxidise fast and you could see the staining on the tanks at dwaynes.
Putting the complexity of the rem jet backing removal and re-exposures etc aside, is it really that hard to measure and mix each developer and use immediately? They say trained chemists were needed? I can see this an issue for long film runs on a large scale processor that requires constant replenishment, but for say the likes of a jobo style tank that is mixed and used just the once like alot of people already do in their darkrooms, could this have been made possible?
As long as the temperature is bang on and mixed correctly, i dont see much of an issue, could Kodak have looked at the option of selling the kits to mix the chemicals etc?
I could imagine that they could have easily packaged each amount already measured in sealed pouches or perhaps even premixed in amall amounts like the K-Lab used. IDK, maybe im dreaming here, but im sure a special tank could have been designed for Jobo use that did the light exposures, and Kodak could have produced a version of Kodachrome that did not have rem-jet backing? The rem-jet was only needed for cine film use, and even then Ektachrome was used in cinefilm applications etc.
Please just take these as questions, im not suggesting this can be possible in any shape or form, im just interested to know if the likes of this is possible or not.
I'll put my hand up, but as you would know I shoot nothing much more than E6 regularly. Of the wider picture, at last estimate here in Australia, around 840 people per 100,000 at using E6 and falling. Once E6 goes (2-3 years??), my prediction is that photographers will migrate to alternative methods and "be done with it"rather than screwed around by manufacturers. It's not the availability of E6 film or the cost at this time that is a worry by any stretch, but the future shock we all know that is coming and needs to be planned for.
Ferrania will save E6, im still happy to pay $40(NZD) to get mine developed and scanned, i could save about half that if i get my own scanner.
Perfect.
