Actually... Kodachrome Sucked

[Frank Petronio]

It's a tribute to Kodak that they kept it going for twenty years longer then they needed too, the sentimental old corporate goofballs that they are.

Seriously, it was great for the 30s and 40s but Geezum Crow, the color wasn't "realistic" or "pleasing" -- it was surreal and bizarre. Just because people got accustomed to it doesn't mean it was all that great... it just points to our adaptability and ability to rationalize almost anything.

 

[dave lackey]

Works just great for retorspective photography. Fine with me!🙂

 

[robklurfield]

Frank, you are the iconoclasts' iconoclast.

Rearview mirrors should perhaps bear the message "things in the past look better now than they did then; exercise caution."

 

[berlincontemporary]

Could someone point us to some examples of the Kodachrome "look"? Because I always fail to see whats special about it.

 

[dmr]

but Geezum Crow, the color wasn't "realistic" or "pleasing" -- it was surreal and bizarre.

Uh, we may have to agree to disagree on that!

 

[majid]

I can't say I love the Kodachrome palette, but until the advent of Velvia in 1990, it was far superior to the horrendous Ektachrome and Fujichrome E6 emulsions available, not to mention far longer lasting in dark storage.

People like Steve McCurry or Galen Rowell have shown what you can do with Kodachrome, color-wise.

 

[dave lackey]

Ahhh... Galen Rowell, one of my favorite photographers. Actually a master of Kodachrome!

http://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/gallery/retro/_pdf/rowellmed.pdf

Who can argue with these results? Or National Geographics?

Sucked? Whatever.

 

[Neare]

Who wants "realistic" colours when shooting colour film? I know the people certainly don't, people love fancy slightly off colours when looking at regular scenes. People like overly warm tones or excentuated blues in colour photography. Realism is boring to the people viewing the photography, just take a look at the successful photographers nowadays and look at their colour palette.
Kodachrome worked well, I do agree though that it was probably overrated for all the trouble it took to get it through its proper dev process.

 

[tlitody]

So we all live in our own little fantasy world. And ?

 

[jsrockit]

It certainly had a distinctive look... and it isn't always about realistic results.

 

[dmr]

The term I've been looking for to describe the look of Kodachrome was finally used by another person on another system. "Stained Glass."

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Stained Glass. Have to think about that one.

from 2010

from 1984

 

[Chris101]

I, myself, like bizarre and surreal.

 

[dmr]

Stained Glass. Have to think about that one.

It was on either Kodachrome Project or APUG. Just felt like the right analogy.

Actually, I do like the way Kodachrome renders colors. Very much! No, it does not suck!

Kodachrome shows you the colors the way they are, not the way somebody might want them to be. Natural looking, to me, anyway. Definitely not like an explosion in a paint factory! 🙂

 

[sepiareverb]

I found the last several batches I used to be much different. I don't know if it was Dwaynes processing or the film- but color was less saturated. I used to shoot LOTS of K64 when I did stock, and they just haven't had the same pop they used to.

 

[xwhatsit]

Stained glass! Absolutely!

I shot my first (and obviously last) roll in mid-December, with pretty low expectations. The film was a wee bit expired, didn't want to get my hopes too far up in case I missed the deadline, and with the level of hype around about it, I thought it couldn't be as good as everybody described.

Got the slides earlier this week, was absolutely blown away. Certainly didn't suck! Reds vastly saturated and exaggerated, the rich greens... all completely false, but they definitely make a beautiful picture.

People love unrealism in pictures. B&W is perhaps the most unrealistic of all, of course, but it's not listed as a limitation of the technique. If you want to make copies of reality then that's fine, but grain, type of colour film/B&W tonality, all affect how the image looks. Choice of which film is like choosing which palette you'd like to paint the picture with.

To me, all slide films seem to look grossly unrealistic, "surreal and bizarre". Partly the colours, but especially the limited dynamic range. And the method of viewing too; glowing on a slide viewer, projected on a wall, or scanned in (and looking different again). Colour negative seems to match reality the closest to my eyes, with its huge dynamic range (boy do I want to shoot some Vision 3 500T!) and much more natural palette. That doesn't make it any better or prettier for taking a photo with though! Just a different aesthetic.

 

[rbsinto]

My first colour slide film was Kodachrome, back around 1977, which I shot at the suggestion of a pro Photobud.
"Get a roll of Kodachrome, shoot red mailboxes and bracket to learn about exposure."
I bought, I shot, I bracketed, I learned.
Nice film, but what turned me away from it was sheer laziness. I couldn't be bothered to either schlepp or mail the stuff to Kodak for development, and finally settled on E-6 stocks (originally Ektachrome, and finally Fujichrome) which is essentially all I shoot to this day.

 

[SolaresLarrave]

Kodachrome was an excellent film... but the "problem" came with skin tone rendition. That's where some would differ. I liked the "Technicolor" look I got, but there were people for whom it was too pink.

Leaving this aside, I liked the relatively subdued palette of Kodachrome, in which intense colors were intense, and pastels looked realistic and pleasant. I only used Velvia and Reala each once because I wasn't blown away by their intense saturation... and returned to Kodachrome always.

But to each his own. If Frank doesn't like Kodachrome that's perfectly fine. I do. Take care!

 

[Brian Levy]

I loved the Kodachrome 25 (old formula) but the new formula K64 was good but not in the same league. Still overall, I found both to come closer to the actual subject in color and tonality than any other slide file I tried. Sadly, most slide film is like digital; over saturated and contrasty.

 

[Graham Line]

Xwhatsis hit the nail on the head. Pretty pictures, but not necessarily reality.