Kodachrome is gone

[F456]

Sad news for many of us, no?

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuer...reLocale=true&pq-locale=en_US&_requestid=7555

Tom

 

[Mackinaw]

See the other threads on Kodachrome's demise posted earlier today.

Jim B.

 

[Chuck Albertson]

Not what I needed to hear on the radio at half-five in the morning. I've been squirreling away PKR against the likelihood of this happening, so along with a dozen rolls of K200 and my last two rolls of K25, I might have enough to last until the end of next year. But it's still tough to hear---I have KII slides I shot in Yosemite in the early 70's that still look stunning, and photos of Swiss glaciers from the 80's. In the latter case, the Kodachrome has outlasted the glaciers!

 

[sevo]

Kodak killed it long ago, when they sold off their labs and dropped Kodachrome 25. With turn-around times from Europe weeks or months rather than days, it had long morphed into a film no pro could use any more...

 

[ray*j*gun]

And its sold out at B&H Freestyle and Adorama.......

 

[Roger Hicks]

Sad news indeed -- but to be honest, I stopped using it years ago, precisely because processing was becoming so impossible. And (heresy of heresies) it wasn't actually my favourite colour film of all time. That was Fuji RF/RFP ISO 50, dropped to make way for Velvia...

Yes, Kodachrome lasts, and was bulletproof before and after processing. But although I liked the colours (after they got the awful Kodachrome-X sorted in the 60s), and although K64 was a thousand times better than ER/EPR ISO 64 (the EPR was mpre often 50), I was never the kind of utter, there-is-no-other-film, rather-fight-than-switch Kodachrome user that some seem(ed) to be.

Tashi delek,

R.

 

[pagpow]

Kodak killed it long ago, when they sold off their labs and dropped Kodachrome 25. With turn-around times from Europe weeks or months rather than days, it had long morphed into a film no pro could use any more...

I thought that started with w. US anti-trust action in 60s (?help?) mandating Kodak to license the process to others?

In any case, they certainly did not heed the song... "No, no, don't take my Kodachrome away...". Prescient.

 

[Chuck Albertson]

I thought that started with w. US anti-trust action in 60s (?help?) mandating Kodak to license the process to others?

In any case, they certainly did not heed the song... "No, no, don't take my Kodachrome away...". Prescient.

Not quite. The US filed an antritrust action against Kodak in the 1950's, which resulted in a consent decree in 1954 that required Kodak to unbundle processing from the price of a roll of Kodachrome. It didn't apply overseas, which is why processing is always included when you buy Kodachrome overseas. Even though processing was split off from US film, Kodak was the sole provider of Kodachrome processing in the US for some time---running a K-12/K-14 line basically required having an analytical chemist on the staff, and very expensive QC/QA.

Some indepedent labs started offering K-14 processing in the late 1980's (New Lab, A&I, others), and they did a really good job while they ran it. Kodak decided to spin off their color processing (as Qualex) around the same time, and its quality was not as good as it was when Kodak ran it. But Kodak also developed the K-Lab, which automated a lot of the processing and made it less expensive. The quality of the slides that came out it was pretty high, too. But a lot of people preferred the two-hour turnaround for E-6 (and E-6 films got a lot better) and then digital, and demand for Kodachrome started dropping.

 

[dmr]

Some indepedent labs started offering K-14 processing in the late 1980's

I swear I remember Berkey doing Kodachrome processing in the mid 1970s.

 

[JohnTF]

Not quite. The US filed an antritrust action against Kodak in the 1950's, which resulted in a consent decree in 1954 that required Kodak to unbundle processing from the price of a roll of Kodachrome. It didn't apply overseas, which is why processing is always included when you buy Kodachrome overseas. Even though processing was split off from US film, Kodak was the sole provider of Kodachrome processing in the US for some time---running a K-12/K-14 line basically required having an analytical chemist on the staff, and very expensive QC/QA.

Some indepedent labs started offering K-14 processing in the late 1980's (New Lab, A&I, others), and they did a really good job while they ran it. Kodak decided to spin off their color processing (as Qualex) around the same time, and its quality was not as good as it was when Kodak ran it. But Kodak also developed the K-Lab, which automated a lot of the processing and made it less expensive. The quality of the slides that came out it was pretty high, too. But a lot of people preferred the two-hour turnaround for E-6 (and E-6 films got a lot better) and then digital, and demand for Kodachrome started dropping.

There were some awful labs back in the day, when I got smarter I took it to my camera store which had a Kodak courier pick up daily. My last "Kodak" film bag has fallen apart. One day service to the lab in Findlay.

In Paris, I was staying in VilleJuif near the Kodak lab, on Stalingrad as I recall. They kindly took my film, sent it to Lausanne? and posted it home so it was here when I got back.

Problems I always had with E6 locally, was the all too common scratches by the high speed mounting machines.

I had no problems with scratches with Kodak, Fuji, and Agfa processing. I can offer some Agfa mailers at a good price. ;-)

I have heard it is a crap shoot as to whether Kodak will allow "outdated" mailers to be used.

Funny thing about the anti trust stuff was that it ended up costing more, and Agfachrome came with processing for a long time.

Gray market film from NY had processing included, if you sent it to Canada or as I did, dropped it in Europe while there.

Was a good system, but I wonder how many have the skills to use a slide film properly along with the great scans I hear some of my more tech savvy friends tell me are possible.

I know people still shooting, buying and selling slides, and a photographer in Europe who uses Cibachrome, or I suppose Ilfochrome for her prints.

I guess I will retire the Kodachrome setting on my Coolscan.

Regards, John

 

[cidereye]

And its sold out at B&H Freestyle and Adorama.......

Can't speak for US sales but I do know that 7dayshop in UK have stock a plenty of 64 right now. (Edit* - Darn it even they just ran out, but stock is on order they say.)

Does seem quite ironic to me though - Buy the film from Guernsey, arrives to you in England, you shoot, post the film off to Dwayne's Photo in Kansas USA, they then process & post back to you in England. Rough calculations of that round trip anyone for a mere £8.45? 😀

Kodachrome 25 was the first ever colour film I used as a 13 y.o. way back when so I do feel sad in a way.

 

[jonemere]

I think that some people may feel that Kodak is doing them wrong by discontinuing Kodachrome.I think that some people may feel that since Kodak is doing them wrong, then they will switch to Fuji out of spite so Kodak won't get any of their business at all.I think Kodak held out as long as they could and are phasing it out in a very reasonable and consumer friendly matter.I hope that people will accept that and not switch to Fuji films out of spite and will stay with Kodak products. If, however, someone truly does like Fuji products better than they should feel free to ignore me and use it.I like the E100GX and the E100VS and I selfishly hope that it keeps getting supported by Koda.

 

[amateriat]

A long-time observer could say that Kodachrome has been on Death Row for roughly three decades. The carping started when Rochester introduced the E6 Ektachromes, and only got louder in later years, as it seemed Kodak had largely ignored Kodachrome in favor of advancing new E6 emulsions. The only movement in the world of K14 was (1) Kodachrome 200, which did nothing for me at all, and (2) Kodachrome in 120 format, which seemed more siginficant to me, even though I didn't, and still don't, shoot 120.

Of course, I didn't think Kodachrome needed much on the way of "improvement", but that was just me...

I've long since moved to color-neg films for a variety of reasons, and only occasionally shoot 'chromes (Kodak E200 almost exclusively). The Portra family, Ektar 100, and the occasional roll of Fuji Pro 400/800 covers everything for me in terms of color shooting.

But I have a lot of Kodachrome left to scan from my wild, slide-shooting past.


- Barrett

 

[Pickett Wilson]

But everyone knows that Kodachrome isn't really gone. This is the 21st. century. Right now, in some long abandoned film production facility in a small former soviet union country, a small group of former Kodak corporate janitors standing in the rusty ruins have announced the "Ain't No Way in Hell" project to start up production of Kodachrome as soon as Dwayne's stops processing it.

With partial financial backing from a closely guarded secret camera company that plans to reintroduce the Minolta SRT 101 "in the near future," two software engineers from Wisconsin are reverse engineering the Kodachrome process. Having figured out how to produce the film base, they say that the rest should be easy. "Making an earth friendly base for the emulsion was the hard part," one of the film developers said. "The emulsion and production equipment should only take us a week or two to fix."

When asked about distribution, the head of the project (whose identity is being carefully guarded) explained that such questions were just negative thinking aimed at killing the effort. "We already have over 10 million Internet posters saying they will be shooting '10 or 12 rolls a day' of the stuff. Distribution is only a detail, simple math," he said. "Processing is up to the customer, of course, but we do plan to include sketches we appropriated from a web site somewhere on making a film processor in your garage using only PVC pipe and used Sham Wow chammies."

With a little additional funding (and an end to the sub zero temperatures that keeps their secret facility iced in for 10 months of the year) the group figures they can start shipping the first rolls of Kodachrome 10 "in the near future."

"We haven't set a price yet, but an RFF poll suggested that we could easily get $100 a roll," someone drinking a Starbucks coffee near the abandoned factory said. "Ain't know way in hell we can lose with that kind of demand!"

 

[amateriat]

Stop it, Pickett...I need to go to bed now, and it'll take an hour to get to sleep after all the laughing! 😉


- Barrett

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Barrett, you know you are gonna buy some! 😉