amateriat
We're all light!
So, Kodachrome's life-support finally got pulled, and we get to watch its last furtive writhings.
It hurts to watch. Really hurts. But I have to say I haven't used it much over the last decade. In fact, I've rarely used any slide film over the last fifteen years. And I place the blame squarely at the foot of digital imaging. My example might be the real reason Kodachrome has more or less been on life-support for the better part of a decade.
Mind you, I'm not talking about digital capture. I have so many issues regarding contemporary digital cameras that I don't see them becoming central to my imaging regimen any time in the near future, until and unless I see some fundamental changes in form factor and control interface matters. To my mind, there's little excuse for what's being trotted out as SOTA in pro digital cameras.
As far as the post-shoot aspect of digital imaging is concerned, however, I got on board pretty early, and loved it. My first film scanner, a second- or third-hand Nikon LS-10, was a revelation; yes, it took a seeming dog's age to scan one piece of negative or slide film, but once it was done, I was stone-cold sold on the process. Printing it out on my first-ever photo-grade inkjet printer (Epson SP 1200) pretty much sealed the deal. I saw the future, and it wasn't in the wet darkroom. (For me, that is...I don't regard the wet darkroom at all as moribund or without purpose, but it wasn't in the cards for me, for a number of practical reasons.)
Scanning so many negs and slides was educational in a number of ways, both expected and unexpected. One of the unexpected results was a re-evaluation of my attitude toward color negative film. When I started shooting more or less seriously in the early/mid 1970s, I never really got color neg film: you shot the stuff, sent it out to get developed, then got back your film, cut five-to-a-strip, and a bunch of small prints, some obviously better than others. Slides made much more sense then: I could take them out of their little box, stuff them in the Stack Loader of my Carousel projector, and live large on my screen (the big argument in those days was whether you preferred a lenticular screen surface over beaded...yes, people did argue over this stuff). You could tell if your shots really were sharp or not, and, with Kodachrome, you could have that near-3D experience if you more or less knew what you were doing. (I think 3D home projection isn't too far off–hell, they need something new to try and sell us, especially now–but I shudder to think of some of the results, especially once the adult-video industry get ahold of it...)
The problem with slide film, back then, was in the printing. If you wanted a nice 8x10" print of a particularly cool slide, it was an ordeal, almost always with mediocre results. This was where color neg film had a major advantage: there was no two-step dance involved in getting a print made (I'm referring to the time before Cibachrome/Ilfochrome and Kodak's Type R process became widespread), with the resulting generational loss in image quality. (I've done it myself in several pro labs, so I know that process, and it wasn't at all fun.) Slides ruled from the projector: negatives ruled from the living-room wall.
Digital scanning, and printing, turned all of this upside-down. Now, it didn't matter if the original image was a slide or neg: with a decent scanner and a modicum of care, you could extract a goodly amount of what was in that slide or neg, have it show up on your computer monitor, tweak it to your heart's content, then print it with great, if not breathtaking quality. With time and experience, you could even scan to a particular film type's strengths.
Working with slide film, this was a huge deal: Kodachrome was suddenly in a world of its own. I have several prints that, if I say so myself, are jaw-dropping in detail and palette, clearly unmistakable for any other emulsion. And, my better Ektachromes benefitted as well. (Yes, certain E6 emulsions have strengths of their own, and needn't apologize for not being Kodachrome.)
But it was the results with color neg film that took me by surprise. There was that dynamic range, with little fear of high-key blow-outs. There was exploiting the delicate palette of Portra 160 in a way I'd never imagined. There was getting low and mixed-light results from Fuji Pro 400/800 that I never dreamed of. Color neg film suddenly had serious mojo. And, I could scan it and print it like a pro. It wasn't hype any longer, it was real.
And so, slide film of all types fell out of favor. Kodachrome was first, largely because it always had to be sent off somewhere, even if that "somewhere" was just a cross the river (Fair Lawn, NJ), where it would return overnight. E6 could be dropped off at the lab early afternoon and be ready for pick-up by early evening. But now, I would drop color neg film off, tell the lab guys to simply soup it: no prints, no cutting of the roll, even. Simpler. faster, cheaper, and with minimum handling of the film, always a virtue.
This is how it's been for me for the last decade, which is about the last time I ever had a lab make prints/proofs for me. Color negative film (and its b/w chromogenic sidekick), has become the standard for me. Digital converts pointed out the fact that, relatively inexpensive as my workflow appeared to be, it was still more costly and labor-intensive than theirs; I replied that, while this was true, my methodology had at least one positive takeaway: a built-in storage medium that eliminated the hot-potato status of a digital file, which needs some sort of sturdy, if not quite permanent haven. No medium owns a claim on absolute permanence and stability, but I personally feel that my choice requires a bit less hand-wringing.
The post-production digital world, IMO, favors the negative image. The negative, in-camera, is more elastic, more tweakable, and more forgiving in fast-paced and brutal environs, and more likely to help one get the goods at the end of the day.
And, I hear it being shouted, Kodachrome is the the king of archival stability. What about that?
It means a lot. I worked for a multi-image production agency in the 1980s which had a large advertising agency approach it with the task of archiving their entire history of print advertising, which stretched back to the early 20th Century. After numerous meetings, we determined that the most archivally-stable material to record the printed works (most of them originals) was Kodachrome. Problem was, we needed to do the shooting on our large Forox 35mm process cameras, which normally used 100ft bulk rolls of film. (You think Kodak made their E6 films available in bulk only for skinflint hobbyists?). Supposedly, our calling up Rochester in 1984 and requesting a special order of bulk-loaded K64 was right up there with asking for a private audience with the Pope. The ad agency intervened on our behalf.
Within about three weeks, a medium-sized box arrived via private courier. Inside were about ten to fifteen 100ft rolls of Kodachrome 64. Possibly outside of the military, this was likely the only time one might have seem such a thing. I ended up doing a lot of shooting on the project.
So, I think I know Kodachrome reasonably well. And my heart sank at hearing today's (Monday's) news. And, like a lot of people, I'll be grabbing a bunch of rolls for some very specific purposes.
And then, I'll move on, grabbing even more rolls of Portra and BW400CN, among a few specific others. The death of Kodachrome is a biggie, but it's not the death of film, or, at least, certainly not yet. Kodak can no longer afford to be terribly sentimental, so they have to pick and choose. ("We'll always have Tri-X, schweetheart"). It's the gestalt of the process of working with film that's counted to me a bit more than working with a specific film, even though I've clearly liked some films more than others (let's just say I never sent a mash note to GAF, for example). And, I have several films I've gotten to know and love, which will likely see out the bulk of my photographing days.
Yeah, I wish Kodachrome would still be made beyond this year. I also wish Schwinn was still making Paramount bicycles. Right here, in the US of A*.
- Barrett
*Yeah, yeah, there's Waterford, but you grok my drift, right?
It hurts to watch. Really hurts. But I have to say I haven't used it much over the last decade. In fact, I've rarely used any slide film over the last fifteen years. And I place the blame squarely at the foot of digital imaging. My example might be the real reason Kodachrome has more or less been on life-support for the better part of a decade.
Mind you, I'm not talking about digital capture. I have so many issues regarding contemporary digital cameras that I don't see them becoming central to my imaging regimen any time in the near future, until and unless I see some fundamental changes in form factor and control interface matters. To my mind, there's little excuse for what's being trotted out as SOTA in pro digital cameras.
As far as the post-shoot aspect of digital imaging is concerned, however, I got on board pretty early, and loved it. My first film scanner, a second- or third-hand Nikon LS-10, was a revelation; yes, it took a seeming dog's age to scan one piece of negative or slide film, but once it was done, I was stone-cold sold on the process. Printing it out on my first-ever photo-grade inkjet printer (Epson SP 1200) pretty much sealed the deal. I saw the future, and it wasn't in the wet darkroom. (For me, that is...I don't regard the wet darkroom at all as moribund or without purpose, but it wasn't in the cards for me, for a number of practical reasons.)
Scanning so many negs and slides was educational in a number of ways, both expected and unexpected. One of the unexpected results was a re-evaluation of my attitude toward color negative film. When I started shooting more or less seriously in the early/mid 1970s, I never really got color neg film: you shot the stuff, sent it out to get developed, then got back your film, cut five-to-a-strip, and a bunch of small prints, some obviously better than others. Slides made much more sense then: I could take them out of their little box, stuff them in the Stack Loader of my Carousel projector, and live large on my screen (the big argument in those days was whether you preferred a lenticular screen surface over beaded...yes, people did argue over this stuff). You could tell if your shots really were sharp or not, and, with Kodachrome, you could have that near-3D experience if you more or less knew what you were doing. (I think 3D home projection isn't too far off–hell, they need something new to try and sell us, especially now–but I shudder to think of some of the results, especially once the adult-video industry get ahold of it...)
The problem with slide film, back then, was in the printing. If you wanted a nice 8x10" print of a particularly cool slide, it was an ordeal, almost always with mediocre results. This was where color neg film had a major advantage: there was no two-step dance involved in getting a print made (I'm referring to the time before Cibachrome/Ilfochrome and Kodak's Type R process became widespread), with the resulting generational loss in image quality. (I've done it myself in several pro labs, so I know that process, and it wasn't at all fun.) Slides ruled from the projector: negatives ruled from the living-room wall.
Digital scanning, and printing, turned all of this upside-down. Now, it didn't matter if the original image was a slide or neg: with a decent scanner and a modicum of care, you could extract a goodly amount of what was in that slide or neg, have it show up on your computer monitor, tweak it to your heart's content, then print it with great, if not breathtaking quality. With time and experience, you could even scan to a particular film type's strengths.
Working with slide film, this was a huge deal: Kodachrome was suddenly in a world of its own. I have several prints that, if I say so myself, are jaw-dropping in detail and palette, clearly unmistakable for any other emulsion. And, my better Ektachromes benefitted as well. (Yes, certain E6 emulsions have strengths of their own, and needn't apologize for not being Kodachrome.)
But it was the results with color neg film that took me by surprise. There was that dynamic range, with little fear of high-key blow-outs. There was exploiting the delicate palette of Portra 160 in a way I'd never imagined. There was getting low and mixed-light results from Fuji Pro 400/800 that I never dreamed of. Color neg film suddenly had serious mojo. And, I could scan it and print it like a pro. It wasn't hype any longer, it was real.
And so, slide film of all types fell out of favor. Kodachrome was first, largely because it always had to be sent off somewhere, even if that "somewhere" was just a cross the river (Fair Lawn, NJ), where it would return overnight. E6 could be dropped off at the lab early afternoon and be ready for pick-up by early evening. But now, I would drop color neg film off, tell the lab guys to simply soup it: no prints, no cutting of the roll, even. Simpler. faster, cheaper, and with minimum handling of the film, always a virtue.
This is how it's been for me for the last decade, which is about the last time I ever had a lab make prints/proofs for me. Color negative film (and its b/w chromogenic sidekick), has become the standard for me. Digital converts pointed out the fact that, relatively inexpensive as my workflow appeared to be, it was still more costly and labor-intensive than theirs; I replied that, while this was true, my methodology had at least one positive takeaway: a built-in storage medium that eliminated the hot-potato status of a digital file, which needs some sort of sturdy, if not quite permanent haven. No medium owns a claim on absolute permanence and stability, but I personally feel that my choice requires a bit less hand-wringing.
The post-production digital world, IMO, favors the negative image. The negative, in-camera, is more elastic, more tweakable, and more forgiving in fast-paced and brutal environs, and more likely to help one get the goods at the end of the day.
And, I hear it being shouted, Kodachrome is the the king of archival stability. What about that?
It means a lot. I worked for a multi-image production agency in the 1980s which had a large advertising agency approach it with the task of archiving their entire history of print advertising, which stretched back to the early 20th Century. After numerous meetings, we determined that the most archivally-stable material to record the printed works (most of them originals) was Kodachrome. Problem was, we needed to do the shooting on our large Forox 35mm process cameras, which normally used 100ft bulk rolls of film. (You think Kodak made their E6 films available in bulk only for skinflint hobbyists?). Supposedly, our calling up Rochester in 1984 and requesting a special order of bulk-loaded K64 was right up there with asking for a private audience with the Pope. The ad agency intervened on our behalf.
Within about three weeks, a medium-sized box arrived via private courier. Inside were about ten to fifteen 100ft rolls of Kodachrome 64. Possibly outside of the military, this was likely the only time one might have seem such a thing. I ended up doing a lot of shooting on the project.
So, I think I know Kodachrome reasonably well. And my heart sank at hearing today's (Monday's) news. And, like a lot of people, I'll be grabbing a bunch of rolls for some very specific purposes.
And then, I'll move on, grabbing even more rolls of Portra and BW400CN, among a few specific others. The death of Kodachrome is a biggie, but it's not the death of film, or, at least, certainly not yet. Kodak can no longer afford to be terribly sentimental, so they have to pick and choose. ("We'll always have Tri-X, schweetheart"). It's the gestalt of the process of working with film that's counted to me a bit more than working with a specific film, even though I've clearly liked some films more than others (let's just say I never sent a mash note to GAF, for example). And, I have several films I've gotten to know and love, which will likely see out the bulk of my photographing days.
Yeah, I wish Kodachrome would still be made beyond this year. I also wish Schwinn was still making Paramount bicycles. Right here, in the US of A*.
- Barrett
*Yeah, yeah, there's Waterford, but you grok my drift, right?
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