Last Roll of Kodachrome Processed

Wired's Gadget Lab picked up a wistful story from the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle on the processing of the last roll of Kodachrome film that Kodak produced. "Freelance photojournalist Steve McCurry, whose work has graced the pages of National Geographic, laid 36 slides representing the last frames of Kodachrome film on the light board sitting on a counter in Dwayne's Photo Service in Parsons [Kansas]. ... National Geographic has closely documented the journey of the final roll of Kodachrome manufactured, down to its being processed. Dwayne's is the only photo lab left in the world to handle Kodachrome processing..." If you have any rolls of Kodachrome sitting around not yet exposed, better get them to Dwayne's before December 10, 2010.

Comments

So, *will* it be missed?

[Entropius]

I shoot digital only so don't really have any experience with film, but was there actually anything about Kodachrome that made it unique (in a good way) and will have anyone mourning its demise (other than Paul Simon), or are the newer films universally better?

I've thought about borrowing my dad's OM-1 just to shoot a few rolls of Velvia, but have never gotten around to it. (I have a few OM-mount lenses that I use on digital.)

Re:So, *will* it be missed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodachrome has the distinction of being fairly fine grained (outmatched by modern films, but very good historically), having good colour realism, and being remarkably stable over long periods of time (many decades). You can pull a slide out of a collection that is 50 years old and as long as it was stored in darkness it will look like it was shot recently.

I always found it gave a little more "bluish" cast to images compared to my preferences, so it was never my favorite choice, but I still have hundreds of Kodachrome slides. Will anyone mourn the passage of Kodachrome? Probably. But given that I went completely digital years ago, I don't miss it much. I certainly don't miss the expense.

More details about Kodachrome at the usual wikipeida page.

Re:So, *will* it be missed?

[mcgrew]

RTFA -- Paul Simon was right. Colors especially come alive when you shoot on a rainy day, but are vivid and vibrant any time. Personally, I miss Kodachrome; digital photos don't have the spectrum (ar at least seem not to have the spectrum) of colors Kodachrome gave.

Unfortunately, you'll never get the chance to shoot with Kodachrome. Sometimes it's nice being a geezer; I wonder what my grandfather was able to experience that I'll never get the chance to?

Re:So, *will* it be missed?

[CohibaVancouver]

but was there actually anything about Kodachrome that made it unique

I'm 43 and shot a lot of Kodachrome & Ektachrome in High School (1980 - 1985). WRT Kodachrome, it's exactly like Paul Simon says in his song - The colours were very rich and warm, particularly the blues, and the blacks were very, well, black. The developing process (called K-14) meant the film had almost no grain. The main limitations to the film was the very low ASA (ISO) rating. Even on a bright sunny day on the top of a snow capped mountain you were shooting Kodachrome 25 at F2.8 at 125th/second. Well, I exaggerate, but you get the idea...

Re:So, *will* it be missed?

[Have Brain Will Rent]

Digital cameras still don't have the gamut of film - at least not consumer level cameras. And very few digital displays can even come close to displaying the full gamut of which film is capable.

Re:So, *will* it be missed?

[John Whitley]

was there actually anything about Kodachrome that made it unique (in a good way)

As someone who has shot film and digital side-by-side, yes. Film isn't just "disposable digital sensor rolls." Each kind of film has unique working characteristics. To quote Pascal Dangin from this New Yorker article:

Dangin’s latest invention is a proprietary software package called Photoshoot. (He employs six full-time programmers at Box.) Its aim is to imbue digital photography with a specific sensibility—an opinion about the way pictures should look—of the sort that film once offered. “I am doing this because of necessity, because I believe the way that digital photography is done today is so wrong,” Dangin said one day. “Photography as we knew it, meaning film and Kodak and all that, was a very subjective process. With film images you had emotions. You used to go out and buy film like Fuji, because it was more saturated, or you liked Agfa because it gave you a rounded color palette.” With a ten-dollar roll of film, he explained, you were essentially buying ten dollars’ worth of someone’s ideas. “Software, right now, is objective. ‘Let the user create whatever he wants.’ Which is great, but it doesn’t really produce good photography.”

I'll elaborate on that "ten dollars' worth of someone's ideas" bit: It's very loosely akin to being able to choose from a set of experienced digital post-processing artists, each with a distinct look. Film companies put a lot of money into tuning the characteristics of each line of film, whether color or black and white, for the desired results.

Re:Still labs around for color (and even real b/w)

[CohibaVancouver]

I'm guessing there will be for a little while to come

E-6 "Ektachrome" processing? Sure. K-14 "Kodachrome" processing? Very unlikely.

Re:Momma don't take my Kodachrome Away!!

[Lumpy]

Until medium format Digital becomes more sane and really up's the resolution... film ain't going nowhere.

Even low end DSLR's like the T2i now have better resolution than 35mm film. (yes they do, I shoot both and that camera even kicks the hell out of 50ISO slide film for resolution.) As I have seen myself by scanning negatives and slides taken by really expensive cameras and glass.. Current cheap digitals exceed 35mm film.

but medium format is another matter.. 70mm is astounding still and I have yet to see any medium format digital get anywhere near what a cheap 1960's used camera can deliver. I have an old 220 that is 10 years older than I am and it produces insane photographs.

I look forward to the day when I can get a decent medium format digital...

Dwayne's must be getting a lot of strange calls

[JavaRob]

I live in a small rural village in central France. Two weeks ago the owner of a small photo shop in a nearby town asked me for help -- he had a customer who had dropped off film to be developed, and no place in France developed Kodachrome anymore... so he needed me to help him call Dwayne's Photo in KS, and give them his credit card details in English (thanks for your help, Krystal). It definitely struck me as odd at the time that the one place in the world he'd found to develop this film sounded like a tiny operation, but obviously his research was good....

There's a whole world out there, with Kodachrome film scattered throughout -- not everyone has an American living nearby who can help them make the call. I wonder what kinds of other calls they're fielding now.

Re:Momma don't take my Kodachrome Away!!

[Firethorn]

You can still buy (better) slide film.

I'd have to agree; Long before digital Kodachrome had become something of a niche market.

Many of those who used it did so for the same reasons some people prefer tube amps over digital ones.

Sure, it's a distortion; but it's a pleasing distortion.

Still, I'm sure somebody will come out with a 'kodachrome' filter that can render your images to look more like kodachrome in post-process.

Hard disks as good as tape

[scharkalvin]

Hard disk storage should be as good as tape, they are BOTH magnetic media and the aluminum platters should hold up better than the plastic backing tape is made of. This would mean only powering up the disk when actually being accessed. The weak points are the capacitors on the disk circuit boards, and the lubrication on the bearings of the moving parts. Since the inside of the disk is in theory sealed the lube shouldn't dry out. So that leaves the capacitors on the circuit board as the only thing to fail while the disk is sitting idle and powered down. If the disk was fitted with a 'soft start' circuit to limit inrush current and never subject to vibration while being accessed storage life of the contents should be quite long.

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Comment removed based on user account deletion

Kodak is relieved

[zunipus]

Well, Kodak is relieved in a couple ways:

1) Move out Kodak. Your film is dead, or certainly this form. Digital rulz. Hello Kodak Digital.

2) Kodak no longer have to deal with the severely nasty toxic carcinogenic chemicals required to process Kodachrome. The toxicity has been a thorn in Kodak's side for many decades. They're glad to see the end of it, even if we'll miss those nice bright colors, the greens of summer...

Re:If this is not the last left unprocessed???

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodachrome can be developed by hand, in a regular darkroom, as a black and white negative film. I've done this with old Kodachrome-II, film for which the color developing chemicals are no longer available. The color dyes in Kodachrome are added in development. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-14_process

So all is not lost :)

Re:Figures

[TemporalBeing]

As a semi-amateur photographer, it is not quite that easy. I can easily go to an event and shoot up several gigabytes worth of photos. I use my SLR for all the important shots, and then my digital (with a Lumix lense) for a lot of the rest.

Yet all digital photos are not nearly as good as the ones from my SLR. Digital photography is just not there yet - and you loose so much.

Film has a lot of data recorded in it that can be very expansively blown up if desired; didn't matter if you used an SLR or a cheap throw-away camera. It still contains a lot of data; expensive SLRs just made taking good pictures that much easier if you knew how. (Easier as in getting everything setup right, focusing correctly, etc.)
Digital has a hard limit based on the hardware of the camera. Zoom too much and it'll pixellate on you. On top of that you have format loss if you use a lossy format to store the image in, further reducing what you might be able to get out of it.

Now, don't get me wrong - digital cameras are nice. They do take a lot of the work out of it for you. But you still can't get even a top-grade professional camera that matches Film at the DPI level. It's still a few years away.

Re:Figures

[theshowmecanuck]

You can cross process it as well. If you shoot Ektachrome (E-6) type color positive film at double the rated ISO and process it in a C41 process (normally only used for negative film), you get what is called a cross processed negative. It gives exaggerated color effects and sometimes added grain. Examples of E-6 film are Kodak Ektachrome, Fujifilm Velvia, Fujichrome Sensia, etc.

Personally when I used to do this, I also often asked the lab to develop the film at half the rated ISO. But it is good to experiment to see what you like. And then it is important to do your own print making when using cross processed film since you can tune the color shifts using the color enlarger's filters. You need find a good commercial lab that caters to pro photographers for good results, rather than places that cater to amateur/happy snap film processing. I have to admit that when I did cross processed photography it was mostly as an experiment/learning experience. Normally I stuck with black and white. And I haven't really done a lot lately.

This won't work with Kodachrome since the dyes are in the chemicals and not on the film. Cross processing just wipes the image completely off of the Kodachrome film, leaving you with nothing.

You can also cross process from print film to color positive (C41 film processed as E-6), but because color negative film has an added orange mask (since the red and green layers of the film are somewhat sensitive to blue light too), you can get a blueish tinge on the finished cross processed slide. Additionally, there are also methods to partially bleach film while being process which is also considered a form of cross processing.

Although I am not certain of the chemistry involved, quite a few big budget Hollywood movies use/used cross processing to gain a surreal effect. Normal movie film stock is actually a 'negative' film which must be printed. Examples include "Three Kings" with George Clooney, Blackhawk Down, etc.

Re:Figures

[falconwolf]

If you don't shoot it and get it developed before December, it WILL be wasted.

No, not necessarily. GP may have a darkroom or could have the film developed using an alternative process.

Falcon