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Kodachrome Takes Its Final Bow Today
Ellis D. Tripp writes "Today marks the end of an era for photo geeks, with the shutdown of the world's last Kodachrome film processing line. Dwayne's Photo, of Parson, KS will pull the plug on their K-14 processing equipment at the end of business today."
Here's the original story from the New York Times.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Kodachrome is a transparency ("slide") film, not a negative one like Kodacolor. Also, unlike conventional transparency films like Ektachrome and Fujichrome, the color dyes are not present in the emulsion when you shoot the film but are introduced during processing, which makes developing the stuff a bitch. One effect of this is that the dyes in Kodachrome are much longer lasting than those in other transparency films (the ones developed using the E-6 process).
Just shows you how far we've come with digital photography that we actually have /.ers who don't know how film works.
Film before it is developed is light-sensitive. Developing film fixes the image on the negative and makes it no longer light-sensitive. If you scan undeveloped film you'll just get an image of gray, and you'll also expose the film to intense light which means whatever was on it is lost.
Different kinds of film require different kinds of processes to develop them (since the chemistry is different). Color film is particularly fussy about such things. Once the film is developed you get a negative and there are lots of directions you can go from there. Unless you're doing something exotic there is pretty-much only one right way to develop any particular kind of film.
In the case of Kodachrome, developing the film produces a POSITIVE image. Kodachrome was a slide film, afterall.
The processing for Kodachrome is FAR more involved than other slide films, because the color dyes are actually added during the processing, rather than being present in the unexposed film itself.
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It was a great film for astronomical photography... and I always liked the really dark blue in the sky background that no other film could give, at least on my area. Other films, positive or negative, usually turned it brown or greenish... or really green for some fujis.
Actually, the process Kodachrome uses to produce the color is still based on the fundamental instability which plagues all chromogenic systems- even though the dye coupler is not in the emulsion(as would be the case with Kodacolor and Ektachrome), the fact is that the process is still the same. A dye coupler combines with developing agent by-products in proportion to the amount of underlying silver that is developed. I've always wondered how Kodachrome achieved greater archival permanence; maybe it is because the coupler/developing agent byproduct reaction happens only in processing and the dye coupler does not have a chance to become spoiled while unused sitting in an emulsion.
Dwayne is still doing limited runs. Its just not commercial anymore.
Kodak at one point made an automated Kodachrome minilab, the K-Lab, which was intended to make processing more widely available:
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/klabs/index.shtml
Unfortunately it never really took off, and one was up for sale for several years with no takers:
http://www.rockymountainfilm.com/equipment/klab.htm
The day before it waa due to be scrapped, an enthusiast stepped in and bought it, and is now hoping to get it running again:
http://www.kodachromeproject.com/forum/showthread.php?t=674
Obtaining the necessary processing chemicals, especially the proprietary dye couplers, is the major barrier to making this happen.
Fuji currently makes several positive and negative type films. They also make a color-neutral type for professional use that looks as dull and washed out as our eyes generally see. The differences between Kodachrome and Provia are fairly minor, to be honest. Kodachrome was actually a black and white film that had color added to it, so it requitred special chemistry and had a curiously super-saturated blue tint (it's more reactive to blue than most any other film.
http://www.soerink.nl/film/film.html
You'll note the 3.7 value for blue on Kodachrome. But realistic it's not.
http://www.maremmaphoto.it/filmtest.eng.html
Close, but not quite.
I use Fuji NPS 160/160S, though, as it's spot-on realistic to what your eyes see. Slightly dimmer blues and not as punchy (I find Velvia garish, like a poster, almost). But very nice, especially for portraits.
NOTE: Fujifilm USA stops importing film from Japan if the numbers get too low. In most cases, though, the film is still made in Japan - you have to sometimes order from a shop that deals directly with Japan or import it. (the same is true for Agfa as well)
Huh? Kodak no longer manufactures the chemical dyes & agents required for the K-14 process and Dwayne's Photo is selling their K-14 processing equipment. From Dwayne's website front page: The last day of processing for all types of Kodachrome film will be December 30th, 2010. They will however continue to offer processing for Ektachrome and other E6 process compatible films.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
You can do D-76 processing in your bathroom with strong coffee, and the right off-the-shelf equipment.
You can do C-41 processing in your basement with the right chemicals and off-the-shelf equipment.
K-14 is another beast entirely and demands all kind of proprietary chems that you simply cannot find because they no longer exist. Even if you had the chemicals, you wouldn't have the equipment process the images properly.
What really needed to happen here was another instance of someone pulling together The Impossible Project which (thanks to a chance meeting at a bar) salvaged the last Polaroid processing equipment riiiiiiight before it was to be scrapped, and then reverse-engineered the chemicals needed to produce and develop the film.
(Note: I don't have any financial stake in their success, but I have to say the staff at the IP are amazing, and some of the nicest bunch of people I've dealt with in the photo world. Please give them your business.)