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Kodachrome Takes Its Final Bow Today

Posted by timothy on from the fond-memories-good-music dept.

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."

44 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Selling for scrap? by Anonymous+Freak · · Score: 2

    I hope they are just "selling" the processing equipment, not specifically "selling for scrap", as the article mentions. I would hope that SOMEONE would buy it to send to the Smithsonian or similar.

    --
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    The purpose of that site was not known.
    1. Re:Selling for scrap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      All n all its not that interesting an item for a museum, there are lots of other automated film processing and printing machines, so the "technology" is not going away exactly. Kodak is no longer going to produce the chemistry to process this type of film which makes it pretty impossible to use the machine in any way. Yes it might serve as a museum piece but I am not sure it warrants that.

    2. Re:Selling for scrap? by PCM2 · · Score: 2

      Automobile technology isn't going away either, but that doesn't mean obsoleted automobiles aren't "interesting items" for museums. Especially automotive museums. (Car analogy enough for you?)

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    3. Re:Selling for scrap? by Anonymous+Freak · · Score: 3

      I'm just thinking that because Kodachrome is so "iconic" and historic piece of photography history, the processing machinery would be a good thing to have in a museum. Also, if it truly is the last one, it might be nice to keep one around, just in case. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apolo_11_missing_tapes for a case where keeping around the last machine proved useful. If something like this comes up, I'm sure SOMEBODY could whip up another batch of chemicals...)

      --
      Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
      The purpose of that site was not known.
    4. Re:Selling for scrap? by RDW · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    5. Re:Selling for scrap? by camperdave · · Score: 2

      I'm sure there must be several photography museums in this world.

      I have a picture of one, if that helps.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    6. Re:Selling for scrap? by Y-Crate · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.)

  2. Paul Simon / Kodachrome by chill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When I think back
    On all the crap I learned in high school
    It's a wonder
    I can think at all
    And though my lack of education
    Hasn't hurt me none
    I can read the writing on the wall

    Kodachrome
    You give us those nice bright colors
    You give us the greens of summers
    Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah!
    I got a Nikon camera
    I love to take a photograph
    So Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

    If you took all the girls I knew
    When I was single
    And brought them all together for one night
    I know they'd never match
    My sweet imagination
    And everything looks worse in black and white

    Kodachrome
    You give us those nice bright colors
    You give us the greens of summers
    Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah!
    I got a Nikon camera
    I love to take a photograph
    So Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)

    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)

    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
    (Leave your boy so far from home)
    Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  3. Original story from the New York Times by Relayman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the original story from the New York Times.

    --
    If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    1. Re:Original story from the New York Times by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2

      Still needs the proper referrer set. Punch that URL into google and follow that link OR:

      PARSONS, Kan. — An unlikely pilgrimage is under way to Dwayne’s Photo, a small family business that has through luck and persistence become the last processor in the world of Kodachrome, the first successful color film and still the most beloved.

      That celebrated 75-year run from mainstream to niche photography is scheduled to come to an end on Thursday when the last processing machine is shut down here to be sold for scrap.

      In the last weeks, dozens of visitors and thousands of overnight packages have raced here, transforming this small prairie-bound city not far from the Oklahoma border for a brief time into a center of nostalgia for the days when photographs appeared not in the sterile frame of a computer screen or in a pack of flimsy prints from the local drugstore but in the warm glow of a projector pulling an image from a carousel of vivid slides.

      In the span of minutes this week, two such visitors arrived. The first was a railroad worker who had driven from Arkansas to pick up 1,580 rolls of film that he had just paid $15,798 to develop. The second was an artist who had driven directly here after flying from London to Wichita, Kan., on her first trip to the United States to turn in three rolls of film and shoot five more before the processing deadline.

      The artist, Aliceson Carter, 42, was incredulous as she watched the railroad worker, Jim DeNike, 53, loading a dozen boxes that contained nearly 50,000 slides into his old maroon Pontiac. He explained that every picture inside was of railroad trains and that he had borrowed money from his father’s retirement account to pay for developing them.

      “That’s crazy to me,” Ms. Carter said. Then she snapped a picture of Mr. DeNike on one of her last rolls.

      Demanding both to shoot and process, Kodachrome rewarded generations of skilled users with a richness of color and a unique treatment of light that many photographers described as incomparable even as they shifted to digital cameras. “Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day,” Paul Simon sang in his 1973 hit “Kodachrome,” which carried the plea “Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away.”

      As news media around the world have heralded Thursday’s end of an era, rolls of the discontinued film that had been hoarded in freezers and tucked away in closets, sometimes for decades, have flooded Dwayne’s Photo, arriving from six continents.

      “It’s more than a film, it’s a pop culture icon,” said Todd Gustavson, a curator from the George Eastman House, a photography museum in Rochester in the former residence of the Kodak founder. “If you were in the postwar baby boom, it was the color film, no doubt about it.”

      Among the recent visitors was Steve McCurry, a photographer whose work has appeared for decades in National Geographic including his well-known cover portrait, shot in Kodachrome, of a Afghan girl that highlights what he describes as the “sublime quality” of the film. When Kodak stopped producing the film last year, the company gave him the last roll, which he hand-delivered to Parsons. “I wasn’t going to take any chances,” he explained.

      At the peak, there were about 25 labs worldwide that processed Kodachrome, but the last Kodak-run facility in the United States closed several years ago, then the one in Japan and then the one in Switzerland. Since then, all that was left has been Dwayne’s Photo. Last year, Kodak stopped producing the chemicals needed to develop the film, providing the business with enough to continue processing through the end of 2010. And last week, right on schedule, the lab opened up the last canister of blue dye.

      Kodak declined to comment for this article.

      The status of lone survivor is a point of pride for Dwayne Steinle, who remembers being warned more than once by a Kodak repr

  4. Re:Good Riddence! by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Funny

    On that topic, I still say only the original Edison wax cylinders had true audio fidelity. Vinyl is just a cheap knockoff, trading convenience for quality.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  5. Bah by colinRTM · · Score: 2

    It pisses me off that the majority of people crying about this (and the demise of colour films in general) are mostly the ones who scour eBay for expired rolls with which to stock their fridges, instead of buying fresh packs of film, demonstrating to the manufacturers that there is actual demand for it.

    1. Re:Bah by dogsbreath · · Score: 2

      You disdain is misplaced. Kodachrome is a slide film or a colour positive. The reason for its demise began before digital cameras came along and starts with the fact that people just don't find time to sit around looking at slide shows. The 35mm film speed was ASA64 or ASA200 which was slow compared to the 400 and 800 print films that are available today. Finally, processing requires mailing it away and people have given that up as an acceptable practice. In the 1970's, Kodachrome film came with a pre-addressed mailer pouch that you would drop your film can into. Two weeks later you'd get a slide box in the mail.

      Kodachrome provided outstanding colour and detail and I still love the product it produces. I have yet to find a digital camera that has the same detail, dynamic range, and colour precision and accuracy. It also has terrific stability and longevity, probably better than most digital files when all things are considered. My slide collection (FWIW), given a little TLC, will be easily viewed 100 years from now.

      Truth is I stopped using it before I had my first digital camera and so did a lot of other people. It just was not convenient.

    2. Re:Bah by Plekto · · Score: 5, Informative

      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)

  6. I had two rolls in for the final processing by stern · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Kodachrome is hard film to use; I gave up trying to take indoor photos with it years ago. I have continued to use it (about 25 rolls in the last two years), mostly because the quality of the images is obviously different from modern film or digital, and evokes nostalgia in older viewers. And I liked the bragging rights. It's no surprise that Kodachrome is gone; Kodak had been phasing it out for years -- first killing the larger format versions, then the iso25 and iso200 variants, and the motion picture film. The economics just weren't there; virtually every other color film uses identical (C41 or E6) processing chemicals, and Kodachrome used a different and apparently more toxic set. Without scale, it was more expensive to buy and process than other color films, and the emulsion can't even be scanned by most slide scanners. You're left with only nostalgia and archival properties to drive sales, enough for a small specialty chemical company perhaps, but not for Kodak.

    1. Re:I had two rolls in for the final processing by Docasman · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  7. Remaining inventory by PatPending · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just went to the refrigerator and removed 25 rolls of Kodachrome 64 36 exp. -- paid $8.20 per roll ($205 total). They've been in there since 2002. I've been meaning to shoot them ever since Kodak made their announcement last year but alas work prevented me from taking two scheduled vacations this year to do so. Sigh. I suppose now there's nothing left to do with it except throw it away.

    --
    What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
    1. Re:Remaining inventory by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Or you could just put it in your closet for a couple of decades and sell it at one of those camera shows that are constantly being put together somewhere. It will then be an antique and a conversation piece.

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    2. Re:Remaining inventory by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      I just went to the refrigerator and removed 25 rolls of Kodachrome 64 36 exp. -- paid $8.20 per roll ($205 total). They've been in there since 2002. I've been meaning to shoot them ever since Kodak made their announcement last year but alas work prevented me from taking two scheduled vacations this year to do so. Sigh. I suppose now there's nothing left to do with it except throw it away.

      One word - eBay.

      Okay that's actually three words. And now it's twelve.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re:Remaining inventory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You can hand process it as a black and white film. Not a complete waste! I shot my first and only roll of 16mm Kodachrome a couple weeks ago and sent it the other day.

    4. Re:Remaining inventory by Tenser234 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dwayne is still doing limited runs. Its just not commercial anymore.

    5. Re:Remaining inventory by PatPending · · Score: 4, Informative

      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)
    6. Re:Remaining inventory by Tenser234 · · Score: 2

      I was told by my photo mentor who is good friends with Dwayne that limited runs will still be able for processing.

  8. Re:Alternative ways to develop? by e9th · · Score: 5, Informative

    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).

  9. Re:Alternative ways to develop? by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  10. Re:Alternative ways to develop? by Ellis+D.+Tripp · · Score: 4, Informative

    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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  11. Re:Ok, who broke slashcode? by PCM2 · · Score: 2

    I don't know. Nothing?

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  12. Re:Alternative ways to develop? by emes · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  13. Re:Maybe its time for a new 35mm film? by PatPending · · Score: 5, Funny

    I predict Kodak and Fuji will be out of the film business by the end of the decade.

    The end of the decade is about 1 day, 7 hours, and 25 minutes from now.

    --
    What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
  14. Re:Good Riddence! by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Cue some 'romantic' shit about how Kodachrome has some unmeasurable orgasmic quality over anything else...

    It doesn't have to be "romantic shit." Kodachrome does have qualities that are different from anything else. Irreplaceable qualities? Unreproducible qualities? Maybe not. But until you've tried to shoot actual creative photographs (as opposed to "I wanna see this later" snapshots), you don't understand what a complex and highly analog process it is -- even for digital cameras.

    Between shutter speeds, apertures, film ISO, lenses, flash timings, and just plain holding the camera in the right place at the right time, there are a lot of variables. In film stock there are variables also, much like how two different digital SLR cameras will produce different-looking pictures of the same thing under the same lighting conditions.

    Can you fiddle with an exposure in Photoshop until most film snobs would swear it's a Kodachrome image? Sure. Is that a worthwhile way to spend your time? You tell me.

    Bottom line: No, if you hand a roll of Kodachrome to an inexperienced photographer, he's not going to be able to take any better pictures than he would with any other film. On the other hand, in the hands of an experience photographer who understands Kodachrome and knows how to get what he wants from it, the film stock can make the difference between an OK photograph and a great one. It's kind of like playing an electric guitar: Whether your amp is tube or solid-state, your guitar and your amp -- in your hands -- is going to sound different from the guy down the street's. You play what works for you.

    Kodachrome "worked" for a lot of photographers for many years. That picture from National Geographic of the Afghan girl with the crazy green eyes that you've seen a million times? That's Kodachrome.

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  15. Re:Alternative ways to develop? by e9th · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every time I consider the maniacal steps involved in process K-14 (small .PDF), I'm amazed that anything shows up at all.

  16. Re:Maybe its time for a new 35mm film? by zippthorne · · Score: 2

    (There is software to simulate it, but it is not really, the real thing)

    Actually, it's the other way around. Astronomers were some of the first people on board for the digital backs, and they ordered some huge ones (sometimes having to resort to matrices of them...), but even amateur astronomers have been using electronic sensors for a long time now because of the benefit you get with long-term exposures (and quantum efficiency, but that's another matter to discuss some other time.)

    And that benefit is that when you're stacking your images into a longer exposure, you can throw away the ones with streaks from the lights of the airplane that passed overhead in the middle of your session.

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  17. Re:Ok, who broke slashcode? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    I did, and somehow I ended up with a link back to /.? WTF?

    -jcr

    Ayyyeee! Run for your lives!

    The Singularity is here!

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  18. Re:Alternative ways to develop? by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...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).

    In the 1960s, this was correct. In the meantime Kodachrome has stayed much the same, while E-6 films have improved. Modern slide film is as fade-resistant as Kodachrome was, and is much easier to live with. I develop Ektachrome in my bathroom with a daylight tank. And a big tub of warm water and a thermometer.

    I've tried my own C-41 processing, but it's a bit temperamental. Since you develop for 3 minutes 15 seconds at 38 degrees, your agitation must be perfect to avoid streaks and spots and stuff.

    ...laura

  19. Re:Done already? by swfranklin · · Score: 2

    Whoosh....

    He was making a joke about Chrome (the browser). Maybe a bit too subtle...

  20. Re:Bring back 8 track by Ellis+D.+Tripp · · Score: 2

    From a technology standpoint, Kodachrome has just as much reason to still be around as the 8-track cassette - none.

    Technically, Kodachrome film has no equal. Some of the newer films (like Fuji Velvia) can begin to approach it for initial image quality, but absolutely NOTHING comes anywhere near Kodachrome for permanence of the finished image. 50 year old Kodachrome slides often look just as good today, even without special storage conditions.

    8-track audio cassettes, OTOH, were crap from day one. Packing 8 8 audio tracks across a single piece of 1/4" tape resulted in lots of background noise, bleedthrough into adjacent tracks, and limited bandwidth. The "endless loop" design was prone to breaking at the splice or jamming up the transport. About the only thing that 8-track had going for it was ease of use, in an era when most tape recorders were reel-to-reel types, which needed to be threaded by hand before playback.

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  21. Re:Alternative ways to develop? by e9th · · Score: 2
    The 1960s? From the Kodak 1997 Professional Photographic Catalog (publication L-9):

    KODACHROME Film was the first Kodak color film ever made and continues to be the most archival of all color films

    But you're right about the E-6 films being easier to live with. I used to do sink-line E-6 sheet film processing, and for an extra fee we could even adjust the first developer time by inspection!

  22. Re:Maybe its time for a new 35mm film? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2

    So you view decades by 01-10? and not 00-09? The first decade of 2010 ended one year ago.

    Decades numbered from 01-10 are technically more correct. This unfortunate situation is due to the fact that the monk Dionysius Exiguus was definitely not a C programmer.

  23. small town makes national news by OlRickDawson · · Score: 2

    Probably the last time my home town, Parsons, KS will make the national news.

    --
    Ol' Rick Dawson had a farm EIEIO
  24. Re:Maybe its time for a new 35mm film? by PatPending · · Score: 3

    The first decade of 2010 ended one year ago.

    { Face palm }

    --
    What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
  25. Re:Bring back 8 track by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

    While this is true, with analog you get a kind of "warmth" that is simply hard to get out of digital. Compare a digital amp to a good tube one, no comparison. And even though digital recording is cleaner often you will run a tube preamp just to give a track a little "breathing room" but even then it will never have the natural sound of a good 8 track studio rig.

    Sadly I can see tube amps easily going the same way as Kodachrome, because for the masses digital modeling amps are "good enough" and like Kodachrome there are simply too few producing the the expendables (tubes) required to keep them going. Hell do they even make classic 8 track studio tapes anymore? it seems like in our society "good enough" is the eternal enemy of great.

    --
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  26. Re:Farewell Kodachrome by PhotoJim · · Score: 2

    If only the Kodachrome plugin for PhotoShop could make actual slides that you can project. I haven't seen a digital projector that can touch the quality of a projected slide yet.

  27. Re:Done already? by Dogtanian · · Score: 2

    He was making a joke about Chrome (the browser). Maybe a bit too subtle...

    It doesn't really count as "subtle" if the reason that it wasn't obvious as a joke was that it was neither good, insightful nor funny.

    I don't think "Kodachrome" and "Chrome" (whichever meaning of the latter you choose) are likely to get confused. No-one commonly nicknamed or abbreviated the former "Chrome", likely because it'd get confused with lots of other slide films whose names ended in "Chrome".

    --
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  28. Re:Alternative ways to develop? by muridae · · Score: 2

    K-14 process film has to be re-exposed to light two or three times, each to very specific colors else you get some artifacts; if I read the process correctly. E-6 film, the newer slide stuff, can be re-exposed, but doesn't need to be. For the most part, it is the same process as black and white or color: Load the film in a tank in the dark, *pour chemicals into the tank, wait proscribed amount of time and agitate as directed, dump chemicals from tank, repeat from * appropriate number of times. And those chemicals are, mostly, not overly toxic. I did D-76 process film with a closet, a small fan, and no gloves in highschool; now I would use a better fan and some thin gloves. My understanding is that for K-14, one would want some heavier gloves and a mask as there were some strong cyano compounds used; but I can't find an MSDS to back that up.