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Kodak Is Bringing Back Ektachrome Film (petapixel.com)
sandbagger writes: Kodak, the film stock maker, is bringing back the Ektachrome film stock that was the popular alternative to its other product, Kodachrome. The Ektachrome is more sensitive to the cool side of the spectrum as opposed to the warmer Kodachrome. Apparently the product will be back on shelves later this year. âoeThe reintroduction of one of the most iconic films is supported by the growing popularity of analog photography and a resurgence in shooting film,â Kodak Alaris says. âoeResurgence in the popularity of analog photography has created demand for new and old film products alike. Sales of professional photographic films have been steadily rising over the last few years, with professionals and enthusiasts rediscovering the artistic control offered by manual processes and the creative satisfaction of a physical end product.â
I'm going to disagree just a little. Photos taken with Ektachrome Film tend to look like they came from 1960-1970, where as most photos taken after 1980 have a brighter, wider color gamut (at least when the negatives are scanned.) I scanned my familiy's complete negative collection spanning several versions of Kodak film and some films are "purple" some are "orange" when looked at straight on. But only a few strips out of all of them ever made the scanner panic and be unable to determine the correct color profile, those being ones taken around 1970.
What I'm getting at however is that the reason people may wish to go back to regular film is that the one thing that film does that digital phones can not do is soft edges and soft-focus. Sure a overkill 60Mpixel photo is great, but you have so little control over how an image is focused digitally because the sensor doesn't snap the entire image at once, especially in CMOS sensors. So you get a kind of "roll" or "wobble" in images that should actually be still. In a film camera, this is real motion blur. In a digital camera it's just rolling shutter effect that looks hideous.
Do not worry, you will still be able to use your phone to take your selfies but serious photographers will be very happy to hear this and will be shouting for Kodachrome. Digital cannot provide the quality of film even with massive file sizes. Digital is brilliant for family snaps and taking shots of your dinner to post on Facebook but for real art it cannot do the job. The main difference it that an amateur who has no idea what they are doing can take a shot with their phone and then spend hours on photoshop trying out the effects whereas an artist knows what they want to produce and how to get the effect. Which is why the demand for Kodachrome will now ring out loud. You will not be held back in any way from taking shots of your cat to post on Facebook so do not worry.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
"...its hard to beat the simplicity and robustness of 20 square inches of film and a view camera." ...Unless it's 80 square inches and no camera... and no Light...
.
We, (I had a little help...), actually developed the Tech. Not puny Photons, but Protons, and later right up to 209Bi Nuclei. Accelerate a Bunch of them, ("Bunching" has a particular and specific meaning here...), and expose a sheet of Kodak X-Ray Film for anywhere between several seconds and ~2 Nanoseconds, depending on Dosimetry, at the end of the Beamline, and then run the sheet through a unique, in the truest sense of the word, Kodak X-Ray Film Developer. Only one was ever made.
Whether the Dosage was a few Nuclei a second, or a few Billion, we had it sussed out.
But Why?
To this day, there is no substitute for Film in this application. Nobody makes 8X10 inch Sensors, and if they did, those Sensors would soon be ruined.
We would evaluate the Dosimetry under a Scanner, (A Scanner here means a device that a Scanner, a Person, uses.), for uniformity over a specified field, typically a six inch circle. Many Accelerator quirks can make uniformity, ununiform.
For important Runs, we might go through a hundred exposures before The Experiment.
It isn't enough that the chips in the Birds overhead are toughened against SEU; we could evaluate entire Boards, and how all those separate Chips interact when... attacked. Theoretically by Solar Storms.
But by a curious Historical Accident, this wasn't any Star Wars scenario. It was started by John Lawrence, the brother of Ernest O. There are decades-long experiments ongoing in Evolutionary Biology. When DNA gets zapped, which happens all the time, how many Generations does it take to diverge into a producing a new Species? Current estimates are between a thousand and ten thousand Reproductive Cycles.
In my waning years, I have kept a few mementos. I have kept a few exposures of Starbursts. This is when, under the Scanner, a Nuclear Reaction takes place in the Emulsion and is visible. These Nuclear processes continued until the Kodak Film Developer froze them.
Captcha: labored