O/T—Goodbye, Kodachrome!

[MordEth]

I saw this while randomly browsing some of my tech news sites this afternoon, and thought that it might be of interest to any of the TMF’s photographers...

Kodak to retire Kodachrome film

MacNN/Electronista, 06/22/2009, 8:10 AM, EDT

Kodak this morning said it would soon phase out its longstanding Kodachrome film, putting an end to a significant era of film photography. The company says it plans to end the 74-year production as sales of the classic film now make up less than one percent of its film camera business, which itself is in the minority at Kodak. About 70 percent of the company’s income is from digital photography.

The company also notes that Kodachrome is difficult to develop and is limited to just one photo lab, Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas; newer films like Professional Ektachrome or Ektar are typically much easier to handle while still producing strong image quality.

Kodak expects to run out of Kodachrome supplies sometime in early fall but says that Dwayne’s will continue to develop rolls of film through 2010.

[barnettrp21122]

I'm sorry to see Kodachrome go, although I guess it had to happen. Such beautiful saturated colors, and unmatched image stability! Now get out there and have your Ektachrome slides scanned before they all fade to nothing!
Bob

[MordEth]

I'm sorry to see Kodachrome go, although I guess it had to happen.

Sadly, I think that film photography is slowly on its way out, although I’m very impressed that Kodachrome lasted 74 years—with all of the advances in photography, it’s quite a long run (in my opinion).

Of course, I imagine that many serious photographers still prefer film to digital images, even if the general public does not—currently, I don’t even own a film camera; most of my attempts at photography are for use in Photoshop or become video on YouTube.

Also, linked for the convenience of anyone who might be interested...here are Wikipedia’s articles on Ektachrome and Kodachrome.

— MordEth

[JohnM]

In the 70's I worked as a commercial photographer for an ad agency and used to process E-4 and E-6 (Ektachrome) myself, but K-14 (Kodachrome) processing was really scary, ungodly precise, highly toxic stuff. I'd send my Kodachrome off to the big boys! E-6 was a walk in the park compared to that stuff!

I went digital in 2000. Many of my photographer friends complained bitterly about the demise of silver and I can understand that, but there are so many advantages to digital. I always tell the silver-advocates: "You've bitched about grain forever, and now that there is no grain you [Fifi] that there is no grain! Make up your mind!" LOL!

John M

[Henry]

Kodachrome was invented in the 1930s by two classical musicians, pianist Leopold Mannes and violinist Leopold Godowsky ("Man and God", as they were facetiously referred to). George Eastman brought them to Rochester and supported their experiments, which culminated in the film whose passing we are now lamenting. Actually, the discontinuation of K'chrome, rumored for some time, has been a foregone conclusion, given the present state of photographic technology. The various Ektachromes (Fujichromes, etc.), developed in E-6 chemistry (completely different from that used for K'chrome), are no match for Kodachrome in terms of color fidelity and, especially, archival quality, which the other films do not have. In fact, it's rather difficult to get even the E-6 'chromes developed today, as most local labs and camera stores have abandoned the chemistry. Those of us, now a distinct minority, who choose to continue with film, still have a fairly wide variety of emulsions, both color transparency and color negative (C-41 chemistry), as well as black and white, to chose from, in both 35mm and 120 roll film formats. How long this situation will continue is anybody's guess, but it can't last forever. I'm sticking with it for the duration, just as I stick with analogue sound data encoded in shellac.

[Brad]

....
I went digital in 2000. Many of my photographer friends complained bitterly about the demise of silver and I can understand that, but there are so many advantages to digital. .....

John M

Once I got my hands on a digital camera, I never purchased real film again. While not a serious photographer, one thing about digital concerns me. I believe that most people with digital cameras take pictures, store them on their PC, email a few of them around, and will transfer them to a new computer when they upgrade if they are lucky enough to not have been been the victum of a disk crash. Some folks will print selected pictures, and some will back up to CDROM which in itself has a limited shelf life.

My point is that 50-100 years in the future, all these photos will be gone since they were never committed to paper, AND, those that were committed to paper, the vast majority would have been with low qaulity inks on low quality paper.

What a shame, there will be more photographic history preserved from the 100 or so years of photography, then just snippetts (by comparison).

I would think that there would be a good business in providing low cost photographic logevity prints of massive quantities of digital photos.

[yankmycrank]

I still shoot film, both Kodachrome and black and white (particularly Efke black and white, which is the old thin layer, silver-rich stuff) in my Leica and Canon rangefinder cameras. In fact, I just set up a developing lab in my basement this year, which is a bit like Rhett Butler signing up in time for Appomattox.

One thing that we'll lose is the "shoebox" to history. Before digital, most people had a shoebox somewhere filled with photographs. While most of the pictures were relatively inconsequential at the time they were stuck in the box, in later years they often became priceless mementos. Today, most images never make it out of the camera's memory card, much less onto a computer hard drive. We are going to have huge gaps in our visual history in coming decades. On the other hand, the number of photographs have increased dramatically as they became virtually cost-free (once a digital camera was purchased.)

We nearly lost many great images that were saved from a dumpster--the great James Van Der Zee negatives of the Harlem Renaissance were rescued, as one example--merely because they were both tangible and visually identifiable. We can't say the same for a computer file.

[Henry]

Let's face it: we live in a throw-away culture, and digital has made that much easier.