I'm guessing that Kodak will kill Kodachrome within the next 24 months
John Horner
results. For comparison I put a 24 exp roll of Kodachrome 64 in one of my
cameras and fired off a roll, then sent it to Kodak for processing. Looking
at the results all I can say is yuck. Kodachrome's color rendition seems to
be all over the place with strong color casts in the shadows, extreme
sensitivity to exposure and a general overall magenta cast to everything.
I guess I should not be surprised that 30 years of film R&D has yielded some
real improvements. Astia 100F is one of the newest slide films on the market
and Kodachrome 64 is now probably the oldest one still sold.
My guess is that Kodak will probably kill of Kodachrome very soon as it is
an orphan process and is long past it's prime.
Years ago I thought Kodachrome was the best thing going, and compared to the
old Ektachrome it was ... but times have changed!
Kodachrome has several nails in it' coffin already:
1) Modern high end desktop scanners with Digital ICE do a great job of
cleaning up dust and minor scratches, but Digital ICE does not work with
Kodachrome.
2) The slide film business is dropping off dramatically.
3) Kodak already announced that they are killing their slide projection
business (see #2).
4) The vast majority of the remaining professional and prosumer
photograpraphers who still shoot slide film have converted to E6 processes
if only because processing is available almost anywhere, while in the US
there are only two labs remaining (???) who do Kodachrome ... Kodak in NJ
and A&I in CA.
5) Of those using E6 film, many if not most have gone with Fuji's
exceptional line of slide films including the newest versions of Velvia for
high color saturation and Astia for moderate saturation.
6) The best E6 films (Velvia, Astia and perhaps Elite 100) best
Kodachrome's resolution.
So, for you few remaining Kodachrome diehards I would suggest that you get
used to a newer different film now while you can do so at your own pace.
The writing is on the wall in a huge way for Kodachrome. I suspect that
one of Kodak's conundrums is that as long as there is Kodachrome film in the
distribution and user pipeline then they have to keep the one remaining
processing line running. That line is complicated and expensive, so they
need to keep feeding it.
Here is what I would do if I were managing Kodak in this regard.
A) Announced end-of-life production of Kodachrome 90 days from now.
B) Announced end-of-life Kodak in-house processing for Kodachrome 120 days
from now.
C) Contract with A&I to do any needed Kodachrome processing from days 121
through 365 from the announcement date and shuttle any Kodachrome film which
customers drop off or mail into Kodak's labs. After that point, do not
offer Kodachrome processing.
D) Offer to trade out FOR FREE any in-date Kodachrome film currently in
customer's hands and in the distribution pipeline for the nearest equivalent
Elite Chrome emulsions.
What do you all think?
John
Ken Nadvornick
>
> [snip]
>
> What do you all think?
>
> John
Hi John,
I think you must have been *really* upset with that one roll of Kodachrome 64... ;)
Regards,
Ken
Tony Spadaro
better - of course colour is pretty much a personal matter, but give it a go
for one roll and you might find yourself quite pleased. I have to admit, I
never found anything to like about Kodachrome 64.
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"John Horner" <jtho...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:vqrf8us...@corp.supernews.com...
Paul Repacholi
> D) Offer to trade out FOR FREE any in-date Kodachrome film currently
> in customer's hands and in the distribution pipeline for the nearest
> equivalent Elite Chrome emulsions.
> What do you all think?
Not going to work...
Kodak are still under conract to keep a *K-12* line going for the
USN untill they finish a long term research project in Antarcica.
Long term was about 150 TONs of kodachrome in one hit...
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comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
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Derek Gee
You missed one US lab:
Dwayne's Photo
415 S. 32nd Street
Parsons, KS 67357
Tel: 1-316-421-3940
Tel: 1-800-522-3940
F A X : 1-316-421-3174
I think Kodachrome will hang around for another 5 - 7 years, maybe longer.
It depends on how much you folks start buying. I was shocked to hear from
Kodak that their B & W business was UP something like 25%.
Derek
Michael Scarpitti
> used to a newer different film now while you can do so at your own pace.
> The writing is on the wall in a huge way for Kodachrome. I suspect that
> one of Kodak's conundrums is that as long as there is Kodachrome film in the
> distribution and user pipeline then they have to keep the one remaining
> processing line running. That line is complicated and expensive, so they
> need to keep feeding it.
>
>
> What do you all think?
>
> John
That you can't see. Kodachrome kills all E-6 films. EASILY.
ThomasH
>
> I've been trying out the new Astia 100F lately and am very happy with the
> results. For comparison I put a 24 exp roll of Kodachrome 64 in one of my
> cameras and fired off a roll, then sent it to Kodak for processing. Looking
> at the results all I can say is yuck. Kodachrome's color rendition seems to
> be all over the place with strong color casts in the shadows, extreme
> sensitivity to exposure and a general overall magenta cast to everything.
This is a *very old* issue with Kodachrome! The market for Kodachrome
ws not there and thus the new research and gradual improvements in
resolution, grain and color rendition were achieved in the E6 material.
My last use of Kodachrome was around 1982 I believe. Already back than
the color balance was atrocious. My friend from back than, a magazine
photographer was always carrying with him a ton of wratten filters and
used them religiously with Kodachrome. For my hobby activity this was
too complex and too expensive. I knew about shorter durability of E6
materials, but a paradox is that Kodachrome is so durable only if kept
in the dark! If exposed to projector light, Kodachrome discolors much
faster than common E6 materials. (See Wilhelms book)
Now we scan all film to preserve the information and probably we
will stop to use film any time soon anyway.
Thomas
Michael A. Covington
> 6) The best E6 films (Velvia, Astia and perhaps Elite 100) best
> Kodachrome's resolution.
Kodak's newest one, E100G, is incredibly fine-grained. E100G really is the
K25 killer.
John Horner
>
> That you can't see. Kodachrome kills all E-6 films. EASILY.
Really. Have you done any of your own side by side comparisons lately?
John
Michael Scarpitti
> >
> > That you can't see. Kodachrome kills all E-6 films. EASILY.
>
> Really. Have you done any of your own side by side comparisons lately?
>
> John
Yes, really. The E-6 films still look fuzzy and the colr's always off,
compared to Kdachrome. the only adavantage is a little finer grain
with some of them, but the sharpness still is NOTICEABLY lower.
Michael A. Covington
news:2fd2ff8c.03112...@posting.google.com...
Which E-6 films have you tried lately, and what seems wrong about the color?
The color rendering of E-6 films -- that is, mapping real-world images onto
E-6 color dyes -- has gotten a lot better in the past decade.
But another factor may be at work.
There is lots of individual variation in human color vision. Besides severe
forms of color blindness, there are numerous, common, slight anomalies of
color vision. The most common anomaly is for the red-sensitive cells to
have their maximum sensitivity to a slightly different wavelength than the
usual one. This is called "anomalous trichromatic" vision.
Since color film does not reproduce the actual spectrum of the subject, it
has to rely on human color vision. People with anomalous vision may find
that some films (and paints) look very wrong to them, when other people
can't see the problem. And vice versa.
There is speculation that if you inherit a normal trichromatic system from
one parent and an anomalous one from the other parent, you might end up with
a working four-color system (red, orange, green, blue). Do a Google search
for "tetrachromat" to find out the state of the question. I seem to recall
that only females can end up tetrachromatic, and that there is some doubt
whether tetrachromats actually exist.
Getting back to my point -- Kodachrome dyes are different from Ektachrome
dyes (which, in turn, are all the same, throughout Process E-6, as far as I
know). Someone whose eyes don't match E-6 dyes might well find that
Kodachrome has considerably better color. I'm the other way around;
apparently my eyes match the E-6 dyes a lot better than the K-14 dyes,
because the way it looks to me, there are a lot of colors that Kodachrome
doesn't reproduce very well.
And if you're tetrachromatic, the world will seem to be *full* of paints
that don't match, color pictures that are unrealistic, and so forth!
Michael A. Covington
> that don't match, color pictures that are unrealistic, and so forth!
I should add one more thing. An awful lot of men are color-blind without
knowing it. If it's a case of anomalous trichromatic vision (the most
common kind), you will still be able to distinguish *bright* colors and put
the right names to them. In fact, anomalous trichromats sometimes think
they have unusually keen color vision. And some of them work in the paint
industry, because they can distinguish some subtle differences that ordinary
people can't (and, conversely, cannot make some distinctions that ordinary
people can).
If the colors in Kodachrome 25 look a *lot* better to you than the colors
in, say, Elite Chrome 100, I'd start wondering about anomalous color vision.
Kodak has done their best to get them to look the same, to people with
normal color vision.
(I'm worried about myself because, to me, Kodachrome doesn't look very good;
other people don't see that much of a difference between Kodachrome and
Ektachrome.)
Michael Scarpitti
I compared PKR, E100s, and Velvia in 1997, on some flowers. The E-6
films cannot reproduce reds. They're magenta. The PKR was NOTICEABLY
sharper than the Velvia and E100S.
zhihong
Frank Pittel
: > And if you're tetrachromatic, the world will seem to be *full* of paints
In the case of scarpitti it's more likely that he's suffering a case
of troll vision.
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Michael Scarpitti
I have taken the test for color blindness several times, and always
come out normal. My father is slightly color blind.
E-6 films do not look the same to me in the reds. The reds look
magenta.
Michael A. Covington
>
> I have taken the test for color blindness several times, and always
> come out normal. My father is slightly color blind.
>
> E-6 films do not look the same to me in the reds. The reds look
> magenta.
Hmmm, for me it's the opposite! Kodachrome reds are cherry-ish and E-6 reds
are, if anything, a bit to the orange side of red.
Michael Scarpitti
E100S?