Kodachrome....it's time.

Gary wrote: "Who cares about "living fossil" films like Kodachrome. Sorry"

 

I believe in this life, there is a powerful language that is the great unspoken. Only when we

silence our fears do we hear it, understand it and realize we are part of it.

 

When I attain this, it is often that complexity becomes simple, and important gestures of

destiny arise.

 

This is not about the film. This country is in trouble. It has lost it's way in it's fleeting 230

year life. From 2.5 million in 1776 to 293 million in 2006, there has never been a more

confusing and uncertain time in our history.

 

Kodachrome as always allowed me the means in which to strip away complexity and work

within it's often delightful limitations.

 

All I can tell you is that when I am silent, I hear something important.

 

I am going to share it with all of you, fittingly enough, on Kodachrome.

Thank you Daniel.

 

Kevin Parratt.

So the idea of independents maintaining a beloved product has come up again. There were some of us at Kodak who appreciated RG-25 who considered taking over that product. The ONLY way to make a modern photographic film is with the equipment of a modern photographic manufacturer like Kodak or Fuji. K-64 has simple silver halide emulsions that wouldn't be too hard to replicate IF you could get consistent raw materials. The t-grains in K-200 require fairly sophisticated computer controlled mixing equipment. In either case, the coating equipment would be a huge investment. In the RG-25 case, we considered establishing a small company that would contract with Kodak to produce the film. Kodak has long had a procedure where they would make experimental orders for whoever wanted to pay the bill. (The US government was the only entity that ever exercised this option.) The deal for these experimental orders was that you paid for them whether they were successful or not. We estimated that production costs would be around $10 per roll. Distribution and marketing was going to be strictly internet, but it would still cost something. Since none of us were independently wealthy, we thought we would want a little bit of profit. We would have to be able to sell the film for $15 to $20 per roll.

 

For RG-25, we could rely on C-41 processing for the foreseeable future. For Kodachrome, you would have to maintain a K-14 process as well. Many of the chemicals are available from a variety of sources, but a few are proprietary. You would have to convince Kodak to continue to supply them.

 

Bottom line--we couldn't figure out how to make this work without losing a bunch of money. My personal opinion is that RG-25 was discontinued too soon, but I believe that Kodachrome will be maintained past the point of profitability. No Kodak exec wants to be known as the one who killed Kodachrome.

Interesting again Ron. So whilst off the ground with wishful thinking, I am not so wildly off the mark. This does affirm my idea of eventual indent ordering as a possibile platform to secure production, should turnover reduce to dangerously low figures.

 

The closure of the lab in Switzerland is not helpful at all. Being mostly in the UK and Scandinavia, I am concerned about having to send films to either the US or Japan. Post to and from the USA is horribly slow compared with the UK and the more organised countries of Northern Europe. This is certainly going to kill a chunk of what's left of the market over here.

 

Actually, considering your comment about "no executive wanting to be known as the one who killed Kodachrome", Kodak could, as a face saving move, actually offer to guarantee the supply of chemicals needed to the party taking on the product. ... even own a (token)share of the enterprise.

 

Kevin

"No Kodak exec wants to be known as the one who killed Kodachrome."

 

Probably true up to this point. I don't think Perez would have any qualms whatsoever about taking that title however. Kodawhat? Those are ink cartridges right, like Ultrachrome?

http://library.humboldt.edu/libnew/items/spurling.htm

Wow, it has been 10 years since I got back my last batch. It looks great!

 

At first, the colors did not look right, too flat. Then I spent around an hour looking over all

kinds of shots. I noticed it had a broad range of tonal response with no build up or

unnatural saturation in any chromogenic zone.

 

But the big surprise came when I looked a roll and Velvia 100 and K-64 shot on the same

rafting subject the same day. What a load of cr@p the velvia now looked! It looked like very

basic color, either one extreme or another, not nearly as gradual a scale as Kodachrome, I

felt cheated by the Velvia.

 

I am really shocked at how different this film is. I am also relieved to see all my internet

rantings are founded. Another thing....this stuff is RAZOR sharp, a good bit more than

Velvia. So much so, I am considering getting the new Zeiss 85 1.4 ZF for my Nikons.

 

I am going to have to play the lottery and get my own drum scanner though, my trusted

Nikon 4000ED scanner is just not doing the stuff justice in terms of tonal range and color

accuracy.

 

More to come.....<div></div>

Except for the Mercedes and the B/W, the rest is Kodachrome.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=346857

RG 25 was discontinued because it was a very hard film to make.

It's great to see people with a passion for such a classic film. Okay guys, I live in Houston, and being a relatively poor student, should I drop this stuff off at Wal-mart/Sam's or just get the mailers and send direct to Dwayne's? Am I rolling the dice with the Wal-mart option? I would appreciate any opinions, Thanks.

Unless Wallmart are hiding a Kodachrome lab in the back room, they can't do anything else with it than to send it to Dwayne's, or mistakedly destroy it some other process, or lose it. Drop the "middle-man" and send it straight to Dwayne's. Direct channel also facilitates direct dialogue. Of course, if they sell the stuff, they may have a direct mailing deal with Dwayne's. You could ask them first.

 

Cheers, Kevin (Norway & England)

We're probably way past discussing expiry dates but I purchased some 64 from B&H with 11/07 expiry. Of course, if I recall Kodak claims it's good 7 years after that or something, so they could easily fiddle a lot with dates. as for your project, Dan, best of luck. I'd be very interested in seeing your project as it progresses and when it is complete. It would be a nice way of sending it out with a bang!

This just in:

 

Well, bad news over here in Japan. According to Kodak Japan, "Kodak Kodachrome 64" is

going out of the market. The links below are in Japanese only:

 

http://wwwjp.kodak.com/JP/ja/corp/info061213.shtml

http://wwwjp.kodak.com/JP/ja/consume...me/index.shtml

 

In the statement, they are likely to run out of the stock of the film by March 07 but

continue to provide the processing service within Japan by the end of the same year. But

after that, for the Japanese customers, the processing will take place in Kansas!

 

This is happening a lot faster than I had hoped....

Kodachrome 1950, Netherlands, Margraten Cemetery. Film had to be sent to France for developing. http://www.photo.net/photo/5513943&size=lg

The site is up and running:

 

http://www.kodachromeproject.com/

 

Enjoy!