***Kodachrome 200 discontinued***

Troy,

 

From what I understand, Kodachrome is normally in stock at B&H and Adorama. You can e-mail Henry Posner at B&H (henryp@bhphotoviseo.com) and ask to be sure. I'm sure he'll answer you promptly.

 

Robert Johnson me@robertejohnson.com

I just noticed that Adorama and B&H both have KL200 in stock. B&H just obtained more as they now have more than 500 and less than 1,000 rolls in stock. If you are looking for some, better buy it while you can! I already have ordered, but appears I have left others plenty!

 

Robert Johnson me@robertejohnson.com

On substituting KR64 for KL200: The example I hear all sound like people who are either pros (and thus are committed to dragging tons of equipment around on any plane trips, whatever it takes) or people who don't fly planes (in today's limited carryon and no insurance for checked bags environment, especially outside) to places where they use Kodachrome on trips where they also have to take laptops, etc, and then have limited time and authority at the places they visit.

 

Here is what I'm getting at: My photography is mostly during travel, and most of that travel these days is by plane. These are "vacations", not specifically photo trips, although photography is a big part of most of them. While some are to national parks or other less-busy places where I can take the time to set up a tripod and can use any speed of film, too many of them are to cities, often in northern latitudes where light is already lower, often wanting to shoot at the start or end of the day for more interesting lighting, etc. And some of my shooting has to be from the middle of streets, etc, where I can jump out for a few seconds to get a handheld shot, but can I really jump out long enough to set up a tripod???

 

Meanwhile, to minimize what I had to lug around and to speed up getting good shots (by not having to change lenses EVERY second), several years ago I standardized on just a couple zoom lenses to cover all the way from 17 to 300 mm. The one cost of that (besides $$$): Aperature.

 

So not only have I been shooting mostly KL200 on these trips, in recent years I've often been pushing it 400!

 

While I have heard that AT RATED SPEED KR64 may be better than KL200, I've also heard that KR64 pushed to 200 is nowhere near as good as KL200, and KR64 pushed to 400 is nowhere near as good as KL200 pushed to 400.

 

Therein my dilemma: Do I change what I photograph to now only photograph (outside of great lighting) what I can photograph with a tripod? Do I change from wide-range zoom lenses to something else (and yet how do I deal with limited carryon, and BA's incessant ability to lose my checked bags EVERY time I connect at Heathrow!)? Do I stockpile however much KL200 I expect to last me as long as someone can process it? (But with KL200, I hear that even freezing may not be enough after a few years!) Or do I have to leave Kodachrome EXCEPT FOR when I shoot with a tripod or in great light? (Why should my lower-light handheld pictures have poorer archival life -- the original reason I switched to exclusively Kodachrome -- than my other pictures?)

 

There aren't image stablizers for film cameras, are there? :)

 

(I realie pros have some solutions to this, but I can't afford recurring-cost solutions like shipping my photo gear ahead every time at $$$ extra cost each time.)

Yes, Canon makes image stabilized lenses in EOS mount, and there are fine EOS mount film cameras. Used ones are cheap -- although the lenses aren't.

Well i've done my bit. Can't afford to buy it in the hundreds so i bought a 5pack of K200. Going to burn through the lot whilst out climbing this weekend in the Peak District

B&H now has over 700 rolls in stock. Kodak has stopped making it so it is now a matter of

when stock is depleted.

Buy it while you can because Adorama just ran out of KL200. That's where I bought my latest supply while B&H was out. Appears both have plenty of KR64.

 

Robert Johnson

The site is now up for those who have been waiting:

 

http://www.kodachromeproject.com/

Just received some fresh KL. Emulsion number 2671, but date is 3/2008. Hopefully there will be at least some more with later date, so that we can shoot KL also in late 2008.

Just when I thought that there is no more fresh KL in Europe, I found rolls dated 4/2008 (K200P, processing included). Not long ago everybody was saying that KL is gone! This is strange. Last year some people sold their cameras on Ebay.de, because "there will be no more K200".

"Since Kodachrome 200 was never reformulated to eliminate the color shift with aging of unexposed film, it's quite evanescent. Kodachrome 64 got that change, so it has more tolerable shelf life."

 

When was this change made?

"The film does keep well when frozen, but refrigeration isn't enough. (I won a lot of Kodachrome 25 that had only been refrigerated, tested one roll, and it was way magenta, and I turned down the other 19 rolls.)"

 

Does this refer to all Kodachrome films? Does 64 hold up better than other speeds being just refrigerated (not frozen) because of the recently mentioned change??

And John, if you aren't going to use the 19 rolls of Kodachrome 25 I'll pay you for shipping them to me ;)

I neither paid for nor received the other 19 rolls of red-shifted Kodachrome 25. Too bad, it was a good price!

I'm one of those "train" enthusiasts that is still using Kodachrome slide film. I shoot 80-150 rolls annually. I have some friends that shoot upwards of 1000 rolls per year. The group of us that shoots a lot of slides gets together annually to swap them, and in that group the amount of Kodachrome being used is shrinking annually.

 

There is a new generation of fans coming into the market. Many are shooting digital, but there are those that have discovered slides through local slide shows, ebay, etc. and are shooting in that medium now. They are almost all shooting Fuji.

 

The older, die-hards are even moving in that direction. To a man, they loved K25. K64 wasn't as forgiving, and they didn't like the results or extra grain they were getting. I know, being that wrapped up in a train, but this group isn't any different than professional photographers in that they want perfection.

 

Dwayne's has had its share of processing woes. One fan lost 140 rolls to Dwayne's...processing scratches in almost every one of them. I've sent no less than eight rolls back in the last year because they cut the slide film in the wrong place, causing the image to not be centered and "cut off" on the end. This was resolved in most cases by carefully remounting the slide...but this stuff just didn't happen in the past. And, I'm not even going to talk about the dust, bug legs, etc. that I have had on the slides when I opened them up recently. I've cleaned them, but that is a painstaking process when you're talking about getting 500-1000 slides back at a time.

 

I used to send 40 rolls in at a time, but now send 8-12 at a time in case they go in on a bad day.

 

Now, saying all that, I've watched Kodak create their self-fulfilling prophecy and would like to fix it. The question is, how?

 

Demand is dwindling...but when was the last time you saw an ad for Kodachrome? I can tell you that you can not find a roll of Kodachrome in the city of Memphis. I ran out last week and no one carries it...I called them all. If an area with an MSA of 1,000,000+ doesn't have an outlet, where does that leave its future?

 

There are clearly folks on this list that know a lot about how the film is made. Can it be produced and sold profitably at $4-5/roll with processing at $5-7/roll? If so, the hobbiest will come back assuming service levels are acceptable. If not, then it is not a viable business venture.

 

Others comments about Kodachrome vs. digital have been right on...and even average digital users are starting to see the advantages of having "tangible" images. While I'm not suggesting a film renaissance, I am saying that there is an opportunity if handled correctly.

 

Finally, what happened with K25? Was it really the price of silver? Environmental?

 

Thoughts?