Kodachrome 64 vs Extachrome 100 at todays price ?

<p>I have to call you out there, Dave. It doesnt scan poorly, its just difficult to scan. I find that a little drop in the low end of the blue curve and a touch less in the green on a frame that shows a little bit of cast is often all it takes to clean it up for a quick baseline (besides exposure/brightness/contrast/saturation/sharpneing.... all the stuff i do with any frame, E6, color neg., or digital...). Not too big of a deal. The grain is distinctive and a good grain. its not 'worse than film x', it just is.<br>

Over the last 3-4rolls or so i've backed off on underexposing the film as i had initally been afraid to blow highlights (and it seemed to give good colors that way) and exposing it at EI close to 64, not 100 like many people here have posted they like to do. The camera hasnt ever had a CLA so the meter/shutter might not be accurate anymore, but it seems to be much better exposing 'properly' rather than a touch under. Scanning has become much easier now. For projection it might work ok to underexpose a tad, but for scanning, im stopping...</p>

 

<p>I found a site, on the web, that had shots of 4 slide films next to eachother. It was rather helpfull. I can see the lack of saturation, compared to Provia, Velvia, and E 100 VS. But, it some places it did have more accurate colors. The pictures were too small to see what he called depth. I'm not really sure what that means, to be honest.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I realize what I am going to say is anathema to many but I used K64 years ago but moved to 100VS - for the saturation and slightly faster speed - and don't miss it.</p>

<p>I think Ektar 100, well scanned, looks a lot like Ektachrome E100G.</p>

 

<p>I am waiting for my Ektar 120 I will then decide.....</p>

<p>I don't know how archival Kodachrome is but my Dad's Kodak slides from about 1965 (possibly kodachrome) have all but faded. They've been projected only a few dozen times. So "archival" possibly has a lot to do with external light, storage temperature and humidity as well.<br>

As far as color saturation goes, nothing else comes close to slides (see this <a href="../digital-darkroom-forum/00SfPD">thread</a> for details). Probably only a very high resolution slide scanner will be able to scan your slides satisfactorily, not that you will be able to find out if it did given the non-overlaping gamut of the film and monitor. For a lower resolution scanner, the scanner gamut also needs to overlap the film. For me, slide scans still give better colors than DSLRs.<br>

In my experience profiling a film scanner (minolta scan dual IV) is of limited help. You'll likely want to retain the underexposed/overexposed parts of the slide in your scans. My profiles (using wolf faust ektachrome target profiled using argyll) cause a color cast in the underexposed (magenta cast) and overexposed (cyan cast) regions. Scanning each slide individually with different exposures (with vuescan) solves these problems, but then obviously the color profiles become somewhat useless (they can still be used for the properly exposed regions at the same scanner exposure used to build them). It is probably better to individually scan the slides you want to work on digitally.<br>

If you're considering slides, the cheapest is to procure expired 100 foot rolls of ektachrome and bulk load yourself. I've used film 3 yrs past the expiry date (stored in questionable conditions) with good results. Wolf camera was disposing them off some time back at $10/100 foot.</p>

<p>If they faded with projection they were not Kodachrome.</p>

<p>Kodachrome has fantastic dark storage life, but will fade a bit if projected all the time. Mine from 20 years ago are holding up fine though. Freestyle has it at $8.09 a roll.</p>

<p>Now, as far as grain and scanning, I have no problem with Kodachrome. The grain is more coarse, but the sharpness and detail rendering beats most smooth E-6 films with ease. I use a Nikon 9000 ED with Silverfast Ai software. All of these image are Kodachrome:</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/23585735@N06/sets/72157612226326832/</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/23585735@N06/sets/72157613088832861/</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/23585735@N06/sets/72157614528413728/</p>

<p>I love the stuff, that is why I am doing a project about it:<br /> http://www.Kodachromeproject.com</p>

<p>John,<br>

I may have missed it in the threads but an important aspect of your decision is this - there is only one place in the US where you can get Kodachrome processed by certified lab techs. That is Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, KS. They do great work but you've got the time for mailing to and from so don't look for 1-hour processing.</p>

<p>I have Ektachrome and Kodachrome slides from the late '70's and early '80's in slide holders in a dark closet - never been projected. The Ektachrome slides are highly magenta and poor contrast. The Kodachrome slides look like the day I took them out of the box from being developed.</p>

<p>I've scanned all my Kodachrome with a Minolta 5400 Dimage scanner with no problems. The issue a lot of people have is the ICE (dust and scratch elimination) feature has a hard time detecting its targets on Kodachrome. I use a fine brush and air bulb to clean the slides before scanning and have only a little work to do post-scanning to get clean images.</p>

<p>Enjoy the look of this film and being a part of photography history!</p>

<p>Kodachrome vs Ektachrome is the difference between Panatomic -x in Rodinal and D-76.... in the Rodinal it was sharp in D-76 it was not so.... still no grain to talk of ...IF you had a good lens.</p>

<p>I needed some more film, so I tossed a roll of Kodachrome in my cart at B&H. I got some Ektachome 100G and VS too. I think the VS stuff will be good when the spring flowers start showing up. The G for more natural, and the Kodachrome, for when I have the time to take my time with shots. I also shot some Ektar 100 at a race track, last weekend, as well as Ektachrome, so I'll see how they compare. You can have the print stuff sent straight to CD, when they develope it and not have it printed. I may post my results.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Well here in Tennessee the dam Dafodiles have already started to bloom and the Cherry trees are in full bloom.... So it won't be long there my friend.. upping hay fever meds now... LOL</p>

<p>It is my understanding that Kodachrome and Ektachrome differ greatly just in terms of the basic emulsions. Kodachrome processing is a "hot" batch process more akin to dye transfer process than to any other transparency film which has color-coupled dyes already in the emulsion. Kodachrome does not. A lot has to do with the stability of Ektachrome and the more expensive Ektachrome films are more stable long term and appear to produce better saturation than regular Ektachrome. Because of the lack of dyes in Kodachrome the colors there are more stable because of the dye technology developed by Kodak in the late 50's. I have seen 8X10 Kodachrome sheet film that was exposed by Edward Weston in the late 40's (Eastman House, Rochester, NY) and I would describe it as an almost mystical experience. The image seemed saturated with colors containing an almost metallic depth like a silk ribbon or an underlying bolt of silk fabric. These transparencies looked marvelous in the 90's, almost 50 years later. I don't think you would find that with any of the Ektachromes in terms of color-fastness and longevity. Many photographers have found Ektachrome to be biased toward the Blue-Green end (traditionally a better natural world film) and Kodachromes tending to be a little more Red biased (lending itself to warmer skin tones). As Kodachrome does not really contain the color-coupled dyes, so it tends to de-emphasize grain structure that Ektachrome shows a little more of. Kodachrome came in a 200 ASA film that made it quite workable in many situations but Kodachrome 25 has kind of built up a legendary reputation. National Geographic at one time accepted Kodachrome 25 solely as the only film they would work with from their photographers. Kodachrome 64 being a little faster but also showing slightly less contrast in comparison to K25. Now digital rules supreme for those same publications. The big issue now is that Kodachrome is only being outsourced for processing. Kodak doesn't even do it at one of their facilities anymore. So it's all about the handling now. Ektachrome can be done by any competent E-6 lab. Again handling and process control determine the eventual outcome greatly.</p><div></div>

<p>Wow all that in 1 paragraph...</p>

<p>One paragraph keeps the page sizing down to its minimum here. Even with the one paragraph it takes a huge chunk of the browser page to display!</p>

<p>Dan,</p>

<p>My comment was not as to how beautiful the K64 grain is. The comment centered on it being insanely fine. K64 does not have insanely fine grain. It is a coarse grain film. It may be sharp....but that was not the question. If I recall, the grain RMS is 12. With Velvia, Astia, and Provia in the 8 and 7 figures, K64 is many orders of magnitude away.</p>

<p>That said, I love K64. I just want people to understand and love it for real reasons.....not unsubastantiated ones.</p>

<p>Try Elite Chrome/Ektachrome Extra Color. I got superb results from it.</p>

<p>I don't know if this was mentioned or not, and it's a bit off topic, however if saturated colors are your goal then use well regarded prime lenses and Fujichrome Velvia 50. I have had excellent performance with that combination.</p>

<p>In reference to your specific question, Kodachrome is unquestionably worth the extra buck. Archival and great colors. Don't worry about pro/consumer; not a big deal. One last thought on Kodachrome, there is only one place in the world where it can be developed. That can be an expense and inconvenience that you may not wish to deal with. http://www.dwaynesphoto.com/newsite2006/slide-film.html</p>

<p>Oh, one more thing, I have been impressed with the colors being produced from my scanned Ektar 100 negatives.</p>

<p>After you process your slides then you have to figure out the best way to make your prints reflect as close as possible to what you see in the transparency. That has always been a challenge! Mostly I scan my slides and then have the file printed on traditional RA4 photographic paper at http://www.mpix.com/ or a local lab.</p>

<p>However, when I have a real special image I use Cibachrome. It's expensive as heck but there still is no comparison to the look in my opinion. http://www.cibachrome.com/ilfochrome.html</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Well, I will admit to being relatively new to slide films though I grew up seeing my Dad project slides magically onto a screen. My impression was that even large prints I made from my dSLR didn't look as magical as those slides, but they had been in the basement for 20+ years and I thought it was just childhood nostalgia.<br>

So a few weeks ago my Dad went on a kick and decided it was high time to archive the family photo collection (something like 30,000 prints and 10,000 slides) then tells my grandfather he would like to archive HIS slides, too.<br>

So we had a night of beer and loaded our new (ebay purchased) projector of my Dad and Grandfather's slides from safari in Kenya circa 1984. Daddy-o took a lot of Kodachrome with him, but also bummed some other slide film from my grandfather for a couple of rolls. All of the Kodachromes were pristine. Taken with a Nikon and some nice primes, the slides were as magical and beautiful as I remembered them when I was 7 years old. The non Kodachrome slides were all color casted and the emulsion had strange blotches on it...useless. Furthermore, they absolutely surpassed in vividness, impact, and tonal relationships anything I have had come out of my digital monstrosity.<br>

Then my Dad pulled out my GRANDFATHER'S slides from his honeymoon. Granddad turns 90 next year barring the arrival of angels with trumpets and his slides of the American west are over 60 years old, taken with an archaic Kodak rangefinder (which, incidentally, was supposed to have a crap lens but some of them had lenses from another, better production line...he had a good one).<br>

Guess what: the slides were astounding. Not good, not great, but absolutely breathtaking. His recollection was that the slides were ASA 12 or 25, so even in bright sun there is great motion blur as cars drove by. The rockies and the desert look absolutely stunning, the color pallette is incredibly accurate (but still, for lack of a better descriptor, hyper-real), and the tonal response is graduated and perfect.<br>

I went back to all of my recent efforts with Velvia and looked at them and there is no comparison...none. They are saturated to kingdom come with amazing colors but just aren't kodachrome. For landscapes where you want the greens to totally pop off the page, Velvia is fine...some of the other Fuji E6 films are less saturated, but none of them render earth tones the way Kodachrome does. The E6 films seem like Mardi Gras all the time to me: powerful and loud, but lack the subtlety of Kodacrhome.<br>

Next week I fly to Nicaragua and have two new wide angle lenses for my Leica CL...guess what I'll be shooting.</p>

<p>Velvia 100 scanned in Epson V750 and then desaturated:<br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/8704775">http://www.photo.net/photo/8704775</a><br>

Sensia 200 scanned (poorly!) with no color adjustments:<br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/8480222">http://www.photo.net/photo/8480222</a></p>

 

<p>Wow. Some of you are rather eloquent about your experience with Kodachrome. I really don't have an issue sending it off to Dwaynes. I often take quite a while finishing a roll in my camera. I just want to make sure I have something good to record on it ! </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Mr. Mueller...</p>

<p>Your Grandfather's Kodachrome was rated 10 ASA. </p>

<p>Mr. Luttmann...</p>

<p>In 1997, Kodak rated Kodachrome 64 at RMS 10. They rated Kodachrome 25 at RMS 9. Fuji rated Velvia 50 (which I find a little better than the new Velvia 50) also at RMS 9. Kodak also rated its Ektachrome Elite II 50 at RMS 9. It was Ektachrome 64 Professional which was rated at RMS 12. Each number doubles grain so an RMS 10 would be twice as grainy as an RMS 9 film. I understand the RMS values for negative and reversal film were rated differently. Supposedly one can multiply the negative film RMS by 2.5 to compare with the reversal film's RMS. </p>

<p>They say information is free and worth every penny. Feel free to value mine accordingly. </p>

<p>Tom Burke</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Wow. Some of you are rather eloquent about your experience with Kodachrome. I really don't have an issue sending it off to Dwaynes. I often take quite a while finishing a roll in my camera. I just want to make sure I have something good to record on it !</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />You're right there is a somewhat bizarre posse telling everyone that K64 is the only film worth shooting.<br>

I agree with Dave (above):</p>

<p>Its not fine grain anymore (hasn't been for at least 15 years)<br>

It has a very low mis-exposure tolerance compared to E6<br>

It has neutral or muted colors and very high contrast (not necessarily bad, but not always good either)<br>

It is difficult to scan with good results<br>

It is harder to find anywhere to process it<br>

It is slow compared to comparable 100 films<br>

It is subject to early recipricocity failure<br>

It no longer is archivally better than comparable E6 films</p>

<p>I speak as someone who used K64 and K25 exclusively for about 20 years. I love the film, but I have to say I think there are better films around today that are more useful and flexible and I think you should be aware the K64 is not really the "wonder film" suggested by many posters.</p>

<p>It has a look that is particularly nice when projected and it is of great historical interest, but there are I think better, more useful, films available today for the dedicated slide shooter.</p>

<blockquote>

<p ><a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=174501">A. Thomas Burke, Jr.</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub9.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 12, 2009; 12:29 a.m.</p>

 

<p>Mr. Mueller...<br>

Your Grandfather's Kodachrome was rated 10 ASA.<br>

Mr. Luttmann...<br>

In 1997, Kodak rated Kodachrome 64 at RMS 10. They rated Kodachrome 25 at RMS 9. Fuji rated Velvia 50 (which I find a little better than the new Velvia 50) also at RMS 9. Kodak also rated its Ektachrome Elite II 50 at RMS 9. It was Ektachrome 64 Professional which was rated at RMS 12. Each number doubles grain so an RMS 10 would be twice as grainy as an RMS 9 film. I understand the RMS values for negative and reversal film were rated differently. Supposedly one can multiply the negative film RMS by 2.5 to compare with the reversal film's RMS.<br>

They say information is free and worth every penny. Feel free to value mine accordingly.</p>

 

<p>Tom Burke</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p >Tom,</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Let’s say you are correct with the K64 having an RMS of 10. Astia has an RMS of 7. Velvia and Provia, 8. Thus Velvia and Provia have ¼ the grain of Kodachrome…..Astia has 1/8. As well, Astia was designed for better scanning….as was the new Velvia. K64 was not.</p>

<p > <br>

In the end, there is no dispute that K64 is not a fine grained film.</p>