Pink cast to Kodachrome Slides

[ptourtellotte]

I just started to examine some slides I took at a skating rink and one batch of

slides from 1998 has a pink cast to them. Another batch shot at the same

location in 1995 appear normal.

Any ideas?

[john_shriver]

As unexposed Kodachrome ages, it gets an increasingly red color shift. Could it have been short-dated when you bought it, or stored at high temperatures for some period before it was processed? It doesn't sell very fast at retail anymore, so it can have languished a long time before you buy it.

 

Only other possibility is that you left the processed slides in bright light for a long time, Kodachrome is subject to fading due to light, but it takes quite a bit of light to fade it.

 

The best way to get Kodachrome with a dead-on color balance is to buy the professional version at a pro shop, right out of the fridge.

 

Cheaper way is to buy a very fresh brick (10 rolls) of the consumer Kodachrome, and test one roll for color balance. If it's too green, let it age. When a test roll comes out right, freeze the rest.

[mark feldstein]

Hi Perry. John is right concerning unexposed Kodachrome. Your problem seems to be with work that was processed and stored. Unfortunately, the same is true of stored work subjected to high heat. You'll notice that Kodachrome whether its slides or sheet film, when stored at high temperatures, begins to get a magenta color shift and even fade as a result of the dyes used in the process. To help slow that process down, store your finished work in cool, not necessarily cold, environments with lower humidity. When projecting them, don't let them sit in front of the projector bulb for long periods. For more information on archival storage of transparency material, take a look at Kodak's web site. Kodachrome is still truly beautiful film, I think, but it requires careful handling and storing.

Take it light. Mark

[ptourtellotte]

The interesting thing is the film was all bought either from B & H or Adorama. I kept the

film refrigerated as much as possible. Where I would expect to see a difference is in the

summer when I am in a field camp on the steppe in Kazakstan where it is hot and I kept

the film as cool as possible. But this film was exposed in winter and then refridgerated

until I returned home. This processed film was stored in archival conditions along with the

other roll from two years earlier which wasn't affected. It is possible that this film was

developed in Europe and not here in the USA. I will have to check other slides that were

processed at the same time. I still use outdated Fujichrome to test a camera once in a

while and that film has no problems.

[john_shriver]

Light induced fading of Kodachrome causes the magenta dye to fade (lose density), according to Wilhelm's book. So this can't be light induced fading, since it's in the nigh opposite direction (more green).

 

The least stable dye for dark storage of Kodachrome is yellow, again according to Wilhelm's research. This would cause a blue shift, not what you're seeing. (It would require storage at high temperature and humidity to cause this.)

 

So neither of these would be expected to cause a red shift. That would require problems with the cyan dye, which is the most stable.

 

So, perhaps they came back from Kodak with this pink cast at the time, and you didn't notice it then. Or, perhaps there was a chemical fault in the processing, rendering the cyan dye unstable, which would cause a shift towards magenta. For instance, a poor final wash can cause instability, according to the Z-50 manual on the K-Lab processor.

 

It would be informative to scan some of the slides, and see which of the R, G, and B channels have full dynamic range, and which are truncated at one end of the range. (Look at the histograms of each color.)

 

Also, since they were processed by Kodak, they might very well be willing to look at a slide and see if the red shift is caused by a processing error. If it proves to be poor washing, for instance, they might want to re-wash the film to prevent further deterioration. I would expect that Kodak Zurich labs would continue to stand behind their work.

[dan_sapper]

Here is another idea, since you say that the film was stored properly before and after processing.

 

K-14 processing had four development steps: First (B&W) Developer, Cyan Developer, Yellow Developer, then Magenta Developer. The last step is Magenta which is a non-selective developer. In other words, if development (or reversal re-exposure) was incomplete in the cyan or yellow steps, then magenta dye will be developed instead, and it will develop in the wrong layer of the film. This will cause magenta color shifts throughout the image.

 

Could you describe the pink cast in more detail? Does it primarily show in the whites (d-min), or do all the colors look magenta?

 

I've also seen Kodachrome 200 exhibit a red d-min which gives the images a pink cast, especially if there is a lot of white, such as at an ice-skating rink.

 

Were both images taken under the same lighting conditions? Indoor skating rinks often use much artificial light, such as mercury vapor or other "spikey" spectrum lamps. It seems conceivable that the lighting could have been changed between 1995 and 1998.

[ptourtellotte]

The skating rink- is not just a rinky dink rink but MEDEO- supposedly the highest rink in

the world. This is the outdoor rink where the Soviets trained their skaters. A nice places to

go now on weekends. I will post a few photos in a few days. Also I will cut a reject slide

and see if it may be 200 film. I did use some at one time but then stopped using it.