reuben_c

<p>I don't see funk, all I see is green cast. A flick of the filer wheel on your enlarger's color head when printing can accomplish the same effect with any film (although the manual will most likely show you how to avoid such effects).<br>

Same thing with any image editing software -- just tweak it until it's bad, and declare it "creativity" ;)<br>

On a more serious note, I've read that cross-processing films can result in bad stuff washing into the developer, causing problems with normally processed films in the same batch. If this is what's going on (an E6 film marketed as C41 so as to cash in on the "I like bad color cast" market) I see potential for unanticipated consequences.</p>

<p>Looks like an E6 film processed in C41.</p><div></div>

<i>Wait a minute . . . I thought no more new emulsions from Kodak . . . ;-)</i>

<p>

So much for "the all-digital Kodak" eh?

<p>

Well, we can dream.

<p>

Frankly IMO the best thing for that company would be a heavy-duty corporate shakeout. Drop-kick "the computer

guys" back to whence they originated and let 'em run a <i>real</I> computer company if they are THAT fixated on

"digital" being The Answer. If you ask me, this whole @#%@$#% "all-digital" crap is a textbook example of "to a

man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Hire "computer guys" with NO history of -- or affinity for --

or, apparently, even any <I>tolerance</I> of TRADITIONAL photography -- and put them in charge of a [drumroll]

traditional photography company.

<p>

Then, sit back in shock as they systematically go about their "man with a hammer" task of "de-photographying" the

company, and turning it into a computer company (and that's all a "digital camera" is -- an integrated

computer/dedicated peripheral" machine).

<p>

Good grief.

<p>

I guess it could have been worse. Instead of hiring "computer people" they could have hired a bunch of.... aw,

gee, someone help me out here,eh? :)

<p>

(The closest analogy I can think of is when Steve Jobs hired "that Pepsi guy" to run a <i>computer</I> company,

and his first act of business was to fire the guy who MADE the business what it was (S. Jobs), and then his

second act of business was to run it into the ground.

<p>

At least he didn't mandate seltzer and syrup spigots installed in each computer. ("My goal is the all-carbonated

Apple!" :)

<i>There are landscapes PERFECTLY suited to Kodachrome, depending what its makeup is.</i>

<p>

Oh, yeah! I look at the 120 Kodachrome landscapes I shot right before "the last run" (fedexed to Wimbledon right after they resumed flights in the wake of 9/11, whew! -- "thanks", Kodak, for REFUSING to reschedule the run even though 1) you really went out of your way to NOT facillitate people making use of it (several days on the phone to countless Kodakers in three or four countries getting round-robbined back where we started, with various WRONG "instructions" until we FINALLY got the right address and the right instructions on how to ship and pay) -- and, 2) WHY couldn't you simply have had your normal retail accounts accept the rolls, and YOU transship them to Wimbledon?

<p>

Oh, well. I did manage to shoot ALMOST all the rolls I'd scrounged up -- and they're beautiful. It really is like "being there" -- in a way that NO other film can match. Besides the razor sharp "etched" K14 beauty, and the "silver grains replaced by dye" image, there is an indescribable ambience. Looking at foliage in a semi-shaded forest, zooming in closer and closer with the loupe -- the image never breaking up or going fuzzy -- just seeing more and more detail in the leaves -- and the subtle "color gradation" (none of that "leaves are green, sky is blue, roses are red" LOUD primary color crap -- there are countless SHADES of green, just as in real life... oh, well -- if you've seen it, you know what I'm saying. If you haven't, then there's no way I can describe it. What gets me are the people who HAVEN'T seen it -- and yet, REFUSE to try it, because they "know" it "can't" be all that.

<p>

I guess they're "enlightened" by having seen Kodachrome images on their monitors, and determining that, gee, these ain't any better than any OTHER film, what's the big deal?" Well, the big deal is that your MONITOR ain't even as good AS "any other film" -- let alone Kodachrome! It's like deciding you don't like steak, because the picture in the magazine smells just like paper.

<i>there is NOTHING like looking at color transparencies on a light table. Nothing. </i>

<p>

Have you ever looked at a BIG dye transfer <I>transparency</I> on a light <i>panel</I>?

<p>

(Or, for that matter, even a "C" transparency "print" on a light panel?)

Well, Keith, believe it or not, there are more people shooting 35mm than 4x5 -- or even 120. And for those folks, most of them have never shot Kodachrome.

 

And, if they do shoot a roll as I suggested -- using a good lens, ideally on a tripod -- they will discover that 35mm gear can equal the work of larger formats (sans things like lens movements of course).

 

That these days are quite probably drawing to a close is not a mark of progress. Progress used to mean that things get better, not worse. But, as McCluhan put it, the future ain't what it used to be.

 

Enjoy using what you use. Please don't piss in the punch for the rest of us though.

 

Deal?

Here's a challenge to everyone -- particularly the naysayers who have never tried Kodachrome:

 

Buy ONE roll (fresh, not expired of uncertain provenance).

 

Shoot "colorful stuff" -- including some landscapes, with "bright sunny blue sky and puffy white clouds" -- and, some architecturals (ideally with some brick buildings).

 

For the landscapes and architecturals, focus your lens to INFINITY -- do NOT pretend that "hyperfocal distance" is real (because it isn't, unless you're only going to be viewing wallet or 3X prints; if you want to see the lens at its REAL resolution, set the focus to infinity!)

 

If at all possible, use an incident meter or gray card, and bracket, bracket, bracket (when you get the slides back, you can look at the bracketed series and determine what is YOUR "working EI" for the film).

 

When you get the slides, either put them on a light table and view with a good loupe (best loupe you can find is a good 50mm 2.0 or 1.4 lens, held over the slide, with rear of lens facing slide, front of lens facing your eye) -- or, project them (ideally with a good projector/lens, onto "plain" screen or white card (back of mattboard) rather than a "glass bead" or "aluminized" reflector type screen.

 

Set a stopwatch to start timing when you take your first look at a properly exposed slide of decent subject matter. When you look up, hit the stopwatch again, and report how long it took for you to pick your jaw up off the floor. :)

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/pdf/Fotospeed_Tech_Data.pdf -- interesting, they have a kit to enable reversal processing of color neg paper! (Not rocket science -- I did it in the olden days, but ran into contrast problems -- but they seem to have twinkered with the process to deal with that.)

PS: I'm still not getting why you would need to have "extra" yellow filtration BEYOND the yellow layer, if your goal was to reduce the sensitivity OF the yellow layer. (Light hits yellow layer first, then the yellow (carey lea) filter, then magenta layer, and then cyan layer. If ONLY yellow needs to be cut back in speed, what's the point of adding filtration to the OTHER layers?)

Sounds like you're suggesting that some batches of K25 were really K64 that had been throttled-back via dye acting as an integral ND filter?

<blockquote><hr><i>Since K-25 shared the same yellow emulsions as K-64, it needed a large amount of yellow dye to absorb enough light to get it down to 25 speed.</i><hr></blockquote>

 

How's that work?

<p></blockquote>

The yellow layer is the <I>top</I> layer, and the yellow filter is <i>below</i> it, to block yellow from hitting the cyan and magenta layers. Adding yellow dye <i>to</I> the yellow layer (i.e., mixed in with it, as opposed to the Cary Lea colloidal silver filter layer) would only affect the underlying layers, n'est ce pas?

<i>trying to stop a freight train with a BB gun.</i>

<p>

Hey, why not?

<p>

If <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=526655&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true">THIS "gun"</a> is "as dangerous as a machine gun" then <i>surely</I> a Red Ryder is the equivalent to a Howitzer!

<p>

Cue "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" theme music...

<blockquote><hr><i>

I believe the basket line that Ron Mowrey described was used for development purposes. It could have been moved to another building when Building 69 was demolished, but I doubt it. There is (at least two years ago there was) a continuous processing mahcine in the film testing area. This K-14 was set up to be as consistent as possible. It COULD be used to process customer film, but it would be very expersive--several times what Dwaynes charges. </i><hr></blockquote>

<p>

One down...

<p> <p>

<blockquote><hr><i>As for the military K-14 line in Antarctica, I can't prove a negative, but in the 30 years of working at Kodak in film manufacturing and R&D, I have never heard this rumor.

</i><hr></blockquote>

Two down...

<p>

 <p>

But, <i>nothing</i> on the much-rumored "out west" lab?

<p>

Hmm...

<blockquote><hr><i>There are such rumors yes. Can't comment on that. However, we know for sure that Rocky Mountain can do K-14 (but they are very expensive and have long turnaround times) and Kodak themselves maintain a private line at Rochester I think. So no, Dwayne's are not the only ones on earth that can process Kodachrome, but they're the only practical choice for consumers.</i><hr></blockquote>

<p>

Well, great -- the rumor mill cranks up another yet notch.

<P>

By the way, I was aware of the Rochester basket line -- Ron Mowrey mentioned it here, what was it, two years ago? And in any case, it stands to reason that they'd need such a thing in order to manufacture the film (and create the various test batces that never saw light of day other than the few rolls used by employees and truly lucky outsiders who got the test rolls handed out to them.)

<p>

By the same token I didn't reference the perhaps half-dozen folks who have successfully processed Kodachrome at home (it <k>can</I> be done -- the two challenges are getting hold of the color couplers, one color developer (CD6?), and working out reexposure times/levels for the red and blue selective reversal exposures). I've always wished I had a friend or relative working at a Kodachrome lab, so that I could "recycle" the chems when they were dumped at end of life. If you think about it, at exhaustion, when it's time to stop replenishing, and replace the chemicals, they ARE working properly, even if they won't take further replenishment. So they ought to work OK for one-shot home use.)

<P>

About the question of why the military would care about Kodachrome, the rumor goes that they started a long-term project that required a truly massive amount of film, all of the same emulsion batch (or, identical characteristics, if from more than one batch), and, along with the film, the means to process it. The project was rumored to be located at one of the South Pole stations. It's been so long ago that I heard this that I can't recall any other details. Same thing with the others. Life is rife with rumors, and I don't catalog them -- although I do tend to remember the general details of those which strike me as being likely to be more than mere rumor.

You can sometimes salvage color film that's been accidentally processed in B&W developer. This works best with color neg film. Color slide film will give you the kind of results you'd get from cross-processing (not accurate colors, and if you work up a filter pack for, let's say skin tone, or tree-green, or sky blue, everything else will be off-color). And, it won't work at all for Kodachrome.

 

What you would do would be to take your processed film (developed, fixed and washed), and then run it through a color film bleach. That's "bleach," NOT "bleach-fix" (BLIX). If you run it through blix, you'll have a clear strip of acetate.

 

After you bleach it, wash it, and then run it through the normal C41 process.

 

You can bleach it with the lights on. In fact, if you DON'T have the lights on, you'll need to give it a "reexposure" similar to the way we had to process reversal film in the days before fogging second developers.

 

How long do you bleach it? Until the "black" has turned milky white, and then give it some extra time for good measure.

 

What the bleach step does is to convert the metallic silver B&W image to silver bromide (i.e., "unexposed emulsion"). Since you will ONLY have the silver bromide in the film in proportion to the actual image, the reexposure will only expose your image. All non-image silver was removed when it went through the initial B&W fixer.

<blockquote><I><hr>The biggest problem with such a low ASA film (25 & 50) is, that if your camera does not have Mirror Lock-UP you'll get mirror slap. That is unless you want to shoot with large apeture openings. Then there goes your depth of field.<hr></i></blockquote>

<P>

Really?

<p>

I shot Kodachrome (ASA 10) handheld, with no problems. Tack sharp. NO mirror slap at all. Absolutely ZERO mirror slap.

<p>

But then, I was using a rangefinder camera, so I guess it was my fault.

<p>

<blockquote><I><hr>Dwaynes in Kansas is the only place left on planet earth that processes Kodachrome.<hr></i></blockquote>

<p>

You sure of that? I've heard from different sources that there are one or possibly two "private" labs, for industry and military use. Not sure where; if rumors have anything to them, one would be somewhere around Oregon or somewhere in that vicinity, and the other in Antarctica.

<blockquote><hr><i>Oh, I foresee KODAK selling off their film division to the likes of Fuji, Harman, some other company like that, or even a LBO by the division's management. And as we've seen with Harman and the Kentmere acquisition, they're keeping the brand alive. </i></blockquote>

<p>

<blockquote><i>The KODAK brand is much too valuable to let it die completely: it's just not profitable in its current incarnation (i.e. part of the KODAK corporate structure).</i><hr></blockquote>

<p>

I don't think so, not if we can take their assertions at face value (stuff like their intention to become an "all-digital" company), and, not if their actions are indicative of their intentions. (Such as the aforementioned destruction of the remaining Azo stocks on hand. I read somewhere that the Azo group headed by that couple (name escapes me at the moment, they have a big Azo website) were promised that if Azo were ever discontinued, Kodak would sell them the remaining stocks. Instead, they destroyed them.)

<p>

Kodak seems to be acting as if they believe that it's a zero-sum game, and that anything that in any way benefits silver photography is detrimental to digital photography.

<p>

That's why I really don't expect them to ever sell off any silver photography divisions, or product lines, or so forth. I believe they want to bury film, not see it replanted in someone else's garden.

<p>

I personally believe this is madness, and that throwing away over a century of mature technology, in return for the chance to get a slice of a severely competitive commodity market where the <i>existing</I> players seem to be hurting, is similarly mad. Maybe that's not what they're doing, but that's sure how it looks "from the outside" where I stand.

Can't view the 4x5 Kodachrome, the system says it's not on the server?

No comment.

I should add that for new meters of either type (a variant of the Weston type is still in production via a company in the U.K.), you can expect to pay three to four hundred dollars, but a used meter of either type in decent condition can be picked up for under fifty bucks.

I'm partial to two types of meters. For reflected readings, the Weston Master series, from the original "Master", made in the 1930s, most of which seem to still be in good working condition, through the Master V, most of which I've seen sadly need photocell replacement. (A good example of "they don't make 'em like they used to.")

 

For incident measurements, I don't think you can beat the Norwood/Sekonic "Studio" type meter (oval shape with rotating head, they are a classic, have been in production for about fifty years under several different names).

No, it's not K14, it was the previous process, which is not available anywhere, for any price (although rumor has it that the US Gov't maintains their own machine, which is used for a massive stockload of Kodachrome II that is kept in cold storage at Antarctica for some very special, very long-term project).

<p>

There are places that <i>seem</i> to offer processing for pre-K14 Kodachrome film, but when you read further, you will see that they will only process it as a black and white film (the color developers (it requires three separate types) are no longer available, nor are the huge machines required to process it as a color film).

Is this an actual Kodak form, or something you worked up on your own? (I can't tell if Kodak is actually offering to consider restarting production pending sufficient consumer demand, or, if you've come up with this idea independently.)

Also, for making larger prints (larger than those that can be done under the limitations of a 35mm scanner), it might be workable to make "digital interpositives" using a decent digital camera with macro capability and a lightbox. Yeah, heresy, but, it might get more of those Kodachrome bits onto paper that would otherwise require large format internegs (now that direct reversal paper is no longer available).

 

Or, there's always Cibachrome!

<blockquote><hr><i>

There are a number of E-6 films available today that exceed the image quality of Kodachrome 64.

</i><hr></blockquote>

 

On paper, sure. But on film, Kodachrome's unique acutance provides razor-sharp resolution that no "dye cloud" chromogenic film can duplicate.

<p>

<blockquote><hr><i>

Kodachrome slides could be projected on a large screen and look very sharp and snappy. I have thousands of them myself, and have 8x10 prints of a few of them hanging on my wall (my 4000dpi scanner doesn't have enough resolution for larger prints). The problem was that you needed a special projector to get those results.

</i><hr></blockquote>

 

I have about a half dozen Pocket Carousel projectors. They are incredible little jewels. My problem is finding 110 <I>mounts</i>. No one makes them, no one even seems to have any "old stock" laying around. I've picked up slides, when I could find them at a low enough price, with the idea of recycling the mounts. I hope to either find a way to get slitted Kodachrome processed by Dwayne's, or, if nothing else, slit some E6 and process it myself. (This is all "someday" stuff.)