tibz

Kodachrome is still made but only in 64 ASA 35mm slide film and possibly 16/ regular 8mm movie film (super 8 is long gone by now and you're lucky to find a roll on ebay expiring before the late 70s).<p>

You sort of realize that Kodak really doesn't care what it's customers **want** and simply how it can provide them with the most convenient ways (convenience>quality) to take pictures with the most profit to them. (Hence the "ultra max versatility super duper plus extra duper" 800 ASA print film and the "Gold" 100 ASA.)<p>

Even if you really wanted them to make more stock of Kodachrome 25 by the time you could get anything going KC 64 will probably be gone and with that Dwaynes (which is the ONLY place left for consumers in the world to process K-14 after the other one in Japan closed mid december). You'd probably be better off asking them for their old "recipies" and buying the equipment to manufacture it yourself (KC is simple to make as far as color films go, the processing is what kills it.)<p>

I was a diehard fan of Kodachrome until I saw where Kodak is going and then I bought a roll of Velvia.

The day I find a CVS stocking super 8mm film I will be surprised...or kodachrome for that matter. I was amazed when I saw one which carried TX 400 and Ektachrome 100. Most just stock your classic granny film-800 ASA Super Ultra Mega Platinum Multipurpose for prints up to 4x6 and the really artistic chromogenic 400 and with a college student majoring in History of Art running the Minilab machine who forgets to change the developer and thinks Super 8 is a new coffee-bagelwich-cookie-donut combo they sell at dunkin donuts.

The only real difference between E6 films and C41 films is that C41 films have the orange film base, therefore you can't get normal slides from them by cross processing in E6 chemistry-they'll have a negative orange(green) cast. E6 film can be cross processed and will yield an exact negative so scanning them should be fine, but printing them in minilabs set up to compensate for the orange cast may not work so well. I'm not sure on speed changes under cross processing, but I don't believe it will tire the chemistry any more because it is really the same film structure.

I have recently started home C41 processing with a Tetenal C41 Powdered Press

Kit and the negatives looked much better than the ones I got back from CVS (I

think they didn't change their developer and the negatives were very thin even

though properly exposed-the fogged part of the negative that was exposed to

sunlight was moderately transparent) This raises the question of how long C41

developers will last. The kit says to use the chemicals once and pour them out.

The manual says different. I processed my first roll of film and poured back the

8 ounces. The following day I processed 2 more rolls and upon pouring the

developer back into the pitcher it was quite dark, not opaque, just darker than

it had been before. After a little contemplation I decided to pour it out rather

than risk more thin negs. At what point is the developer no good and should be

disposed of?

If you want to scan Kodachromes <a href-"http://www.dwaynesphoto.com">Dwaynes Photo</a> in Parsons, KS will scan them for you for $4 a roll. Can't speak for the quality as they forgot to scan my last roll. They also do E-6 slide film, print film, etc. Print film is only $3 a roll.

Speaking on behalf of the Coolscan 4000 I think that it's a great scanner. Our school has one and it provides great scans. It takes a bit to scan full resolution images, but you get bulk slide feeders and roll film adapters etc. to automate the process.

If you are bound and determined to save the cash, by all means do it yourself. HOWEVER, if you're talking about several HUNDRED photos and you're using a slow scanner that takes...conservatively 1 minute to preview and scan each photo times 300 photos gives you around 5 hours of work. Personally, I have better ways to waste my life. For that quantity, you would definitely want to send them off. The quality is unlikely to get any worse than you're old faithful scanner, so if they have reasonable prices it would be quite efficient.

Does anyone know how to get really good high rez Kodachrome scans?

They do offer Kodak picture CDs (I'm 80% sure its kodak ones) of Kodachrome processing. I ordered the option on my last roll and they "forgot" to send the slides to get scanned, so I can't tell you the quality. I do know however that "kodak picture CDs" have low resolution and can be compressed. Plus Kodachrome slides don't scan particularly well on the cheaper slide scanners and when I tried on a coolscan 4000 they had a strange smoothing to them and some of the highlights had wierd flares. Acceptable quality for low rez scans (640x480) but a bit short for higher quality ones. I would try it; for only $4 or whatever there's not much to lose.

If you are going to meter it externally then you would expose it at 64 ASA under tungsten conditions, or 40 ASA with a daylight filter in place (all (until recently) filmstocks produced in the super 8mm format were tungsten balanced, so you would need a daylight filter(usually built in) to expose in daylight with proper color temperature). You have to check the manual or otherwise come accross the "shutter speed" or "shutter angle" (which can be used to calculate the shutter speed), and then meter as if it were a still camera and find the aperture.

<p>

If you have the shutter angle (which ranges from 140 to 220 degrees generally), you must divide 1 by the shutter angle divided by 360 divided by the FPS (frames per second) you are filming at. (e.g. 1/((220/360)/18)=30 (th of a second).

<p>

If you are using an internal metering system (especially TTY metering), beware because many of the old cameras are designed to only meter 40 ASA or 160 ASA. This would result in either an under or over exposure. You could modify the camera, get a camera the will meter the 64T stock, or purchase the 50 ASA stock from <a href="http://pro8mm.com/main.php">Pro8mm</a> which is a negative stock (so it can't be projected and must be transfered before it can be viewed) and is metered at 40 ASA for $30 a roll with processing included (by them).

Recently for experimentation I tried to create color images from 3 black and

white negatives shot through red green and blue filters, as the class I am

taking is a black and white photography course. I used Ilford FP-5 film through

theater light filters, processed the negatives, scanned them into Photoshop, and

then combined them by adding the three images to the red green and blue

channels. After lining them up the results were very good-much better than I

would have expected using these materials. My question is whether there is a

good way to print these without the technology. I am taking a high school

photography course, and my school doesn't do the usual C-41 RA-4 color due to

the "extreme toxicity" involved. There is a printing process I found a while ago

called something like Gum Bichromate printing which involved a compound that

became insoluble in water when exposed to light, and once you added a pigment

and painted the solution onto paper you could treat this like an ordinary print

and simply wash it in water after exposing each color. The problems here would

be aligning the paper up for each color as each have to be done separately so as

you can see this could quickly become extremely long and tedious spanning many

days of excruciating effort, trial and error, and possible success. The other

problem is that one of the substances used is carcinogenic, so that probably

would not fly in a school afraid of anything over vinegar. My photo teacher

suggested using three sheets of lithographic film, toning them, and displaying

them with a light behind it. I have not had any experiences with toners so far,

and I'm wondering if A. this would work at all with litho films, or B. if cyan,

magenta, and yellow toners are made in the first place. I don't know how many

other people have tried this since Kodachrome was invented, but any helps and

hints would be appreciated.<div></div>