Kodak announces that it will discontinue Kodachrome. I still have pictures from the '70s that look like they were taken yesterday.
Best Slide Film Ever! Slides from the 40s have not changed in color one iota. I will miss it. Art
K O D A K! It keeps sliding away…the wrong way!
Technology changes. The digital age is here and manufacturers have to change their products to adapt to the market or cesase operation.
The only film I know of which is resolutely stable, barring really weird storage (I too have slides from the 40s which look new) and absolutely reliable and predictable. Digital is all very fine – and it’s all I shoot now – but I can almost guarantee you that unless you, yourself, take great precautions and shoot everything RAW and save everything RAW, you won’t have any images at all in 60 year’s time, new-looking or not.
On what do you base this supposition?
My prediction is that with the continuing advance of technology, it won’t be too long until digital beats ANY film in every category (resolution, ‘grain’, color intensity, speed, details, exposure latitude, etc). This includes even the medium and large-format systems (8x10, 645, etc). And if you factor in digital post-processing, the demise of film will arrive even sooner.
In addition, my feeling is that in 60 years, we will be recording in (at least) 3D holographic full-sensory media, which will make our 2D static images seem as quaint as 78-speed records.
As long as you keep your images updated to conform to new technology as it comes along, your images will still be a vivid as they are today. Digital copying is lossless.
However, I do agree with you in that in order for images to be kept as good as they can be, RAW is the only way to shoot.
With each succeeding technology, I suspect, converting images from old technology to new will become easier and easier…I have just spent the last 6 months (off & on) making digital images out of all the slides I have shot over the years. Working on all the printed pictures also. With all the space these images take up in their original format, they all fit very easily on my hard drive (for back up purposes I have more than one hard drive and also back them up on CD’s).
I love my digital camera and there is no question I can (and do) take shots that would simply have been unthinkable with slide film. And I take more shots, with even more thorough documentation, due to the convenience and cheapness of digital photography.
But I share the unease about just how long digital images will “last” – having just scrapped the last computer we had that could actually play floppy discs (not that we had any, but some folks do, and what do they do now?). Sure their floppy disc is probably still holding all the information, but to what avail? I think that is the fear with digital.
The Jack Delano and Russ Porter color slides of trains from the 1940s (late 1930s in the case of Porter) look as crisp and accurate as they did the day they were developed.
Most likely even if K64 and K200 were readily available I’d still have made the move to digital, but there is no doubt Kodak hastened the transition and in a sense they are crying crocodile tears over the death of Kodachrome.
Dave Nelson
I was a loyal Kodachrome user for 32 years, but shot my last roll in 2002. For most of that time the processing quality was superb, with none of the glitches that the E-6 processors used to sabotage the slides. But then things changed, and Kodachrome processing quality went down hill. Plus instead of getting the roll back in 3-4 days it now took 2-3 weeks or more. Not liking the apparent demarketing techniques employed by Kodak I switched to Fuji Provia rather than another Kodak product. With the advances in digital scanning, the archival properties of Kodachrome are no longer so important.
While they seem to hold their color forever, that is true only if you don’t project them much. Kodachrome seems to be more subject to fading than E-6 films when run through a projector many times.
And I recently bought a digital SLR, although my film cameras are not yet retired.
John
Kind of interesting, the LAST processor for Kodachrome film, on the globe,
is the commercial lab in Parsons, Kansas-- [sigh]
The same town where the local phone numbers for the Union Pacific RR
are listed as the MKT RR, in the phone books…
While I do lament the passing of Kodachrome, I’m not surprised. Kodachrome was a wonderful film…difficult to process though. It always had to be sent out. I could and did process and mount E-6 film in my basement. I haven’t done that in years, as the chemicals became harder and more expensive to come by.
Nick
Won’t be long until all film is relegated to the same place as 33rpm vinyl.
I guess Paul Simon was right; he was just 36 years too early…
Not from what I understand. This was truly a tough decision for Kodak to make. When a product lasts 74 years, one doesn’t just pull it without a good reason. And that reasons was good…Kodachrome use has dropped significantly starting even before the digital revolution. For example Fuji got a lot of shooters to switch to Velvia when they first introduced it.
Personally, I give Kodak credit. When they stopped offering Kodachrome processing in house back in the 90s, I figured Kodachrome was on the way out. Kodak promised that they’d make it for at least 10 more years – a promise that they’ve fulfilled.
Still, how many shooters use Kodachrome on a daily basis? I’ll be honest. Despite the fact that it is my FAVORITE slide film, I haven’t shot a roll in two years or so. That’ll be changing in the next year and a half as Dwayne’s has promised to continue processing until Dec. 31st, 2010. My new, used K1000 is going to be busy in the next 18 months!
I don’t care what anyone says, there is NOTHING as beautiful as looking at a well exposed Kodachrome on a light table. Transmitted light is infinitely more appealing than reflected light. Sure, there are other slide films, but none of them look like Kodachrome to me. The colors were just punchy enough and real looking. It’s a magical experience to see one. I’ve often wondered how much I’d be willing to pay to see Steve’s McCurry’s famous shot of Sharbat Gula (the Afghan refugee girl that graced the cover of National Geographic) on a light table.
Speaking of Steve McCurry, I don’t envy him. He’s getting the last roll of Kodachrome and will donate the results to the George Eastman house. How’s that for a little bit of pressure? Personally, if it were me, I think I’d load it in an Argus C3 and make a trip to see the Arkansas and Mis
Speaking of Kodachrome, don’t miss these shots from 4x5 Kodachrome (you have no idea how much I would have liked to shoot Kodachrome in 4x5…alas, I was born about 60 years too late for that):
Inspecting a Loco at Proviso - 1942
Grain Elevator in Kansas - 1943
Hammering a Drawbar on the ATSF - 1943
And many more here.
Don’t forget to check out the full size images if you have a fast connection, too. [;)]
Ah those classic old Jack Delano shots. By interesting coincidence I chose the Delano shot of the welder near the CNW wood boxcar in my email to friends about the Kodachrome “news.” Delano was not a railfan per se. I am not even sure he was a photographer by trade. It was a government funded project. Clearly though he had a good sense of what could make a railroad shot interesting. Some years ago I attended a concert by the Cuban musician Paquito d’Rivera and on the program was a piece composed by … Jack Delano!
Dave Nelson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Delano
Interesting fellow. Not only did he take a bunch of railroad pics for Uncle Sam, but one of his pics http://www.shorpy.com/node/61 was made into a resin model a few years back. Just wish I had bought it.
Stability excellent. It was the standard by which all others were judged. The delay to process helped speed its demise.
Over 60 years later, pull RAW Kodachrome slides out and you have an image. Given the disposable nature of digital software systems, where do find a turntable to play your memory stick in 30 years?
“As long as you keep your images updated to conform to new technology as it comes along, your images will still be a vivid as they are today. Digital copying is lossless.”
Yes indeed. As long as you keep your images updated – or keep older software and hardware to read the older files. Take your pick. But that is the big problem. Until very recently, backwards compatibility has not been a particularly strong point for the computer mavens. Not that it can’t be done – it can – but with about a terabyte worth of images sitting on my RAID drives at the moment, it can be tedious…
I will say that Adobe has been very good about the backwards compatibilty bit.
The ‘secret’ to keeping your files updated is to do an upgrade each time a new technology comes out. Yes, I realize that that can get costly; however, with the money you’ll save using digital instead of film you can easily stay current.
When floppies went from 5.25" down to 3.5", I copied the files I wished to keep on to the new media. When hard drives got large enough, I copied my data onto a hard drive. Next change was when I started saving my data on CD’s. The next step was to use DVD storage. Some people use a vendor to store their images. However, even with all of those changes, it is still the same data format (binary). I don’t see that changing too soon.
When I started digital photography, my first camera only took JPEG. My current camera shoots JPEG, TIFF, RAW; my editing software opens all formats. I have had my good slides professionally scanned and converted into digital TIFF files. If (and when) someday a new format is created (perhaps when we start doing the 3D recording), we will have to upgrade our hardware and software accordingly.
I used to buy 78 rpm records, then 45’s, then LP’s, then 8-track cassettes, then regular cassettes, then CD’s, then downloads, then…?
Black & white, color, widescreen, 720P high-definition, 1080P high-def…
Betamax, VHS, DVD, HDDVD, Blu-ray…?
Switchboard, rotary dial, touch-tone, cordless, cellular…
The only thing that doesn’t change is that everything changes.
Well, call me crazy, but I’ve ordered some K-64 for a bit of a last huzzah with this remarkable film. I’m pestering some photog friends to see if they have any K-25 left, too. It’d be nice to shoot one more roll of that before Dwayne’s ceases processing at the end of 2010.
A couple other thoughts for those that long for the past:
-
Even after Dwayne’s quits processing, you’ll still be able to get processing done, with one caveat. Unlike other slide films, Kodachrome does not have any dyes built into the emulsion. Essentially, Kodachrome is a B&W film that has dyes added during the processing phase. Because of this, Kodachrome will still be able to be processed as a B&W film after the “end.” I wouldn’t go out and do it just to do it (there are lots of better B&W films), but if you find an old exposed roll after Dec 31, 2010, you can still kind of save the pictures.
-
I’ve been checking out some examples of the Kodachrome action from Alien Skin’s Exposure 2. It’s a pricey product, but doggone it! Some of those images look like KODACHROME! It’s amazing what can be done in the digital age. I’m thinking that I might have to do some head’s up shooting between my K1000 with K-64 and my K20D files processed with Exposure 2 and see how close they turn out. If it’s a good conversion, I’ll spend the money for it.
-
Check out the last post on the page here. Then check out the user name and location of the guy that posted it. If this ever happened, I guarantee I’d be one of the first in line to buy some. The advantage of an E6 based film is twofold: Not only would it be easier to get developed, it’d also come in sizes bigger than 35mm. One of the knocks I had against Kodachrome is that it hasn’t been available in 4x5 in my lifetime (and probably most if not all of my parents’ lifetimes) and was only available