Kodak Discontinues Kodachrome.

[Keith Tapscott.]

Kodak have announced that they will discontinue their legendary Kodachrome film. Sad news, but hardly surprising with the newer and better colour films around today.

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2709&pq-locale=en_GB&gpcid=0900688a80b4e692&ignoreLocale=true

[kennethcooke]

After 74 years Kodak announce that they are to cease production of Kodachrome. I personally am gutted

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2709&pq-locale=en_GB&gpcid=0900688a80b4e692&ignoreLocale=true

Kodachrome-

[kennethcooke]

Kodak have announced that they will discontinue their legendary Kodachrome film. Sad news, but hardly surprising with the newer and better colour films around today.

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2709&pq-locale=en_GB&gpcid=0900688a80b4e692&ignoreLocale=true

There is no finer slide film than Kodachrome II 25asa and Kodachrome 64 is a close second. I am personally gutted as I grew up with Kodachrome II and have used it for 45 years.

I hadn't seen your post and posted similar in General Photography section

[Rob Archer]

I was a bit surprised when I read it this morning - I honestly thought it had disapeared years ago! Kodachrome 25 and 64 really were something special, although I do wonder if they haven't been tainted with more than a little nostalgia!

So long as Kodak keep making TriX (although I'm not confident in the long term)

Rob

[Mike O'Pray]

I am not trying to stir things here but while browsing on APUG I was somewhat surprised to see a regular contributor there who worked for Kodak as a chemical engineer for many years actually came out and said that "chromes" were and are overrated v colour neg in terms of colour replication and detail. His basic message seemed to be that you lose shadow detail and subtlety in return for seemingly "great colours" which are simply oversaturated and not really authentic. The viewer is blind to the defects because its "brilliance". This is of course my take on what he was saying and its my paraphrasing.

Of course he may have a "bee in his bonnet" about chromes and be capable of being as prejudiced as the rest of us, it's just that I hadn't been aware of how unequivocal he was about the relative merits. I think all his work was on colour negs but that's largely supposition on my part. It's simply that when he cites examples of his work it all seemed to be colour neg stuff.

Transparency projection may be one thing but certainly when you now look at the price of chems and paper for Ilfochrome prints, then it just seems to me that Ilfochrome prints were unlikely to be that much better on a value for money basis than RA4 and at least one Kodak retiree seems to be of the opinion that chromes are vastly overrated.

Mike

[Michael]

I'd have to go along with the ex-Kodak man's view, Mike, in respect of a broad preference for colour print film over does transparency film (but, of course, projection throws an extra factor in there). I tried various transparency films, including Velvia, which I just don't like; and then one day a review in BJP turned me towards EPN. That I loved until Kodak discontinued it - I still have two boxes of 5x4 and 4 rolls of 120 in the fridge, kept back for some special need. EPP, while not as lovely as EPN, is the emulsion I use if I have to make transparencies; but Fuji's 160 daylight film does give very accurate results. For medium format, I use Reala. I'm not sure offhand whether EPP is available in 35mm - worth a try if it is.

[Richard Gould]

To be honest I can't remember the last time I saw kodachrome on the shelves, and in the past when I did some work with color tranny film I never really liked it, prefering either the ekterchromes or fuji, easier and quicker to get processed, or somtimes able to be processed at home Richard

[Keith Tapscott.]

I'd have to go along with the ex-Kodak man's view, Mike, in respect of a broad preference for colour print film over does transparency film (but, of course, projection throws an extra factor in there). I tried various transparency films, including Velvia, which I just don't like; and then one day a review in BJP turned me towards EPN. That I loved until Kodak discontinued it - I still have two boxes of 5x4 and 4 rolls of 120 in the fridge, kept back for some special need. EPP, while not as lovely as EPN, is the emulsion I use if I have to make transparencies; but Fuji's 160 daylight film does give very accurate results. For medium format, I use Reala. I'm not sure offhand whether EPP is available in 35mm - worth a try if it is.Try the new Kodak Ektar 100 colour negative film which is actually finer-grained with slightly better sharpness and resolution than the old Ektar 25 film despite being a useful two stops faster.

As for colour reversal films,I know a photographer who specialises in glamour and beauty portraits for a number of magazines who told me that the publishers preferred film stock for skin-tones is Kodak Ektachrome E100G.

[Jack Lusted]

A few weeks back I got out the colour slides of holidays taken 10+ years ago. A mixture of Kodachrome and Fujichrome. My feeling was that the Kodak colours were somewhat muted vis-a-vis Fuji.
I think I preferred the Kodachromes.
Just bought a role from 7-day shop to put in the M6 for old time sake.

jack

[kennethcooke]

A few weeks back I got out the colour slides of holidays taken 10+ years ago. A mixture of Kodachrome and Fujichrome. My feeling was that the Kodak colours were somewhat muted vis-a-vis Fuji.
I think I preferred the Kodachromes.
Just bought a role from 7-day shop to put in the M6 for old time sake.

jack

I don't like Japanese film greens whereas Kodachrome produces them perfectly to my eye albeit, in the Alps I always switched to Agfa CT18. Still in mourning

[photomi7ch]

I used to use Kodachrome A lot when I first started but moved to other makes partly because of price and the other to do with colour saturation. I moved to Peruchrome ( a blast from the past ) at a friends suggestion and was a first pleased with the results but then moved to fuji I now chop and change depending on what Im working on.

Note the yellow words do not show up very well had trouble reading what you had written Ill have change my class to a colour pair. :D:D

[Dave miller]

I'm another that started with Kodachrome, in my case in 1961. I later changed to using Agfa CT18 for some reason that is now lost in some unused recess of my memory. I later used Velvia and another Fuji reversal film whose name is filed along with my recollection of CT18.

[Keith Tapscott.]

A year has passed since starting this thread. Do you still miss Kodachome? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SExsuRIGAlg)

[Martin Aislabie]

The thing I liked best about Kodachrome was its stability

The stuff is so stable that it doesn't decay at nearly the same rate as the other chromes.

I have recently been going through my father in-laws slides (a keen amateur photographer), which ran from the mid/late 1940s until his death in the late 1990s.

Kodachrome seemed to be almost unaffected by age

Agfa colours seemed to start to fade from about 15 years and anything older than about 30 years was almost gone.

Anyone who is hoping to preserve colour photographs of their family for historic or nostalgic purposes is now going to struggle.

Martin

[DaveP]

Aren't modern fujichrome emulsions supposed to be archival for 50-100 years?

[Stan160]

Now received back 7 of the 10 rolls of Kodachrome shot on honeymoon. I hoarded them carefully so I could be sure of preserving the memories as long as possible.

Looking through the slides, the colours are as gorgeous as I remember and I think I can finally say I've truly got the measure of how to expose for best results. Sad to think I now only have four rolls left :-(

[Neil Smith]

Now received back 7 of the 10 rolls of Kodachrome shot on honeymoon. I hoarded them carefully so I could be sure of preserving the memories as long as possible.

Looking through the slides, the colours are as gorgeous as I remember and I think I can finally say I've truly got the measure of how to expose for best results. Sad to think I now only have four rolls left :-(

I remember the first roll of Kodachrome I ever shot the colours blew me away when I got them back. It's the only film that inspired a song to be written about it, which says something about the quality of it.

Neil