Did anyone use Kodachrome? Was it only a slide film?

[PK24X36NOW]

RedFox88 wrote:

GMak wrote:

Kodachrome came in ASA 25 and 64, not 100.

And ISO 200 in the early 2000's.

Actually, Kodachrome 200 came out in 1986.

 

[PK24X36NOW]

Leonard Migliore wrote:

rpenmanparker wrote:

The chrome in Kodachrome means slides. Print films are named -color not -chrome. Kodachrome is the premium slide film, Ektachrome is a lesser product (just what I remember, guys, don't climb all over me). The Kodachrome is/was made in slower ASA (think ISO) film speeds than the Ektachrome. I think it came in 25 and 100 ASA. It required a proprietary development process, whereas Ektachrome used the standard E6 chemistry common to all the competition. So you had to send Kodachrome to Kodak or a Kodak authorized lab.

When I started using Kodachrome in the 1950's it was ASA 10 for daylight film; Kodachrome A, for tungsten light, was ASA 16 but you could bring it back to ASA 10 and daylight correction with an 85A filter, so many people always used Kodachrome A.

One was quite limited using an ASA 10 film. In the ensuing decades, the sensitivity was bumped up some, to 25 and 64. Still slow but in the same range as high-quality black and white emulsions like Adox KB14 and Panatomic-X. But even as a kid I used a tripod.

 

[GarageBoy]

This thread makes me wanna go out right now and burn some slide film. I thought it was cliche, but theres NOTHING that compares to a slide on a lightbox. Wish I could share that experience on the internet

I was digging through some old family photos and the Kodachrome slides blew me away. How did K25 and classic Kodachrome 25 differ?

 

[michaelmross]

It was not ‘just a slide film’. First, slide projection of Kodachrome was a wonder for its time. It's easy to forget this in the age of HDTV. With an inexpensive projector, you could view very high resolution rich-color photographs on your wall or projection screen. The light shone from the images, giving them a luminous 3D effect. It’s hard to get comparable saturation and natural-light feel with most digital cameras, particularly when capturing transitional light scenes. Second, Kodachrome was widely used for commercial printing. I'm sure it was the medium of choice for 35mm photography in National Geographic. Third, Kodachrome printing could be done directly on Ektachrome paper. (Given how huge it was, it’s disturbingly difficult to find facts about Kodachrome now; I did find an old Kodak web page, still up, with facts about this: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/e88/). It might be obvious to point out that viewing images on a screen, rather than printing them, has turned out to be the future of photography.

 

[D Cox]

Don Fraser wrote:

Used it a lot. It was a positive film, producing slides, and the usual thing was to have a projector (often a Kodak Carousel projector), and give a slide show on a screen for folks.

It was very insensitive, with a low ASA (ISO). I think originally ASA 25, with Kodachrome II a bit faster, so you had to be very careful how you shot it.

The original Kodachrome was ASA 10. Kodachrome II was ASA 25, and I think had the best colour of any. Later there were 25, 64 and even 200 ASA varieties, with in my opinion less good colour.

For its time, it was a very sharp film and produced great slides. Ektachrome was also available at a higher ASA, but not as sharp.

You could make prints from it, but they weren't the greatest and you kept them fairly small unless you were going to spend a lot of money getting a lab to make good prints.

Kodachrome II with a higher ASA was a breakthrough, but it never gave the same sharpness and gorgeous colours that the original Kodachrome gave.

The original Kodachrome had intense blues and reds, but bad greens. You can see the results in many pre-1960 National Geographic magazines.

Kodachrome II had much better colour.

 

[D Cox]

michaelmross wrote:

It was not ‘just a slide film’. First, slide projection of Kodachrome was a wonder for its time. It's easy to forget this in the age of HDTV. With an inexpensive projector, you could view very high resolution rich-color photographs on your wall or projection screen. The light shone from the images, giving them a luminous 3D effect. It’s hard to get comparable saturation and natural-light feel with most digital cameras, particularly when capturing transitional light scenes. Second, Kodachrome was widely used for commercial printing. I'm sure it was the medium of choice for 35mm photography in National Geographic. Third, Kodachrome printing could be done directly on Ektachrome paper. (Given how huge it was, it’s disturbingly difficult to find facts about Kodachrome now; I did find an old Kodak web page, still up, with facts about this: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/e88/). It might be obvious to point out that viewing images on a screen, rather than printing them, has turned out to be the future of photography.

When we all have 8k televisions, we will be back to the quality of projected slides.

You could also print from Kodachrome onto Cibachrome paper, or you could make a copy negative from the slide and then print from that.

 

[Red5TX]

If you're looking for a quality modern film that is still in production, try Kodak's Ektar 100. It isn't sexy, or nostalgic, but it's fantastic for landscape work and has a useful amount of exposure latitude.

Much of the beauty of Kodachrome came from the time and unique chemicals necessary to develop it properly. All that is gone now. We are fortunate to have some really good emulsions still on the market. I like Velvia, but Ektar 100 gives me better results more of the time.

 

[Roger Krueger]

It's not that E- chemistry was universal, it's that the E- processes could be implemented with relatively simple equipment.

Kodachrome was a monumentally Rube Goldberg process that at its peak had maybe a dozen labs.


Kodachrome had the color dyes in the chemistry, E- process had the color dyes in the film.


The early E- processes had horrid storage characteristics, but by 1970 had pretty much caught up. Past that they were equal for dark storage, E-6 was better under prolonged projection, Kodachrome was MUCH better at storage-before-shooting.


Kodachrome was 35-only for most of it's life, but there was at least a decade of 120 and a bit of 4x5. Doing Kodachrome in trays is absolutely possible, but sheesh, most people screw up the comparatively simple E-6 if they have to do it manually, I'd hate to see what the consistency and failure rates were for tray Kodachrome.

 

[OldSchoolNewSchool]

I used Kodachrome 25 occasionally. It was fantastic film and had incredibly fine grain, but too slow for most shooting. I used Kodachrome 200 on a few occasions. Didn't like it. It was quite grainy. In the 80s, I used gobs of Kodachrome 64 and really liked it. I never liked Ektachrome a whole lot. It seemed to lack the "punch" of Kodachrome. Every now and then I'll pop in a roll of Fujichrome Velvia or Provia (which I prefer over Velvia). I think I'm only shooting a few rolls of 35mm film per year. It's great fun, but not overly practical.

Robert

 

[DWMurf]

I used Kodachrome slide file, ASA 25 and ASA 64 almost exclusively for my 35mm photos in the 80's and later.

It was also used for movie film according to this video:

Does anyone know a source for Kodachorme these days?

 

[Jacobite]

The majority of the time I used Kodachrome 64, lovely stand out colours. However during a particularly lean spell in the mid 70’s I was obliged to buy a 36 exp roll of Russian slide film. Without trolling through a few thousand slides which are tucked away in the loft, I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it.

The thing that does stand out was the fact that everything in the slides were green, even the Mediterranean Sea!

Can anyone shed any light on the name of the film?

 

[puttin]

GarageBoy wrote:

This thread makes me wanna go out right now and burn some slide film. I thought it was cliche, but theres NOTHING that compares to a slide on a lightbox. Wish I could share that experience on the internet

I was digging through some old family photos and the Kodachrome slides blew me away. How did K25 and classic Kodachrome 25 differ?

I just started using slide film again. The Fuji Provia is very nice but I limit it to one 36 roll per month since it cost $20 for both film and processing which really is not a bad deal.

 

[FrancoD]

"Chrome"

Kodak Verichrome was a b&w negative film processed with standard b&w chemistry (D76 and the like)

 

[istilllovefilm]

I only got to experience Kodachrome 64 professional and it was so gorgeous. Now I use (for color) only Fuji Provia 100 Professional. Let's keep it alive folks and buy some! It is a beautiful film but that Kodachrome 64 was entirely special and Kodak killed it..how insensitive and callous..Duggal Visual Solutions in NYC used to have a R Print machine printing chromes directly onto Fuji Crystal Archive paper. The prints were stunning..people called the process "a poor man's Ciba Chrome",,that was also taken away and discontinued...really unpleasant!

 

[istilllovefilm]

Chrome film is sooo beautiful and when viewed on a lightbox it is thrilling and satisfying, For black & white try the lab Dr5 Chrome in Denver where they will process any b & w film as a positive much better for scanning than a negative it is a gorgeous process Keep film alive!

 

[istilllovefilm]

yuck tried it and hated it..it was so magenta and I had it processed at the best lab in NYC

 

[istilllovefilm]

So true!!! Nothing beats looking at chromes on a lightbox!! You still can and, in black & white ,so go burn some film and have it processed at Dr5Chrome lab in Denver where the genius there will take any black & white film and process it as a chrome a gorgeous full tonal range chrome! Recall Scala? A great B & W positive film discontinued..what a tragedy that one.. Thanks Agfa for ruining that great film by bad marketing... but go and get T max or especially all Ilford films and send it to Dr5 Chrome lab.com read about it and try a roll!!

 

[Jeff_Donald]

istilllovefilm wrote:

yuck tried it and hated it..it was so magenta and I had it processed at the best lab in NYC

That's because it didn't go to Kodak for processing. Other than a few private labs (National Geographic and Time/Life, I think) only Kodak had the equipment and chemistry to process Kodachrome.

The odd color shift could have been due to improper storage of the film or just plain improper processing. Consumer Kodachrome was subject to slight color shifts, but that was easily corrected with the right cc filter. You could also buy the "pro" versions and keep the film refrigerated (the way that it was shipped and hopefully stored) or frozen. My company used to buy 300 rolls (that was a full case) of pro Kodachrome at a time. That meant all the film had the same emulsion/batch number. That way we did our tests on a few rolls and knew how to shoot the other 298 rolls for perfect color. The refrigeration kept the film at the ideal state of aging and the color was extremely accurate and constant of handled and processed properly.

 

[nelsonal]

Provia 100 is probably my favorite film. I've got that and porta in my fridge currently.

 

[Wayne Larmon]

Jeff_Donald wrote:

istilllovefilm wrote:

yuck tried it and hated it..it was so magenta and I had it processed at the best lab in NYC

That's because it didn't go to Kodak for processing. Other than a few private labs (National Geographic and Time/Life, I think) only Kodak had the equipment and chemistry to process Kodachrome.

Look at this thread and read the posts by Alan Marcus. He was 'Quality Control Manager at Dyancolor's Aurora, Illinois'. In particular, he said

...in 1955 Kodak had lost a major lawsuit revolving around Kodak's sale of color films with enclosed mailing bag. The price of the film included processing at Kodak's labs. This strategy destroyed the market for independent photofinishers so Kodak was the only entity. Kodak lost the suit and the courts issued a consent decree forcing Kodak to reveal formulas and to train industry leaders.

I attended courses at Kodak on the care and feeding of Kodachrome, and other color films. These intense courses included analytical test procedures on the chemicals of the various processes, including motion picture...

So there were third party film processors that were trained by Kodak and had all the Kodak processes. He said a lot more about Kodachrome processing so it is well worth reading his posts.

Wayne