from the AP
Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak is taking your Kodachrome away.

The Eastman Kodak Co. announced Monday it's retiring its most senior film because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age.

The world's first commercially successful color film, immortalized in song by Simon, spent 74 years in Kodak's portfolio. It enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and '60s but in recent years has nudged closer to obscurity: Sales of Kodachrome are now just a fraction of 1 percent of the company's total sales of still-picture films, and only one commercial lab in the world still processes it.

Those numbers and the unique materials needed to make it convinced Kodak to call its most recent manufacturing run the last, said Mary Jane Hellyar, the outgoing president of Kodak's Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group.

"Kodachrome is particularly difficult (to retire) because it really has become kind of an icon," Hellyar said.

The company now gets about 70 percent of its revenue from its digital business, but plans to stay in the film business "as far into the future as possible," Hellyar said. She points to the seven new professional still films and several new motion picture films introduced in the last few years and to a strategy that emphasizes efficiency.

"Anywhere where we can have common components and common design and common chemistry that let us build multiple films off of those same components, then we're in a much stronger position to be able to continue to meet customers' needs," she said.

Kodachrome, because of a unique formula, didn't fit in with the philosophy and was made only about once a year.

Simon sang about it in 1973 in the aptly titled "Kodachrome."

"They give us those nice bright colors. They give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the world's a sunny day," he sang. "... So Mama don't take my Kodachrome away."

Indeed, Kodachrome was favored by still and motion picture photographers for its rich but realistic tones, vibrant colors and durability.

It was the basis not only for countless family slideshows on carousel projectors over the years but also for world-renowned images, including Abraham Zapruder's 8 mm reel of President John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

Photojournalist Steve McCurry's widely recognized portrait of an Afghan refugee girl, shot on Kodachrome, appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. At Kodak's request, McCurry will shoot one of the last rolls of Kodachrome film and donate the images to the George Eastman House museum, which honors the company's founder, in Rochester.

For McCurry, who after 25 years with Kodachrome moved on to digital photography and other films in the last few years, the project will close out an era.

"I want to take (the last roll) with me and somehow make every frame count ... just as a way to honor the memory and always be able to look back with fond memories at how it capped and ended my shooting Kodachrome," McCurry said last week from Singapore, where he has an exhibition at the Asian Civilizations Museum.

As a tribute to the film, Kodak has compiled on its Web site a gallery of iconic images, including McCurry's Afghan girl and others from photographers Eric Meola and Peter Guttman.

Guttman used Kodachrome for 16 years, until about 1990, before switching to Kodak's more modern Ektachrome film, and he calls it "the visual crib that I was nurtured in." He used it to create a widely published image of a snowman beneath a solar eclipse, shot in the dead of winter in North Dakota.

"I was pretty much entranced by the incredibly realistic tones and really beautiful color," Guttman said, "but it didn't have that artificial Crayola coloration of some of the other products that were out there."

Unlike any other color film, Kodachrome is purely black and white when exposed. The three primary colors that mix to form the spectrum are added in three development steps rather than built into its layers.

Because of the complexity, only Dwayne's Photo, in Parsons, Kan., still processes Kodachrome film. The lab has agreed to continue through 2010, Kodak said.

Hellyar estimates the retail supply of Kodachrome will run out in the fall, though it could be sooner if devotees stockpile. In the U.S., Kodachrome film is available only through photo specialty dealers. In Europe, some retailers, including the Boots chain, carry it.

I am so sad to see it go. I will be stocking up and shooting it almost exclusively till I run out

Of note:
Dwayne's is giving us a year and a half to send in our Kodachrome (thats December 2010).

If Kodachrome gets lay off the other will follow soon, at this rate 35mm film will joint 8 track,45 vinyl, laserdisc, Beta, VHS, and audio CD by 2015. Another reason to sell off film cameras on ebay.

carlsbadbum wrote:
If Kodachrome gets lay off the other will follow soon

Not necessarily. Kodachrome was different than other E6 slide films -- more difficult to manufacture and process. We could continue to see Fujichrome and Ektachrome for a while yet.

Henry Posner
B&H Photo-Video

timerickson wrote:
I am so sad to see it go. I will be stocking up and shooting it almost exclusively till I run out

Of note:
Dwayne's is giving us a year and a half to send in our Kodachrome (thats December 2010).


I will go looking for it today and stock up! I'm not that old but shot some vacations on Kodachrome. Even have some 110 film Kodachrome slides. After 30 years, they still look great!

Just saw this on DPR's site and was going to blog here, but was beaten to the punch. Just like HDTV replaced NTSC, new technology replaces the old. Let's just hope for the better.

I first used KA over 40 years ago. Sorry to see the end.

EBH

And to think I just won a Leitz Pradovit CA2500 off eBay a few hours ago - my first 135 slide projector. While Astia is more to my taste these days, I have some glorious 135 and 120 slides from Kodachrome 25 of 1980 vintage. Besides the gathering shift to digital, Kodachrome was badly hurt by the shoddy processing of Qualex (result of an antitrust consent decree).

Thanks Henry. It is good to see someone is knowledgable about photography and the reasons things sometimes change.

I shot my last roll of KR64(that's stands for Kodachrome 64 for you that never experienced it) last year. No big deal except I bought the film in 1987 and stored it in the freezer. The slides came out just fine---I wish I could say the same for the digital files I have presently stored, who knows how well they will hold up.

I guess contrary to what many report on here and other 'digital' photography websites, out of the hundreds of rolls of film I have shot, I have never had one screwed up by the processor.

For those wishing to ditch their film cameras due to this announcement, I'm looking for another EOS 3.

I guess contrary to what many report on here and other 'digital' photography websites, out of the hundreds of rolls of film I have shot, I have never had one screwed up by the processor.

For those wishing to ditch their film cameras due to this announcement, I'm looking for another EOS 3.



JCW, I'm going to keep my film cameras as I still shoot and scan slide films. Looking to go out of town this weekend and will go looking for Kodachrome. I'll keeo my old F5 and EOS 1N as they're still kickin' after all these years.

As for digital files, I have some stored on DVD from 2005 and so far, they are doing OK. In 2-3 years, I may have to start duplicating everything to the newest and most stable medium

carlsbadbum wrote:
If Kodachrome gets lay off the other will follow soon, at this rate 35mm film will joint 8 track,45 vinyl, laserdisc, Beta, VHS, and audio CD by 2015. Another reason to sell off film cameras on ebay.

I guess I'm giving my age away ( 55 in Nov ) and I'm pretty much a throw back I guess, but I cherish the few film cameras I have left and have a good bit of Kodachrome in the frig.
Oh - and I collect vinyl and have somewhere around 3000 - 33-1/3's and probably 2000 45rpms - and a laserdisk that I still use. I like the old technology and the new.

proimage1 wrote:
carlsbadbum wrote:
If Kodachrome gets lay off the other will follow soon, at this rate 35mm film will joint 8 track,45 vinyl, laserdisc, Beta, VHS, and audio CD by 2015. Another reason to sell off film cameras on ebay.

I guess I'm giving my age away ( 55 in Nov ) and I'm pretty much a throw back I guess, but I cherish the few film cameras I have left and have a good bit of Kodachrome in the frig.
Oh - and I collect vinyl and have somewhere around 3000 - 33-1/3's and probably 2000 45rpms - and a laserdisk that I still use. I like the old technology and the new.

Not all old stuff is going away - there are now more turntable manufacturers currently producing turntables than ever previously - vinyl records are still hanging on and even new ones being printed, albeit small quantities. A good analog recording is very tough to surpass, even though many young folks will never really know what music can sound like via the various flavors of iPods.

What about those of us who still play some 78s? I have a 1912 Victrola and a new turntable that plays 78s.

A GOOD turntable that will play those records is hard to find. Many cheap ouens around but you get what you pay for!

carlsbadbum wrote:
If Kodachrome gets lay off the other will follow soon

henryp wrote:
Not necessarily. Kodachrome was different than other E6 slide films -- more difficult to manufacture and process.


There is only one lab left that processes Kodachrome, it's in Kansas. Kodachrome processing is a messy one. The dyes are added during the processing unlike standard E-6 processing. The last Refrema E-6 Processor I saw was so clean it looked like it could be in a hospital. In this day and age with all the environmental and clean restrictions going on, I just can't see anyone wanting to, or being able to install one of these machines or be able to run it profitably.

The guy I used to work with shot Kodachrome 64 in the studio for model shots. We used to buy a big box of it and test a roll to see if the color was a little off or just right for skin tones. We froze it and used as necessary in the studio. If I recall, Kodachrome 25 was usually right on for skin tones but 64 made more sense because of the speed.
For weddings, I would never shoot slide film because I needed the exposure latitude that negative film gave me.

That was 'Kodachrome Pro'. It was shipped green (no reference to color) and the photographer aged it on a shelf, tested it frequently, and once it was at their particular liking, froze it until use to arrest any further aging.

Regular Kodachrome could be shot right at the time of purchase and stored at room temp or in a cooloer, but didn't have the same "Kodachrome" look.

Anybody able to post an image that illustrates/exemplifies the Kodachrome "look"?

globalkiwi wrote:
Anybody able to post an image that illustrates/exemplifies the Kodachrome "look"?


The closest that I can provide you with is this:

A photo from a recent engagement shoot - the first Image has been sharpened and converted using DPP. The second image uses the same shot, but it has been run through Alien Skin's Exposure 2 plug in. It is the closest simulation of various films (Kodachrome included) that I have found.