Now You Can Throw That Kodachrome Away

[Jim Koepke]

The last roll of Kodachrome has been processed.

The last lab left to develop the popular slide film can no longer do so due to the chemicals required are no longer available.

As news media around the world have heralded Thursday’s end of an era, rolls of the discontinued film that had been hoarded in freezers and tucked away in closets, sometimes for decades, have flooded Dwayne’s Photo, arriving from six continents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us...?_r=1&emc=eta1

When I was shooting film, it was pretty much exclusively Kodachrome 25. I think I only have one or two images printed and scanned over the years. Here is one of my favorites.

windmill 2.jpg

As I recall, it was the last shot on a roll that was taken before a friend and I went off to look for other things to photograph. A polarizing filter was used to darken the sky. That image is close to 40 years old. I think houses were built in that field about 15 years ago.

Things change all the time, take pictures before they do.

jtk

[harry strasil]

Man oh Man, what a beautiful composition Jim. Priceless!

[harry strasil]

I had to go check, one color and 2 B&W rolls left, I tossed em. Not even sure where my Minolta SLR is anyway after the remodel, lots of other stuff missing too.

[Tom Winship]

Great pic Jim. That was when you had to pay to have every pic developed. No shoot and throw away if it isn't good.
However, us older guys know what a Brownie Hawkeye with 620 film was don't we?

[Bill Cunningham]

I guess that would apply to old movie film that also collected at the bottom of the freezer too..?

[John McClanahan]

That's correct, Bill.

[paul cottingham]

Brings back memories of stripping and hanging kodachrome film in the dark, for the old dip and dunk....

[David G Baker]

Paul,
You processed Kodachrome using dip and dunk? Processing Kodachrome is a very complicated processing procedure that generally requires a chemist and a lot of exotic chemicals. One of the reason for discontinuing the process is the chemicals needed to process the film are quite expensive and have a shelf life, with the majority of folks switching to digital photography the volume of Kodachrome to be processed is not enough to justify the cost of operating a lab. I always thought that Kodachrome was one of the best films ever made that was available to consumers. I used a lot of Ektachrome and processed a lot of it professionally, I never thought it came close to Kodachrome in quality.

[paul cottingham]

You know, you are right. It was E6 we were hanging. But the death of kodachrome brings back all those memories.

[David G Baker]

Paul,
One of my favorite jokes I would play on experienced photographers was to tell them that Kodachrome is black and white film and prove it to them. Kodachrome's color comes from the dyes in the chemistry and not in the film like most other color negative films and transparency films.
I never did the dip and dunk processing, I used the stainless steel reels for roll film and film holders for sheet film.

[paul cottingham]

Worst job I ever had. Splicing film onto reels, putting the film through a cine processor, and hoping the spliced film didnt break, hanging films for a dip and dunk, all in the dark for the worst boss I ever had. too bad, too, 'cause it was interesting, challenging work.

[Jim Koepke]

I never processed color film because I didn't like Ektachrome.

I did print and process some color in my home dark room.

Mostly did black and white at home.

Did some photo work in a silk screen shop that employed me.

jtk

[David G Baker]

I worked in Television news for around 30 years and approximately 15 years of that time was managing and operating the motion picture news film lab. In that 15 years in the lab I processed around 20 million feet of 16mm news and production film. 98% of the film was Kodak 7240 and 7241 Ektachrome. I would buy 35MM motion picture film in 100 foot rolls and bulk load it into cassettes and shoot it in a Nikon F 35MM camera and process the film in motion picture chemistry using Nikor tanks and reels. The chemistry was Kodak ME-4, the motion picture version of the still chemistry E-4. I spent so much time in a darkroom loading large reels with film that I can still work well in the dark with my hands. My splices were made by rounding off the leading edge of the film and putting monel staples on all four corners of the splice. I rarely had film breaks.
I have a lot of black and white darkroom equipment but haven't been in a darkroom since retiring 11 years ago.
I never did color at home but I did work in a negative and paper printing and processing set up in the Army using C-22 and P-122 chemistry and nitrogen burst basket line processors. I still remember the the last chemical in the paper processing line. The nitrogen burst would go off blowing formaldehyde fumes into my face and if I breathed in it would burn my lungs.
Going back to Kodachrome, a lot of people are going to miss the film. I didn't shoot a lot of it but I loved it.

[paul cottingham]

Yeah, the chemicals were pretty brutal. I am a recovering drunk, so that combined with liver damage from those chemicals scared the hell out of me. But I finally had a liver test and I'm fine. Some of the people I worked with got quite sick later in life.

[John McClanahan]

Kodachrome can be processed in B&W chemistry using dip & dunk to get a B&W image. Density and contrast will be flat, as it is a reversal film, but it can be done. The biggest problem is that Kodachrome has a carbon backing to reduce scratches on the base side of the film while in the camera. Under normal processing, one of the steps removes the backing. In a small darkroom, the carbon makes a real mess on developing reels.

I still have my darkroom, complete with 2 color enlargers, in my basement. It hasn't been used in 10 years. The only reason I keep it is that I have several medium and large format cameras that I seem to think i will use someday.

John