Mama is going to take our Kodachrome away...

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DougPaul

DougPaul

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Lamentations

In reality the great yellow box papa in Rochester killed Kodachrome decades ago, letting the film languish in a lack of improvements. A clear case of child neglect, if not abuse.

I once loved the film and easily shot several thousand rolls. We had many good years together. But, when I think back on all the crap I shot in high school, it's a wonder I can shoot at all. I still like the song. It has aged better than the film.

I wonder whether Rhymin' Simon has even shot any Kodachrome since the late 1980s. Perhaps Paul made a Freudian slip in 1981 at the Concert in Central Park when he changed the lyric "everything looks worse in black and white" to "everything looks better in black and white". But ironically and sadly that may have become pathetically prophetic. Kodak let the film stagnate while simultaneously improving their B&W and Ektachrome lines with T grain and other upgrades. When Paul performed his 1991 repeat Central Park concert he rightly retained the now confirmed, not so false Freudian slip.

Maybe there were valid chemical reasons why the Kodak techies could not make any improvements. But if anything Kodachrome seemed to get worse. The inconsistent cyan shift that once could be tolerated by allowing the film to age seemed to become consistently more ugly. The few changes that were made seemed to backfire. Prior to the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympic sports photographers requested that Kodak remove the pink shift in Kodachrome 200 and make it more neutral. Well they overdid that, and this once beautiful version of the film acquired the same crappy cyan cast of Kodachrome 25 and 64. Thanks a lot Kodak! You really knew how to ruin a good thing.

Once the great green box dragon introduced Velvia and repeatedly made improvements to that cheesy film; we could all read the writing on the wall. Kodachrome was doomed to the bit box of history, even prior to the digital revolution. Sure we can all scan our dated Kodachrome slides, resuscitate and velviatize them in Photoshop. But sadly that may be all they are good for anymore.

RIP Kodachrome. Hopefully Kodak will get their digital act together so that this lament is not repeated for them.
 
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Hey Mark I remember the lyric change. I was there in Central Park, along with 500,000 other people. Anyway, it's a little sad, as I waited quite a while before switching to digital but it's just too convenient. I still have my totally manual 1980 Fujica camera with a few lenses. Don't know if I'll ever use it again though.
-Tony
 
Mark Schaefer said:
RIP Kodachrome. Hopefully Kodak will get their digital act together so that this lament is not repeated for them.
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can't comment much on film, Kodak had a good brand. But I have no sympathy for the digital camera business. I had a Kodak DC4800, and found both their PC software and the camera UI software to be very "dumbed-down" and somewhat patronizing: sacrificing ease-of-use to experienced people for ease-of-use to beginners. Maybe they've improved but they certainly don't seem to be in the same league as Canon / Panasonic / Nikon / Pentax.
 
arghman said:
can't comment much on film, Kodak had a good brand. But I have no sympathy for the digital camera business. I had a Kodak DC4800, and found both their PC software and the camera UI software to be very "dumbed-down" and somewhat patronizing: sacrificing ease-of-use to experienced people for ease-of-use to beginners. Maybe they've improved but they certainly don't seem to be in the same league as Canon / Panasonic / Nikon / Pentax.
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Jason -

Like many companies, Kodak became more of a brand than anything, and they clearly lost sight of what was important and what the market was doing. I think they've done better lately - when they sold off their successful medical business they used the cash to re-invigorate their digital consumer business...time will tell.
 
Peakbagr said:
End of a photographic era(s) as we know it. :( :( :( :(
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Although the manufacture of Kodachrome continued until recently, that era ended long ago. With no R&D effort put into the product for at least 10 years (maybe 20?), I don't know why anyone still used it. Eastman Kodak long ago discontinued the great 2-day processing service that made it reasonable to shoot a film that couldn't be processed locally. Personally, I stopped using slide film about 20 years ago. Of course, digital imagery made all slide films obsolete several years ago. I hope Kodak makes some good decisions and is able to remain competitive, and remain in the photography business.
 
OK, I have to admit that I was never a fan of Kodachrome...

But anyway, Fuji took away Velvia...but then they brought it back. So maybe Kodachrome will come back too.

- d
 
darren said:
OK, I have to admit that I was never a fan of Kodachrome...

But anyway, Fuji took away Velvia...but then they brought it back. So maybe Kodachrome will come back too.

- d
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Fuji's chrome (slide) films and Kodak's Elite chromes (Ektachrome) are all E-6 process. Kodachrome requires a unique and comparatively expensive "K-14" process. With a relatively tiny film market for any slide film, I think it's gone forever.
 
For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas
PARSONS, Kan. — An unlikely pilgrimage is under way to Dwayne’s Photo, a small family business that has through luck and persistence become the last processor in the world of Kodachrome, the first successful color film and still the most beloved.

That celebrated 75-year run from mainstream to niche photography is scheduled to come to an end on Thursday when the last processing machine is shut down here to be sold for scrap.

In the last weeks, dozens of visitors and thousands of overnight packages have raced here, transforming this small prairie-bound city not far from the Oklahoma border for a brief time into a center of nostalgia for the days when photographs appeared not in the sterile frame of a computer screen or in a pack of flimsy prints from the local drugstore but in the warm glow of a projector pulling an image from a carousel of vivid slides.
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