# Interesting article on the end of Kodachrome



## BasilFawlty (Jun 7, 2019)

I found it interesting that a little shop in Kansas was the last place in the world you could get Kodachrome film processed and that people from all over the world rushed to get their film processed on that last day.

*Kodachrome Taken Away*

The end of an era.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 7, 2019)

I get my film developed there... Not Kodachrome, but I do send out film to their lab and they send back my negs, CDs, and prints on photo paper done in chemistry.

I got a T shirt.

edit - Where have you been the last few years??! lol Yeah, you must just be getting back into photography.


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## webestang64 (Jun 8, 2019)

Old sad news. I got a T shirt as well. I still send my E-6 there unless I cross process in C-41.


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## Derrel (Jun 8, 2019)

An old news item, for sure. Still kind of sad


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## BasilFawlty (Jun 10, 2019)

vintagesnaps said:


> I get my film developed there... Not Kodachrome, but I do send out film to their lab and they send back my negs, CDs, and prints on photo paper done in chemistry.
> 
> I got a T shirt.
> 
> edit - Where have you been the last few years??! lol Yeah, you must just be getting back into photography.



Well, I've still been into photography bt somehow I just lost track of this forum after I joined and just discovered it again by accident.  Didn't even realize I had already joined years ago.


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## dennyr (Jun 15, 2019)

Derrel said:


> An old news item, for sure. Still kind of sad


 Yeah.....and now i am a week late to an old story. 
I was always more of an Ektachrome guys, but i DID enjoy many a slide show that was shot with the vibrant Kodachrome.


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## 480sparky (Jun 15, 2019)

I love watching peoples jaws drop when I tell them I still shoot Kodachrome....... and soup it at home.


Then I tell them I use caffenol.



After a while, they figure out I'm using it for what it really is: b&w film.


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## Derrel (Jun 15, 2019)

For those that do not understand Sparkys comment above, Kodachrome had the color introduced in the processing stage, which is why developing Kodachrome was always such a big deal.  Unlike Ektachrome and other E6 process films, Kodachrome required expensive sophisticated developing machinery; no it was not possible to develop a couple rolls of Kodachrome in the bathroom with a kit or by using simple processing, Unless of course one was happy with black-and-white images.


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## dennyr (Jun 15, 2019)

Derrel said:


> For those that do not understand Sparkys comment above, Kodachrome had the color introduced in the processing stage, which is why developing Kodachrome was always such a big deal.  Unlike Ektachrome and other E6 process films, Kodachrome required expensive sophisticated developing machinery; no it was not possible to develop a couple rolls of Kodachrome in the bathroom with a kit or by using simple processing, Unless of course one was happy with black-and-white images.


That is a good point.
A lot of photographers made the mistake, which was rather intuitive and made sense, that Kodachrome was a PITA to coat.
As you say, it was not. It was a very easy film to coat, and a Very Difficult film to develop.
These days, as far as i know, it is expensive to have Any slide film developed and mounted.
About 3 years ago, i inherited a BUNCH of Film/Darkroom stuff.
In that was a editing set up for 8mm movie and 100 slide mounts for 35mm.
I still curse myself for not offering the mounts for cost of shipping. I tossed them in the trash.


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## 480sparky (Jun 16, 2019)

Derrel said:


> .......... Kodachrome required expensive sophisticated developing machinery; no it was not possible to develop a couple rolls of Kodachrome in the bathroom with a kit or by using simple processing,..............



Yet every blue moon, someone has this idea they're going to resurrect Kodachrome by thinking it is as simple as E-6 or D76 processes.  Yeah, I'd love to see it come back (I have about 6 dozen 36x rolls in my freezer), but I don't think I'll ever see it in my lifetime.


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## Soocom1 (Jun 17, 2019)

My father was a NY Native, and after WWII he came home and shot a BUNCH of photos of Coney Isl, and the Queen Mary in Port. 
I looked at those photos about 10 years ago and they looked like fresh digital prints of today! 

He also had photos of the Battery long before WTC was built. 
Looking at near true color rendition from 45+ years previous is a joy.


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## Soocom1 (Jun 17, 2019)

A side note: 

On May 6th of '37, my father was at home and heard the Hindenburg coming overhead on its way to NJ. 
He told me that when he heard it he ran inside to my grandfather to see if he could snap a picture of it as it flew overhead. 
My grandfathers response was epic: 

"I don't have it ready. 
You can get a picture the next time it comes overhead. "


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## Derrel (Jun 17, 2019)

Soocom1 said:


> My father was a NY Native, and after WWII he came home and shot a BUNCH of photos of Coney Isl, and the Queen Mary in Port.
> I looked at those photos about 10 years ago and they looked like fresh digital prints of today!
> 
> He also had photos of the Battery long before WTC was built.
> Looking at near true color rendition from 45+ years previous is a joy.



Unlike most other color film of its era, Kodachrome had/has amazing DARK-storage resistance to fading. The other day I saw some 1950s color images made at Celilo Falls, on the Columbia River, and there was terrible all-over reddening,a terrible, frame-wide color cast. This great dark-storage fade resistance plays out in many instances, where people dig out old Kodachromes that have vibrant color after 40,50,60,70 years in dark storage.


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## Derrel (Jun 17, 2019)

In 1990 -1993 we had an elderly neighbor who showed me some of the Kodachromes HE had shot in WW II in the Pacific theater of operations... he took them with an old 35mm he had, a decent enough camera, and as he said, "mailed each roll back to the Sates in a condom." His mother sent each roll in for developing, and after he got home, he had literally, hundreds of full-color shots of WW II in the islands at the military base(s).


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## Soocom1 (Jun 17, 2019)

Derrel said:


> In 1990 -1993 we had an elderly neighbor who showed me some of the Kodachromes HE had shot in WW II in the Pacific theater of operations... he took them with an old 35mm he had, a decent enough camera, and as he said, "mailed each roll back to the Sates in a condom." His mother sent each roll in for developing, and after he got home, he had literally, hundreds of full-color shots of WW II in the islands at the military base(s).


Now THATS a treasure!


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## Derrel (Jun 17, 2019)

they drank a lot of beer,and played a lot of poker, and made hurachi sandals...


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## BasilFawlty (Jun 17, 2019)

Soocom1 said:


> A side note:
> 
> On May 6th of '37, my father was at home and heard the Hindenburg coming overhead on its way to NJ.
> He told me that when he heard it he ran inside to my grandfather to see if he could snap a picture of it as it flew overhead.
> ...



Oh no!


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## Derrel (Jun 17, 2019)

After my grandfather died, I inherited his vast collection of black-and-white negatives, and later was given his slide collection from roughly 1953 to 1977. The majority of the slides were Kodachrome.  A few years ago I was looking through one of the slide sets and found pictures of a little infant boy who happened to be me in 1964! I had never seen the photos before, and I had not seen many of his photos of my sisters and cousins in the 1950s and 1960s. The older of my two sisters,Susan,was born in 1950 and I happened to see some photos that he shot with his then fairly new Kodak Pony 135B, A camera which was introduced in 1953.I found a few exposures from Susan's fourth birthday party in 1954, and I was able to fairly successfully recover a severely under exposed shot of her opening her birthday presents   To me it appears as if the flashbulb had failed to fire or that he forgot to change the flashbulb from the previous exposure


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