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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Kodachrome, gone but not forgotten

Yikes! For all these years I thought Kodachrome used color couplers. Sorry for the misinformation and thanks David for clearing that up. It was and still is beautiful though. I have some images my dad shot of my grandpa in the 40s and the colors are awesome. Does anyone know if there is a FCP plugin for Kodachrome or Ektachrome? I've done grads in the past to emulate those emulsions but I'm sure some one else could do it better than me.
 
Andrew Rieger said:
I have Exposure 3 and it is the best film emulation plugin in have ever seen! It really does make digital images look like film and the library of stocks is very very impressive. I have been shooting film for years but with this program, I am really happy with my digital photography. The best thing is that you have control over all the grain aspects of the image.

I have actually used it to add grain to video. It is a grain generator (instead of just overlaying grain taken from a gray card) and places more or less grain in the right areas. Yes, you have to batch process a still image sequence (which takes forever if you are using big files) taken from video but since the program generates new grain for each frame, the video looks like it has real grain when it is played back at normal speed.

Try it out, other than using a program like Arri Relativity, it is the best way to add realistic film grain to video since the grain comes from real film samples.

I would like to see someone do this with Red footage.
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Yeah I agree. I may try doing the batch image sequence color correction route on my next RED shoot. I've seen great results this way. I've also heard it can give you a hair more control as well. Exposure 3 really is great. Some of the presets are a bit too strong but they are easy to tone down. Have a great new year!
 
Peter Strietmann said:
Yikes! For all these years I thought Kodachrome used color couplers. Sorry for the misinformation and thanks David for clearing that up. It was and still is beautiful though. I have some images my dad shot of my grandpa in the 40s and the colors are awesome. Does anyone know if there is a FCP plugin for Kodachrome or Ektachrome? I've done grads in the past to emulate those emulsions but I'm sure some one else could do it better than me.
Click to expand...

Look into a program called "Exposure 3" by Alien Skin. This is what we were talking about. Great for film emulation and has a wide library.

http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/index.aspx
 
Kodachrome 64 - response

Kodachrome 64 - response

Matt W. said:
Was Kodachrome 64 even all that good? Those I know who shot it preferred Velvia 50 and Kodachrome 25 (which was discontinued long ago) and well...digital. In recent years, it's only been available in hobbyist/photojournalist formats (135), whereas Ektar, Portra, and Velvia are available up to 4X5. Seems like more of a symbolic loss than something anyone will actually miss shooting.
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K64 WAS very good when first introduced in 1974. I preferred it to K25 for wildlife for a number of years. The extra stop was the main reason and grain was almost as good as K25 - then. That was a long time ago and Kodak did no further r&d to upgrade the product so eventually it was surpassed grain wise.

To make matters a lot worse, Kodak sold off its labs and thereafter processing became erratic (or was it in the creation of the film?) with variable color hues to the emulsion, especially from the non pro versions of this film. K25 seemed to stay true to form at this time; the issues I encountered were solely with K64. I could not trust the results so switched to Fuji and Ektachrome stocks. But I preferred the Kodachrome look for wildlife.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
There's a reason it's called the K-14 process, it's something like 14-steps with specialized machinery, which is why having the chemicals alone is not enough to process Kodachrome, not to mention, Kodak stopped making the chemicals. It used to be the K-26 process, even more complex...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-14_process
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As I read the k14 wiki, I had to laugh at the conspiracy people on this forum that believe kodak has been taking advantage of us all and not making it cheaper to "democratize" moviemaking. Seems like the technology to make the film and all of the process control to develop is easily as complex, difficult (and amazing if you really think about it) as making a CMOS camera. Of course the ongoing costs of film and developing adds up simply because you are using it up as you go.

You could flip the "democratizing argument" since I suspect those 8mm and 16mm movies you started on were with pretty cheap cameras. Even setting aside the used cameras, You could buy a new krasnogorsk k16 with zoom and filter set for $500 in the 90s. (and you'd laugh if I told you much the original importer paid for them when he first started buying them after the wall came down). Yeah, you had to buy the film - but if you could scrape together a few hundred dollars you could shoot some material that would still hold up today - and buy more as you went along.
 
I just checked and found 23 undeveloped rolls of Kodachrome, all of them from trips to Fiji and Papua New Guinea, oh well, they shall remain a poignant reminder of that fraught, perilous but undeniably wonderful stage in photography in my life, when I had 7 camera systems that I dove with at once (underwater) so that I would have enough exposures to make it worth my while :-) Kodachrome has a special place for me, it was the first film I shot professionally and made money from, long before I moved from stills to motion, and some of the most amazing things I've seen in my life were captured on it.
 
John Burnley said:
K64 WAS very good when first introduced in 1974. I preferred it to K25 for wildlife for a number of years. The extra stop was the main reason and grain was almost as good as K25 - then. That was a long time ago and Kodak did no further r&d to upgrade the product so eventually it was surpassed grain wise.

To make matters a lot worse, Kodak sold off its labs and thereafter processing became erratic (or was it in the creation of the film?) with variable color hues to the emulsion, especially from the non pro versions of this film. K25 seemed to stay true to form at this time; the issues I encountered were solely with K64. I could not trust the results so switched to Fuji and Ektachrome stocks. But I preferred the Kodachrome look for wildlife.
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Very interesting, and thanks for the added perspective. Every slide film I've shot has its own unnatural tint so that does make sense. A couple days ago I happened upon this cool scene with incredible light and I only had my new t2i with me. With a kit lens handheld, the image quality was great but I so missed the color and contrast from my favorite emulsion (4x5 velvia 50) and nothing I do in any raw developer even approximates it. These 20-element modern zooms also have a way of cutting through fog that, while fantastic if you want to cut through fog, makes shooting in fog kind of frustrating. And shadow detail is overrated when your scene has three stops of contrast.

Rudi Herbert said:
I just checked and found 23 undeveloped rolls of Kodachrome,
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Miserable as it may seem to do so, I think you can still develop them as black and white. Which might be even more painful than not developing them at all.
 
kodachrome.jpg


KODACHROME Film

KODACHROME Discontinuation:

Eastman Kodak Company announced on June 22, 2009 that it will discontinue sales of KODACHROME Color Film this year,
concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon. Sales of KODACHROME, which became the world's first commercially
successful color film in 1935, have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to other films or digital capture.
Today, KODACHROME represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films.

Despite all its outstanding features, KODACHROME involves a highly complex development process that led photographers
to experiment with and adopt newer KODAK films that deliver outstanding color images through a simpler workflow.

Although KODACHROME has very distinct characteristics and no film will give the exact same results, current users are
encouraged to try other Kodak films. Kodak continues to bring innovative new film products to market,
having released seven new professional films -- over the last three years alone.


LINK>>>
 
I still have 2 rolls of 25 and a roll of 40 in double 8mm format in my frig.
 
Roberto Lequeux said:
Thank you David for sharing your knowledge.

Check these out from someone who found old Kodachromes and scanned them. He says he only removed dust spots:

1946 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bfljake/5255633382/sizes/l/in/set-72157625459631797/

1958 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bfljake/5255612980/in/set-72157625459631797/

1958 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bfljake/5255021601/in/set-72157625459631797/
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Amazing. To me the shot from 1946 is the most impressive- the colors are so vibrant for that era that was mostly envisioned as a world in B/W
 
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