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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

Had a good life!
 
I did a lot of my best 35 color work on Kodachrome 25, a film that required care and technical accuracy in exposure and lighting, but rewarded you with amazing results. I used to have clients in the late 70's that wanted some stuff shot on medium format that only had Ektachrome as a color film of choice. I would take them to the wall of the studio and show them a 60x40 inch enlargement form a KII 35 that just popped and was almost grain free. That's Kodachrome. End of argument.

You will be sorely missed.
 
Richard Foster said:
I did a lot of my best 35 color work on Kodachrome 25, a film that required care and technical accuracy in exposure and lighting, but rewarded you with amazing results. I used to have clients in the late 70's that wanted some stuff shot on medium format that only had Ektachrome as a color film of choice. I would take them to the wall of the studio and show them a 60x40 inch enlargement form a KII 35 that just popped and was almost grain free. That's Kodachrome. End of argument.

You will be sorely missed.
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I know how you and so many others feel, Richard.
20+ years ago Kodachrome was probably the first film I put in my dad's F3, fell in love with it and kept shooting on it as long as I could, until it became more and more difficult to have it processed in Tuscany (circa 2000).
My biggest regret is that I was never able to shoot it with my Hasselblad, and now I never will.

Can't wait to see the documentary National Geographic shot about the last days of Kodachrome, and the last roll shot by Steve McCurry.

The end of an era, thanks for the memories, Kodachrome...
 
I'm not ashamed to say I shed a tear or two over this. Kodachrome was the most amazing film, along with Tech Pan, I ever shot on. No grain, amazing colour and blacks to die for.

I plan to mourn by finding a slide projector somewhere and sitting through some old images from the '70's.

Digital, Epic 5k in particular, has more potential to mimic the look than any roll of colour neg ever did. Wouldn't it be incredible if someone (looking at you Graeme Natress) developed a plug-in to take us there?
 
Shane Betts said:
I'm not ashamed to say I shed a tear or two over this. Kodachrome was the most amazing film, along with Tech Pan, I ever shot on. No grain, amazing colour and blacks to die for.

I plan to mourn by finding a slide projector somewhere and sitting through some old images from the '70's.

Digital, Epic 5k in particular, has more potential to mimic the look than any roll of colour neg ever did. Wouldn't it be incredible if someone (looking at you Graeme Natress) developed a plug-in to take us there?
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Alien Skin Exposure is a great little plugin for photoshop and lightroom that emulates a whole pile of different film stocks. Kodachrome and Ektachrome and Tech Pan are just a few that it can do. Works VERY well for stills...also heard of guys grading their video footage by exporting an image sequence...importing to lightroom to grade and then conforming back to motion. Cool stuff!
 
Yes sad that Kodachrome is gone. But there's still Ektachrome! Shoot a roll of it. Not the same, but still a very fine film.
 
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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Jon Chema said:
Alien Skin Exposure is a great little plugin for photoshop and lightroom that emulates a whole pile of different film stocks. Kodachrome and Ektachrome and Tech Pan are just a few that it can do. Works VERY well for stills...also heard of guys grading their video footage by exporting an image sequence...importing to lightroom to grade and then conforming back to motion. Cool stuff!
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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.
 
Sorry I didn't see this thread and posted elsewhere in the Off Topic section. Is there any way that I could still get a roll of Kodachrome developed somewhere at all? Sincere thanks for any thoughts.
 
Saied_M said:
Sorry I didn't see this thread and posted elsewhere in the Off Topic section. Is there any way that I could still get a roll of Kodachrome developed somewhere at all? Sincere thanks for any thoughts.
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Unless you have the chemicals to do it yourself, I doubt it.
 
Andrew Rieger said:
Unless you have the chemicals to do it yourself, I doubt it.
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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
 
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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Modern E6 reversal stocks beat Kodachrome for color saturation, grain, and sharpness, but because the Kodachrome process did not involve dye coupler technology, but color dyes added during processing, the dyes were incredibly stable, making Kodachrome the most archival color process ever in dark storage. Kodachrome slides from the 1940's can look today as rich as the day they were processed, whereas Ektachrome slides from the 1970's are often red-shifted today due to the fading of the cyan and yellow dyes over time.

There was also a textural difference with Kodachrome colors due to the lack of color dye clouds.

Sure, besides the archival advantage, most of this is nostalgia -- Kodachrome was the first full 3-color process available to the public. The only other full 3-color process in the 1930's was 3-strip Technicolor / dye transfer printing, which was being used in Hollywood for movie production and involved shooting three b&w negatives simultaneously in one camera. I mean, there was some other color processes at the time, most either being very complicated to shoot or to project, or were 2-color.
 
Interesting...I didn't realize the K14 process was more archival. I'd just never heard such great things about Kodachrome 64 and never had much desire to try it. I wish I had, though, now that it's too late, of course.

I have only heard amazing things about Technicolor dye transfer prints, on the other hand, from someone who used to watch them regularly.
 
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Kodakchrome is still alive even like a digital style effect by DxO FilmPack>>>

And I like it a lot!!!!

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cheers2:

DxO_FilmPack_01.jpg

Shot on Canon 7D with Nikon 14-24mm zoom and processed in Kodakchrome style effect by DxO FilmPack>>>
 
What blows my mind, and unless I'm sorely missing something, why do they not make plugins like this for video editing platforms? Somebody could make a killing with this if it were adaptable to FCP.



Sanjin Jukic said:
Kodakchrome is still alive even like a digital style effect by DxO FilmPack>>>

And I like it a lot!!!!

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cheers2:

DxO_FilmPack_01.jpg

Shot on Canon 7D with Nikon 14-24mm zoom and processed in Kodakchrome style effect by DxO FilmPack>>>
Click to expand...
 
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