Nothing comes even close to Kodachrome / Ilfochrome

[cliveh]

The high contrast of Kodachrome was not easy to handle with Cibachrome printing. Anyway, both are gone.

Today I scan my Kodachrome slides and send the file to a professional laser printer. The results are okay, but the resolution of these digital prints on RA4 RC paper is inferior compared to Cibachrome or older analogue prints.

However, at the wall the digital prints look good enough, they are pretty cheap, and I don't need to give the original slides out of my home.

And yes, I miss Kodachrome! The colours and the resolution are outstanding!

View attachment 394331
Goa, India, 1990.
Rollei 35 LED.
Kodachrome 25.
Canon Powershot s110 from light table


Portugal 1987.
Rollei 35 LED
Kodachrome 64
Plustek Opticfilm 7300

Sanug, that picture taken in Goa is wonderful, why not post it on the gallery?

 

[Taylor Nankervis]

There must have been a few more, because there were at least two in Canada - possibly three.

In Australia, processing was in Melbourne at the long-gone Coburg factory where Kodachrome for the local market was said to be produced. This is why the turnaround during 'Peak Kodachrome' (70s-early 2000s) was around 2 days compared to 4-5 elsewhere). It was possible to collect your 'little yellow box' at the counter around the back during specific hours, served by a tall gent in a white coat, hairnet and the red and yellow Kodak logo embroidered on the left chest pocket

Another contracted processing outlet in Melbourne (Bond or LaTrobe Colour??). Sydney, forerunner of VisionGraphics (can't recall the name), then VisionGraphics took over when the Coburg factory went, others dropped out and continued until the end of Kodachrome. All up, 4 or so facilities for processing in Australia. Screams and howls of despair echoed from clubrooms and professional offices where Kodachrome was the decades-long staple of photography. The demise really was a cathartic, teary moment in time.

For a couple of years there was an intensely enterprising, scientific crusade to have Kodachrome processed privately in Sydney by a lab owner; the success of that experiment has been lost to time, with the greatest difficulty being time and cost, but especially of bringing the colour to Kodachrome in the processing.

I cherish my thousands of Kodachrome slides as they are the very real and tangible rungs on the ladder from my earliest efforts with a camera (1977); the subject quality is amusing compared to the bigger, very serious endeavours that came in next few decades. Photography is going downhill. We don't have more, but much, much less.

 

[Taylor Nankervis]

The high contrast of Kodachrome was not easy to handle with Cibachrome printing. Anyway, both are gone.

This is a remark more commonly applied to photographs shot on Velvia (50, 100 and the widely-derided Velvia 100f). PKL/PKR was better for scenes containing a lot of key-red (as described in a later post in this thread). Too often as an IC printer I was presented with 35mm/MF slides (mostly poorly exposed 35mms) that were so contrasty that no amount of manipulation in the darkroom could bring up an acceptable result from images that were simply over and above the contrast range for the IC media to handle (CPSK/CPSK1).

If Ilfochrome Classic was still here today, 35mm would be the least favoured format that would be recommended to use for that print media.

 

[wiltw]

I used to shoot Velvia on medium format, and selective photos would get printed by me on Cibachrome/Ilfochrome paper. The choice of photos that printed well was more limited than what would project spectacularly (or look good on the light table) but the ones that worked were oh so glorious at 11 x 14" or 16 x 20" size! I so miss those days...I strongly regret the loss of color emulsions and processes like Cibachorme that we will never again see due to environmental concerns. Those Cibachrome printing darkroom sessions were some of the most cherished moments in 60 years in photography for me!

 

[brbo]

I don't think most photographers really grasp how absolutely vital motion picture use of film is, and always has been, to still film photography. Without "Hollywood" using film and the infrastructure, think about acetate base, chemistry, silver nitrate etc.

Very rough estimate would be about half (at best) of Kodak's still picture business.

 

[koraks]

I don't think most photographers really grasp how absolutely vital motion picture use of film is, and always has been, to still film photography. Without "Hollywood" using film and the infrastructure, think about acetate base, chemistry, silver nitrate etc.

Silver nitrate is a fairly common chemical; I expect that only a small fraction of the worldwide trade is related to photography. Cessation of motion picture use of film would have virtually no impact on the silver nitrate trade. Acetate is likewise a common material, although a film base evidently is product specific.

I doubt motion picture is as essential as you make it out to be. Foma and Harman seem to be doing quite good business and neither has a very big profile in the motion picture world (Foma has some footing there, but incomparable to Eastman Kodak). There may be a bit of a case for color film, although I suspect this translates at best in some economies of scale and scope, making the products slightly more affordable (less expensive) than they would otherwise be. But there's no way of telling to what extent motion picture business really has such an effect, also in the light of other activities (non-photographic production of materials by Eastman Kodak) that can (and will) introduce similar economies of scale and scope.

The problem is that most photographers (including myself) simply cannot grasp what the impact of the motion picture business is on still photography products, for the simple reason that we have zero insight into accounting figures of the involved manufacturers. Arguably, given how financial control works in corporations, it's difficult for Eastman Kodak themselves to figure this out exactly. The cynic in me would state that the financial impact of the motion picture film is exactly as big as you want it to be; it's a matter of adjusting a couple of assumptions w.r.t. cost control in the Excel sheet so that the outcome matches the message you want to get out there.

 

[mshchem]

Simple fact is Eastman Kodak is not configured to produce film without the cinema film business. Volume is essential.

 

[wiltw]

I don't think most photographers really grasp how absolutely vital motion picture use of film is, and always has been, to still film photography. Without "Hollywood" using film and the infrastructure, think about acetate base, chemistry, silver nitrate etc.

The affect may actually be far LESS than any of us think! Since 2016 over 90% of major films were shot on digital video. In 2020, only 19 movies shot in film. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls096303253/
So motion picture industry is apparently not causing creation of great new emulsions, or perpetuation of quality processing facilities and processes, nor is it contributing that much into economy of volume in production.

I fear that we live in the 'dark ages' of digital storage, and many fine movies shot in recent decade will become LOST to the world, since digital data storage is turning out to be far less PERMANENT than imagined. The music industry put so very much on digital storage in the 1990's and have recently discovered that 20% of the stuff is already unretrievable due to the lack of permanence of most digital media to date.

 

[MattKing]

In 2020, only 19 movies shot in film. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls096303253/

2020 was a bad year to use as a comparator, due to a certain pandemic.
Among the films nominated for Oscars this year, Anora and The Brutalist were two of the motion pictures shot on film.
As best as I can understand, the motion picture industry still uses a significant portion of Eastman Kodak's coating capacity.

 

[wiltw]

2020 was a bad year to use as a comparator, due to a certain pandemic.

Good point. Yet only 24 major films released in 2018 were shot on 35mm, a pre-COVID year. And only 24 in 2022. 2023 was an improvement.

 

[MattKing]

A lot of the coating time relates to intermediate film stocks and materials used for archiving.
There is even a little bit of coating time devoted to projection print stock.
Historically, of course, the majority of film coated actually was projection print stock - miles and miles and miles of it!

 

[wiltw]

Historically, of course, the majority of film coated actually was projection print stock - miles and miles and miles of it!

And since the economies of distribution in digital format drives so much, it is harder and harder to even find theaters that continue to use film projectors, further aggravating the issue. It seems that only 2% still use film projection.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

A lot of the coating time relates to intermediate film stocks and materials used for archiving.
There is even a little bit of coating time devoted to projection print stock.
Historically, of course, the majority of film coated actually was projection print stock - miles and miles and miles of it!

I wonder how much more theatre tickets would be today if everything was still with film projection?

 

[George Mann]

Do not bother to waste your time.

Such a noble cause should never be seen as a waste of time!

 

[mshchem]

The really good news is there's no one making a new minilab machine. Of course as long as you can do your own IT support (IT means computer stuff, right?) There's still parts machines out there, right?

I'm just going to hope.

 

[koraks]

Simple fact is Eastman Kodak is not configured to produce film without the cinema film business. Volume is essential.

What does that mean, specifically, to be "not configured to produce film without the cinema film business"? What kind of 'configuration' parameters do you mean? How are they cinema-specific, or somehow cinema-dependent? What would a Kodak 'configuration' look like had it been for still film only?

 

[foc]

The really good news is there's no one making a new minilab machine. Of course as long as you can do your own IT support (IT means computer stuff, right?) There's still parts machines out there, right?

I'm just going to hope.

This company in the USA specialises in minilab whole and parts.

Serranorey

 

[Sirius Glass]

Such a noble cause should never be seen as a waste of time!

A more noble cause would be bringing back HIE, and that is not going to happen either.

 

[Samu]

And since the economies of distribution in digital format drives so much, it is harder and harder to even find theaters that continue to use film projectors, further aggravating the issue. It seems that only 2% still use film projection.

Yes, I understand that it is cheaper this way, and doing everything digitally after scanning the camera negative even contributes to this, in my opinion, we also lost much because of that. Almost all of the Hollywood movies are very heavily eited in post production - up to a point which would not be possible without digital editing. And I am not speaking only about special effects. I mean that the film is scanned as an extremely flat, and is then colored by computer. Very little of the characteristics of the film remain. Yes. I know that even in the heyday of film, movies were colored in post, but the question is the amount of editing. It is evrn hard to find an old film, which has not been digitally remastered to "better than original".

 

[MattKing]

Yes, I understand that it is cheaper this way, and doing everything digitally after scanning the camera negative even contributes to this, in my opinion, we also lost much because of that. Almost all of the Hollywood movies are very heavily eited in post production - up to a point which would not be possible without digital editing. And I am not speaking only about special effects. I mean that the film is scanned as an extremely flat, and is then colored by computer. Very little of the characteristics of the film remain. Yes. I know that even in the heyday of film, movies were colored in post, but the question is the amount of editing. It is evrn hard to find an old film, which has not been digitally remastered to "better than original".

Oppenheimer was edited substantially using the traditional methods - using 70mm intermediates too.

 

[mshchem]

This company in the USA specialises in minilab whole and parts.

Serranorey

Nothing for processing film

 

[mshchem]

I suspect that places like Walmart that offer inexpensive film process and scans are processing film, the old school large volume method of joining individual rolls together, end on end until they have a large spool. Then it runs through a continuous machine (think movie film processing) then it is scanned and, in the case of Walmart the negatives are discarded. Dip and dunk labs are relatively abundant, not around here.
I love my Jobo, but there's no way anyone could make a living with one.

So the miles and miles of movie film, camera negatives, and probably 50 times as much intermediate films make a huge difference in the COLOR ecosystem, and I would wager black and white too. I bet Ilford would agree that what's good for Kodak cinema film is good for Ilford.

Dip and dunk machines are available new thank goodness!

 

[foc]

Nothing for processing film

Yes there is. I had a little search and this popped up.

Film Processors

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Simple fact is Eastman Kodak is not configured to produce film without the cinema film business. Volume is essential.

Hollywood made a deal with Kodak years ago to buy a certain amount of film for movie production every year to assure Kodak they could make a profit on keeping the process going. I don't know how that fits into overall film production economics. Hollywood buying the film regardless may account for why some producers use it rather than going digital, since it''s paid for anyway. Not sure how the deal is structured and which producers are part of the deal. Matt?

 

[MattKing]

Matt?

I've no specific information on this.
I do know that the marketing and customer service part of Eastman Kodak that deals with direct sales of motion picture film is tiny and not particularly well resourced.