Author Topic: farewell kodachrome old friend.. (Read 8263 times)

Squat · « **on:** June 22, 2009, 20:53 »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090622/ap_on_re_us/us_kodachrome_s_demise

the news is sad though inevitable. i had many great images during my formative years as a freelance photographer with this film. i am surprise it lasted this long , way after i had retired my Nikon Fs , Olympus OM2, Gossen Luna, Sekonic,etc..

even more surprised is how long this old friend lasted till today. i guess in many countries they must still be using film format even after digital became worth a changeover.

i would have loved to continue with film format, 35mm to 4by5 , if i had the money as there is something organic about them.
the digital format is fast, cheap, and no doubt safer for your lungs ; no more darkroom to breath in the nasty chemicals,etc. and of course, the ability to edit on the run.

but, i remember kodachrome, even way before paul simon dedicated a song to it.
"kodachrome, gives us the nice bright colours..."

farewell old friend.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #1 on:** June 22, 2009, 21:30 »

Yep, sad. When I got my first digital camera back in 2002 my Canon A-1 collected dust. I tried to use both but after a while I just stopped using the A-1.

Video tape will be headed out to pasture pretty soon too.

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #2 on:** June 22, 2009, 21:37 »

Prior to buying my 1Ds I bought several bricks of film thinking I would slowly transition to digital. Ha, I didn't shoot a single roll from the day I unpacked the Canon. I was very surprised at this. Still have a couple hundred rolls of film in the freezer.

puravida · « **Reply #3 on:** June 22, 2009, 21:41 »

Kodachrome rocked for me . If only we get a digital equal to it. O well, everything comes to past . Many of my Kodachrome slides are still in great shape, outlasting the Agfa, Ekta, and Fuji -chromes.

Graffoto · « **Reply #4 on:** June 22, 2009, 22:38 »

I think I'm gonna curl up in the corner in a fetal position and cry in my beer

Squat · « **Reply #5 on:** June 22, 2009, 23:21 »

Quote from: nosaya on June 22, 2009, 22:38

I think I'm gonna curl up in the corner in a fetal position and cry in my beer

i guess it does make you feel like you've lost an old dear and constant companion who came with us for many memorable hours, doesn't it? i literally "grew up" with kodachrome.
as a matter of fact, i think even the way i "see" digital images ie. how i post process digital images and color correct them,etc... could well be "conditioned" by my preference for those Kodachrome tonal inherent characteristics.

digiology · « **Reply #6 on:** June 22, 2009, 23:33 »

yeah I am all misty eyed...

antoniodalbore · « **Reply #7 on:** June 23, 2009, 04:09 »

Sad but inevitably news...

I still keep the best of my film-times properly archived and filed in a dark room with dehumidifier always on.

The problem with the materials of the film-age is: where to store them without spending a fortune???

Cheers!

madelaide · « **Reply #8 on:** June 23, 2009, 05:33 »

I didn't use Kodakchrome because they were not processed in Brazil. Maybe pros had a way to do it, but labs in general, even Kodak labs, would only send it to the USA for processing, what was of course too expensive.

I miss Velvia instead, and I believe it is still manufactured.

Lcjtripod · « **Reply #9 on:** June 23, 2009, 07:26 »

I still have two 36 exp. rolls of Kodachrome, outdated five years ago. ....... Just don't have the heart to throw it away.

I have scanned all of my film and saved them to DVD's and place them in a safe deposit box at our bank. Sold all my film cameras for nearly nothing. 100% digital now.

Goodbye Film. May you rest in peace.

-Larry

lisafx · « **Reply #10 on:** June 23, 2009, 09:18 »

God, that really is a bummer. They are finally taking our kodachrome away.
(not that I ever used it, but I sure did love the song

)

MAF · « **Reply #11 on:** June 23, 2009, 10:28 »

I was another velvia user but must agree that I sure do love the song - don't take my kodachrome away.

By the way, yea I'm pretty new to this group - have been lurking for the most part up until recently.

puravida · « **Reply #12 on:** June 23, 2009, 10:49 »

Quote from: Lcjtripod on June 23, 2009, 07:26

I still have two 36 exp. rolls of Kodachrome, outdated five years ago. ....... Just don't have the heart to throw it away.

Larry, you should keep them. One day it could be a collectors item for ebay . Esp when the digital generation who does not know what film media was.

Quote from: tan510jomast on June 22, 2009, 23:21

i guess it does make you feel like you've lost an old dear and constant companion who came with us for many memorable hours, doesn't it? i literally "grew up" with kodachrome..

You know what Kodachrome taught us? It taught us discipline. At least for me. It was too expensive to bang away a roll with guess work. You used the sekonic incident and you made sure you got it calibrated. Aftergetting your first 5 rolls of Kodachrome back from lab to see dark slides and brown bagging for a month, you stop guessing and did a lot of homework to know your camera.

Squat · « **Reply #13 on:** June 23, 2009, 10:55 »

Quote from: MAF on June 23, 2009, 10:28

I was another velvia user but must agree that I sure do love the song - don't take my kodachrome away.

By the way, yea I'm pretty new to this group - have been lurking for the most part up until recently.

no need to lurk. come join the band !

welcome MAF !

melastmohican · « **Reply #14 on:** June 23, 2009, 13:49 »

I was always in Velvia camp :-) I wonder who was using film now?

madelaide · « **Reply #15 on:** June 23, 2009, 15:58 »

Quote from: Lcjtripod on June 23, 2009, 07:26

I still have two 36 exp. rolls of Kodachrome, outdated five years ago. ....... Just don't have the heart to throw it away.

I have somegthing like a dozen Velvias and Provias that I purchased for my trip to Africa almost 2 years ago. Then my camera stopped working the night before my departure...

madelaide · « **Reply #16 on:** June 23, 2009, 15:58 »

Quote from: melastmohican on June 23, 2009, 13:49

I was always in Velvia camp :-) I wonder who was using film now?

I might be, had my SLR not gone dead...

goldenangel · « **Reply #17 on:** June 24, 2009, 00:32 »

I still have a few rolls of Velvia from 4 years ago, when the San Francisco airport security people broke my camera on the way to Dominican Republic. I didn't notice it until Miami but I remember them throwing it from the bag on the table. I never got to repair it after.
Now imagine being a week on vacation with only a few disposable cameras

RacePhoto · « **Reply #18 on:** June 25, 2009, 10:08 »

Quote from: antoniodalbore on June 23, 2009, 04:09

Sad but inevitably news...

I still keep the best of my film-times properly archived and filed in a dark room with dehumidifier always on.

The problem with the materials of the film-age is: where to store them without spending a fortune???

Cheers!

I must be old, most of my old slides ate Ekatachrome (sports) I liked the speed and contrast.

People talk about how digital may not be able to be read, CDs and DVDs go bad and how film is "so lasting" HA! Just like Back to the Future we are watching out old prints and slides dissolve before our eyes, but the first crappy digital images I took still have all their 320 x240 resolution.

I have Ekatachrome tungsten 50 in the freezer, now there's some rare old film. Panatomic X and Tri-X too. My last rolls of Fujichrome are going out of date in the bag. Same as others. I bought some just before I went digital and have to make it a point to shoot a roll of film every year, just for entertainment. I never bothered freezing that because I used to run through four or five rolls on a weekend or 200 shots on a vacation. Now it's just going old.

Video tape has already gone into history. Note the prices are going up for blank and they don't seem to make VHS only machines anymore. You have to buy one that's VHS and DVD. Best place I found for VHS tapes is rummage sales where you can get boxes of it for 50c a tape. I still have some Beta machines and was copying my old tapes over to DVD, until I discovered that I didn't really care about most of it.

ps Don't try to clean your Kodachrome slides it destroys them.

Analog shooters are really taking a kick in the butt and losing the availability of materials and places that will process it. Remember those old box cameras and folding cameras... your 35mm SLRs are joining them. At least the 2 1/4 pros still have some hope.

Squat · « **Reply #19 on:** June 25, 2009, 10:26 »

Race, it's true we are all growing old.
Some archive do last, but you have to literally not touch it since taking the shot or processing it. I was surprised to find my 4by5 slides, my 21/4 negatives and even many Kodachrome in good shape. Except that all these were in a kodak film box from day one donkey years ago which I kept as a souvenir . All were shot for my assignments with NYI . Even have some portraits of Sacha Trudeau , our charismatic PM Trudeau's son, as a little boy playing in the trees at Gatineau Park. Hell, I didn't even know he was Sacha and his other brothers with their nurse and bodyguard. SHe didn't look like Margaret, so I never thought about those pictures of the kids until many years later , someone told me they frequent there .
Still , my point to all this rambling of the past is this. We will all lose our nostalgic images if we do not literally treasure it. I didn't shoot E6 as they told me they were not as permanent as K25, K64. Probably due to our own home processing vs Kodak's lab formula for Kodachrome.
But some images do last forever. Only you have to be Ansel Adams, Cecil Beaton, Karsh, W Eugene Smith, Henri Cartier Bresson. You don't even have to worry about keeping them for yourself, a curator will do it for you.
The moral of the story being ... If you want your images to last forever,
GET GOOD, GET GREAT, GET FAMOUS.

Unfortunately for us, it's a bit late. Someone should have told me that when I was I a beginning with my box camera and my home made pin hole experimental camera which we constructed during the first intro lesson on photography, lol.

Still, the hours of great memory and fun photography gave us can still live on . Now if only we stop worrying over micro stock and just shoot for ourselves all over again.
This much, the demise of Kodachrome is teaching me.

P.S.
I still have the little best wishes written for me by Mr Yousuf Karsh which he gave me from a card off his table, when I met him in his Chateau Laurier studio to show him my portfolio after graduating from NYI to move to Ottawa to freelance.
This sits also in another Kodak paper box. A treasure... I want my eulogy to be:
"he met Karsh and kept his card till the last breath " , lol.

puravida · « **Reply #20 on:** June 25, 2009, 10:53 »

Interesting anecdote , tan!

Quote from: tan510jomast on June 25, 2009, 10:26

But some images do last forever. Only you have to be Ansel Adams, Cecil Beaton, Karsh, W Eugene Smith, Henri Cartier Bresson. You don't even have to worry about keeping them for yourself, a curator will do it for you.
The moral of the story being ... If you want your images to last forever,
GET GOOD, GET GREAT, GET FAMOUS.

That being said, I wonder if any micro, or any ,stock photographer will ever make it to the Smithsonian .

RacePhoto · « **Reply #21 on:** June 25, 2009, 19:02 »

Quote from: puravida on June 25, 2009, 10:53

Interesting anecdote , tan!
Quote from: tan510jomast on June 25, 2009, 10:26
But some images do last forever. Only you have to be Ansel Adams, Cecil Beaton, Karsh, W Eugene Smith, Henri Cartier Bresson. You don't even have to worry about keeping them for yourself, a curator will do it for you.
The moral of the story being ... If you want your images to last forever,
GET GOOD, GET GREAT, GET FAMOUS.

That being said, I wonder if any micro, or any ,stock photographer will ever make it to the Smithsonian .

I doubt it, but their photos might? (rim shot)

What is saving our old photos now is digital. Back when paper and film where used, the only way to save something was make another print or photograph the photo and re-touch it. Digital scanning and technology is saving our history and photographs, unlike the negative people who say it's not going to last as long. (oops was that a negative or about negatives?)

My 2 1/4 slides are turning purple and have spots on them. They haven't been exposed to anything unusual, but just haven't aged well. B&W prints that I made myself and I know I stopped and rinsed, are still losing contrast. Pictures my parents took, were processed at the local photo shop, before drug stores got into the business. Those are turning yellow and brown. Not that anyone would care about a photo of my Grandfather sitting in a truck, he wasn't famous.

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Author Topic: farewell kodachrome old friend.. (Read 8263 times)

Squat

PaulieWalnuts

PeterChigmaroff

puravida

Graffoto

Squat

digiology

antoniodalbore

madelaide

Lcjtripod

lisafx

MAF

puravida

Squat

melastmohican

madelaide

madelaide

goldenangel

RacePhoto

Squat

puravida

RacePhoto

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