Talk:Kodachrome

Other countries

I just added this to the section on prepaid processing:

In other countries, the price of Kodachrome film continued to include processing by Kodak.

I know this from personal experience buying Kodachrome in Canada, the UK, Australia, and some countries in continental Europe. But I don't know about the rest of the world, only the countries I've been to. Can anyone cite a source as to whether any countries other than the US prohibited the price of the film from including processing? If so, this should go in the article.

Also, when I bought Kodachrome film in the US and took it to a photofinisher in Canada, they always sent it to Kodak for processing (at my expense, of course). Combined with the policy that the sale price of the film included processing, this suggests to me that independent photo labs capable of processing Kodachrome only ever existed in the US. But that's only my deduction; again, if a source exists that covers this, it would be worth mentioning in the article. --174.94.31.124 (talk) 08:33, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

@174.94.31.124: There used to be many such processors in other countries, but they were shut down over time. See Kodachrome#Decline - Denimadept (talk) 18:21, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Ever since about the 90s, K-Labs were pretty popular with licensees. Any small shop owner could buy and run it. They were about the size of a regular office printer nowadays. There's maybe 3 or 4 left of them worldwide by today, usually owned by enthusiast home processors who wanna resurrect the process, and there's still quite a few unprocessed rolls out there, also considering the fabled long-term stability of the stock. It's only been a bit over 15 years. Given good storage conditions, the most recent remaining rolls should be good for a bit more of another decade in the freezer at the least to still get decent results from processing until it's gonna become only processable as B/W negative.

On top of that, one Australian (Frizza), Kelly Shane-Fuller in the US, and one Brit (Adrian Cousins) have by now even managed to build their own processing machines, replacing globally unavailable processing chemicals with substitutes they're ordering directly from China. I think Frizza managed his first K40 color process somewhere around 2010-12, Kelly Shane-Fuller around six to seven years ago, and Cousins maybe two or three years ago. Thing is, Mr. Frizza demands truly outrageous prices per roll with a minimum order of 5 or 10 or so, while Mr. Cousin's prices hover somewhere in the 4-digit domain (where he's mainly citing the hard work, rather than the Chinese prices, but in any case, he's the only one who can even do movie Kodachrome). Out of all the three of them, Kelly Shane-Fuller definitely has the lowest prices, something like in the low two digits per roll, but he's offering the service only around Spring or Summer every few years. --2003:DA:CF13:B469:591C:25F4:3F79:3E62 (talk) 01:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Processing is ridiculous

How was this film able to be commercially viable for so long with this ridiculous and convoluted developing process? Valgrus Thunderaxe (talk) 04:23, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

This is not a general discussion forum. Please confine commentary to actual article improvement. All film processing methods are/were "ridiculous and convoluted", if you think that extremely complex - and brilliant - methods for using chemicals to turn light into a permanent record constitutes 'ridiculous'. I'd recommend having a thorough read-through of Timeline of photography technology, as perhaps you'll be better able to appreciate the matter. But that has nothing to do with improving this article. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 07:29, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I give people the benefit of the doubt on improvement. Since the article doesn't mention it, it is worth discussing. Not that I believe the article should be changed. Yes it is complicated, but if done in large enough scale, it isn't so bad. It is considered not possible for home processing, though. But I did always wonder, Kodak always charged the same for Kodachrome and Ektachrome processing. It would seem more complicated, and so more expensive. I did once get to tour a Kodak processing plant, and the machines are pretty amazing. Gah4 (talk) 12:24, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

The article goes into considerable detail on the complex processing method. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 23:21, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, fun fact: Kodak donated the entire process and patents into the public domain by around 2015. That's how certain they are it's never gonna come back, while also at the same time acknowledging the high demand it still is in. The hard part is to find all of the PDF sources buried deeply within their website, scattered all over the place on there, and on Wayback. I may still have a heavily personally annotated TXT link list somewhere. Compiled it all by myself, but not for myself. I always knew I was doing it for chemistry and processing wizards I didn't know yet at the time. Around the early 2010s, former Kodak engineer PE kept replying to all the calls for help reaching him on the APUG forums, "Give me a two-digit amount of millions and maybe 5 entirely unskilled trainees, and I'll produce you the first working strip of K25 in decades within a few months' time". Sadly, he passed away around 2020. Anyways, I keep hearing the hardest part to figure it out, even if you have the entire documentation, is a huge background in either organic or anorganic chemistry, one out of the two.

Anyways, it was quite a frustrating position for PE to be in: Ever since 2005, he had people come up to him every few days, demanding him to help with processing knowledge. The people would then disappear and never actually managed to do it. The very first sign anybody had managed to do the impossible was Frizza's 2009 or 2010 post entitled, "Hello, I can process Kodachrome. Anybody interested in this place?" A handful of people immediately got excellent processes from him, but few people ever managed to afford it. --2003:DA:CF13:B469:591C:25F4:3F79:3E62 (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The thing is, once you build the machine to do it, then it isn't hard at all. Keeping the machine running might be harder. There are more chemical steps, and so more chemicals to make and keep track of. I suspect it costs more, but no-one will say that. Gah4 (talk) 01:11, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually...whenever I'm listening to one of Adrian's lectures, he always sounds like he doesn't need to change anything. He just uses the substitute chemicals, and that's it. I think he says it's why he's not getting up to 100% Kodak standards, only 95% or so, because it's just not the right stuff. --2003:DA:CF13:B469:591C:25F4:3F79:3E62 (talk) 02:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

National Geographic were using it as their main stock until the very end, in spite of fierce competition by Velvia even in their own house. Besides that, the main customers since around the late-90s were probably the Super8 crowd. Keep in mind each S8 cart holds way more film than even a regular large-format box. --2003:DA:CF13:B469:591C:25F4:3F79:3E62 (talk) 01:07, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

AGFA somebody?

It may be not seem that way in the US, but Agfa was the sole competitor on the consumer market that both wanted to establish for colour film. It is not a coincidence that Agfacolor(-Neu) came out, too, in 1936 (w ad campaign at the 1936 Olympics). Unfortunately, in the article Agfa is mentioned just once among others. It is ahistorical in that way. (Whereas parts of the text are redundant.) MenkinAlRire 16:12, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Skin tone

I'd like to see this article cover the fact that Kodak's photographic standards, for many years – including the time period when Kodachrome would have been most used, and especially since it is considered the "gold standard" for skin tones – were, as per the Shirley card, only judged against white skin tones. I've found an NPR article that would be relevant for the standards Kodachrome was judged against, and a a Priceonomics article on the subject as well, which explicitly mentions Kodachrome – New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, when filming in Mozambique, refused to use Kodachrome, as he considered it racist due to its inadequacy of application to anyone not white. (Even more egregious is the fact that they only started reconsidering how the film handled darker colours and skin tones when chocolate manufacturers and furniture companies complained.)

This article mentions skin tone presently in the 'History' section: "The plates were then assembled emulsion to emulsion, producing transparency that was capable of surprisingly good (for a two-colour process) colour rendition of skin tones in portraits." It seems like a very missed opportunity to point out that Kodachrome was only "surprisingly good" if you happened to be white. —Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 14:07, 22 June 2024 (UTC)