Well it’s the end of an era as Kodak announced today that the will stop production of Kodachrome film. Kodachrome was introduced in 1935 as one of the earliest color films. Professionals loved it for the colors it produces plus it’s incredible storage lifespan. Kodachrome was different from other transparency and negative color films. Instead of having dye couplers incorporated into the film the dye couplers were introduced during processing enabling the film to give better brighter colors and darker blacks.
Even if you have never used Kodachrome film you’ve seen the results, as almost every National Geographic cover photo from the 1950s to the 1990s was done with Kodachrome film. Even that most famous cover of all of the “Afghan Girl” was Kodachrome. If you want to see some great examples of Kodachrome the Library of Congress has a great set of pics from the 30s & 40s up on flickr. Kodachrome is possibly the only film that has both a song and a national park named after it.
Now you may think that Digital Photography is the cause of Kodachrome’s death. While digital may have put the final nail in coffin Kodachrome has been dying for quite some time. While it give great color it does have some disadvantages. First off it’s slide film not print slide film use to be common for both professional and consumers. Starting in the 70s the consumer started moving away from slides do to both cost of film and processing plus it’s easier to look at prints then slides. Because of the nature of Kodachome it’s a fairly ’slow’ film so it was never good for action shots and worked best under bright outdoor sun. Also because of the way it’s processed Kodachorme is more expense and complex to processes the other slide films. In fact there is only one place left in the United States that still processes Kodachrome. All of these factors plus the fact that Kodachrome is less then 1% of Kodaks business lead up to its cancelation.
Now a lot of people are mourning its passing. But I’m thinking there is a 50/50 chance that some specialty film company licensing the tech from Kodak and producing the film again.
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