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10 years since the end of Kodachrome
Author: As the world turns
Date: 12-10-2020 - 10:50
Kodachrome sales have dropped steadily for the past 20 years. Kodachrome in 120, K25, and K200 were all discontinued previously because of that fact.
The development process is so large and complicated that the available number of labs had dwindled to one.
Yes, only one lab in the whole world is still running a K14 line.
There just isn’t any way around these things and despite all the loving words so many photographers use to describe Kodachrome, none of these facts have changed any in recent years.
It’s hard to deny that a film emulsion has lost some of its relevancy when the photographer who took one of the most iconic photographs in the world on Kodachrome (Steve McCurry ‘Afghan Girl’) essentially says
“Yeah, Kodachrome was great back in the day. But I used an E-6 film for the follow up shot 17 years later because today’s films are better”.
Plus, this doesn’t even get into the inefficiency (for Kodak) of having one orphan product that has to be made differently and uses chemicals in processing that no other product uses.
Chemicals that were easy to create and dispose of in the 1950’s when Kodachrome was king, but that have gotten harder and harder to deal with as environmental regulations have gotten tougher over the years.
At this point, it doesn’t make any sens for Kodak or for film lovers to have Kodachrome taking resources and time away from other more popular films or R&D for anything new.
So yes, this news sucks. It’s really too bad that we have finally ended up at this place in history where a film like Kodachrome finally has to say goodbye. But like I stated before, we all knew this day was coming.
Beartooth Bob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe better to blame environmental regs. Read
> several times that disposal of used chemicals was
> a big factor in the closing of the last labs.
The development process is so large and complicated that the available number of labs had dwindled to one.
Yes, only one lab in the whole world is still running a K14 line.
There just isn’t any way around these things and despite all the loving words so many photographers use to describe Kodachrome, none of these facts have changed any in recent years.
It’s hard to deny that a film emulsion has lost some of its relevancy when the photographer who took one of the most iconic photographs in the world on Kodachrome (Steve McCurry ‘Afghan Girl’) essentially says
“Yeah, Kodachrome was great back in the day. But I used an E-6 film for the follow up shot 17 years later because today’s films are better”.
Plus, this doesn’t even get into the inefficiency (for Kodak) of having one orphan product that has to be made differently and uses chemicals in processing that no other product uses.
Chemicals that were easy to create and dispose of in the 1950’s when Kodachrome was king, but that have gotten harder and harder to deal with as environmental regulations have gotten tougher over the years.
At this point, it doesn’t make any sens for Kodak or for film lovers to have Kodachrome taking resources and time away from other more popular films or R&D for anything new.
So yes, this news sucks. It’s really too bad that we have finally ended up at this place in history where a film like Kodachrome finally has to say goodbye. But like I stated before, we all knew this day was coming.
Beartooth Bob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe better to blame environmental regs. Read
> several times that disposal of used chemicals was
> a big factor in the closing of the last labs.
