Goodbye to Kodachrome

[GrauGeist]

Just heard this on the news, it's a sad day for film photographers...

Kodachrome slide film rolls into history: After 75 years, the darkroom door has closed for good on Kodachrome, the legendary color slide film that helped document suburban America in the 1960s and '70s. This afternoon, the last processing lab in the world, located in Kansas, stopped accepting rolls to be developed.

At Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kan., Val Addis handled rolls of Kodachrome for developing today, the last day the discontinued slide film was accepted. Dwayne's is the last Kodachrome processor in the world, but it's still in business handling print film and other photo services. Noon local time was the deadline for film to reach Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kan., and the small, family-run outfit was swamped with mail. ABC News reports that Dwayne's deliveries today included 500 FedEx packages and 18 bags from the Post Office, almost all of which was Kodachrome.


For a complete lineup of the coverage, check out: The End of Kodachrome

 

[syscom3]

Technology marches on! The VHS cassette is extinct. I wonder whats next?

 

[Lucky13]

Remember the colour photos from the 30's, 40's, 50's.....trains, cars, etc... Is it just me or did the colours seem more.....lively, back in the day?

 

[GrauGeist]

I agree...

Perhaps I'm being nostalgic, but there was a certain quality to the color photos of the pre-war post-war images that you just don't see with modern processing (film or digital)

 

[Lucky13]

Same as with old colour movies..!

 

[Airframes]

Yep, most of those were prints, via internegs, from Kodachrome 25. The 64 ASA Kodachrome wasn't around then. Being a 'slow' film speed, and with mutliple layers of colour dyes, colour couplers and so on, the resolution was superb, and colour quality excellent. Outside of the USA, only Kodak plants were allowed to process the film, as the processing was very critical, and needed to be the same quality everywhere in the World, mainly for professional / commercial users.
If I had a £ for every roll I handled during my time with the 'Big Yellow Box', I'd be a very rich man!
So, I wonder what's happening at the Rochester, NY, plant now?

 

[evangilder]

They took my Kodachrome away...

Sad to see it go, but it's a sign of the times. It is possible to get deep, rich colors with digital, you just have to work at it a bit.

 

[RabidAlien]

First infrared film, now slide....'tis a dark day indeed.

 

[Shinpachi]

What's going on abouth the digital film?
Anybody know?

 

[Njaco]

They took my Kodachrome away...

Sad to see it go, but it's a sign of the times. It is possible to get deep, rich colors with digital, you just have to work at it a bit.

"I got a Nikon camera......"

Sad to see as it sits on the heap of vinyl records and rotary phones.

 

[Gnomey]

Real shame to see it go, but understandable too. Some fantastic photographic moments have been recorded with it.