Nibble 27 - Kodachrome

Still working on the rest of this nibble. 

This Nibble (in full intended resolution) on Flickr

The next part (covering its various forms and formats) is 30 x 40 inches big.

(the original version is 18000 x 24000 pixels!).

It's the most ambitious nibble I have made so far.

So its no way you'll be able to read it clearly here on blogger. So I suggesting reading it on Flickr.

References and Further info

Photography: The Definitive Visual History - Tom Ang (Dorling Kindersley, 2014, ISBN: 978-1-4093-4645-6)

https://filmcolors.org

The BKSTS Illustrated History of Colour Film - Grant Lobban (British Kinematograph, Sound and Television Society, 2004)

https://www.kodak.com/en/company/page/history - Kodak's official company history

Chronology of [movie] Film - Kodak

George Eastman: American Experience - David Lindsay (PBS)

A BRIEF HISTORY OF Kodachrome - Claire Suddath (Time, 2009)

Kodachrome – the King is Dead - anatomyfilms.com

https://kodachromia.fandom.com/wiki/Kodachromia_Wiki

Keppler’s Vault 82: 50 Years of Kodachrome - Mike Eckman (2020) - This includes a very informative special feature, celebrating Kodachrome's 50th birthday, form Modern Photography magazine (October 1985) .... and an article about the Launch of Kodachrome X in 1963.

The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs - Henry Gilmer Wilhelm & Carol Brower (Preservation Publishing Company, 1993, ISBN: 9780911515008)

Coatings on Kodachrome and Ektachrome Films

http://trainutz.com/rcMOUNT.shtml - A web page showing how the Kodachrome slide has changed over the years for those wanting to date their slides. 

Andreas Hünnebeck has a personal website, featuring a page about his film that was buried for years.

The Legend of Kodachrome Flat - Dan Westergren (National Geographic, 2009)

Dwayne's Photo's website

Angela's Post: Kodachrome Part 3: Meet Dwayne's Photo - (S+ART, 2011)

The Kodachrome Project Gallery - Flickr

Kodachrome Flickr group - A showcase of photos captured on Kodachrome 

In 1935 Kodak introduced a new means of capturing images in colour. Kodachrome film captured colour more vividly and accurately than previous colour photographic methods …. and it proved to be very long-lasting. As well as been easy to use, Kodachrome proved popular with photographers, to the point that “Kodachrome” became a household name. But it was complicated to process, so when easier colour film processes came, sales for Kodachrome began to fall. For 74 years, Kodachrome was one of the longest-lasting analogue commercial film processes, shaping how most of the 20^th century was recorded visually. Technologically-speaking, Kodachrome led to developments into later colour film systems. But its biggest impact has been culturally, with multiple references, including a Paul Simon song, and millions of colour slides and home movies of holidays of years past.

 

“Kodachrome had more poetry in it, a softness, an elegance. With digital photography, you gain many benefits [but] you have to put in post-production. [With Kodachrome,] you take it out of the box and the pictures are already brilliant.” – Steve McCurry (photographer)

 

“Seems as if she could walk right out of the picture” – 1939 ad

“It had a great color palette. It wasn’t too garish. Some films are like you’re on a drug or something.” – Steve McCurry (photographer)

 

Kodachrome has a great reputation for recording colour that looked natural and vibrant. It also produced images of a high contrast that made them have impact when a slide was projected. It’s no wonder The New York Times called Kodachrome (in 1988) “perhaps the greatest film invention of the century.”

 

“Don’t let your greens get the blues.” – 1985 ad

Kodachrome has proven to keep its colour for ages. Before Kodak simplified its process in 1938, Kodachrome’s colour almost always faded. But after 1938 it has proven long-lasting, evident in the millions of Kodachrome slides and movies in attics and archives worldwide that still look they were made yesterday, as of 2021. It has been calculated that it’ll take about 185 years for Kodachrome to lose 20% of its yellow dye (the least stable of its dyes). However, you can make Kodachrome’s colour fade quickly by subjecting it to bright light for a long time. About one hour in a projector is enough to ruin it. Other films last longer in a projector.

 

Unprocessed Kodachrome film has proven to survive years between exposure and processing. In 1989 Andreas Hünnebeck had a bag of unprocessed film stolen from his car in Canada. That bag ended up abandoned a few metres from the road in a Canadian rain forest for 17 years. Then, that part of the forest was cleared and, in 2008, was found buried under 20 cm of earth. Five rolls of film were found intact and were sent to Andreas (whose address was written on a piece of paper in each roll’s plastic canister). Apart from colour issues, the photos were recognizable.

All Colours from just three

They are two ways to create colour – adding light together from primary sources and subtracting light reflecting off surfaces. In additive processes (as used to TV screens), red, green and blue lights are shun close together, merging in the distant viewer’s eye to make the desired colour. In subtractive processes (as used in colour printing) a combination of yellow, cyan and magenta pigments are mixed to any desired colour on the surface, absorbing the right amounts of red, green or blue light in white light (think rainbows) to create them. Kodachrome is a subtractive process.

 

Colour before Kodachrome

James Clark-Maxwell created the first colour photograph in 1861. He took three black-and-white photos of a tartan bow, each in front of a red/blue/green filter, which were then projected together to form a colour image. This proved that all you need to capture every colour was just red, blue and green. This is the basis of all colour image technology.

The first practical colour photo system was Autochrome, developed by the Lumière brothers (of cinema fame). Launched in 1907, it proved popular, despite its long exposure time. However, because it required the use of colour filters in the camera, colours can be misaligned in the final photo. Also, the resulting slides were not that transparent, absorbing 70-80% of the light shun through it, meaning that projectors needed very bright lights, especially for large projections. Also, if you did project it large, you’ll lose resolution, due to its “potato starch grain” filter pattern. Its like seeing the halftone dot pattern on a printed colour photograph on paper when you look at it closer. These problems also plagued many later colour photo systems, such as Dufaycolor (released in 1932).

In 1912, Rudolf Fischer filed a patent for a “Process of making photographs in natural colors” where emulsions formulated to capture red, green and blue light are sandwiched in the same surface. He followed this with a 1913 patent for a “Process of making colored photographs,” which describes how colour could be created as part of the film development process. But dye couplers at the time had the habit of wondering out of their intended layers in the film, during and after processing, ruining the desired image. Despite this, his work led to early colour movie films, like Prizmacolor and Technicolor.

Kodak’s Quest for Color

Founder of Kodak, George Eastman, thought (correctly) that colour photography would mostly be used by amateurs. If given a choice, most people would want their photos in colour. So, the company started a quest for a simple colour capture system that can capture the whole visible spectrum. In 1910, George established a colour laboratory at Kodak Park, under the leadership of MIT graduate Emerson Packard. The Lumière brothers offered to sale George their successful lantern-slide business. But when he visited their Paris offices, he found a family run business in disarray. George, a prim bachelor with strict business standards, left in disgust. When he returned, he instructed Emerson to proceed as best he could without infringing on Lumière’s patents.

The first “Kodachrome”

The first product called “Kodachrome” was created by John George Capstaff in 1913. His version was a subtractive two-colour process that captured blue-green and red-orange. It captured images on two glass plate negatives, one made of panchromatic emulsion and a red filter, the other made using an emulsion insensitive to red light. The two plates can be exposed as a “bipack” (a sandwich of the two emulsions with a red filter in between), reducing the need for multiple exposures or a special camera. After processing, the silver images are bleached out with chemicals that hardened the bleached parts of the gelatin. Dye is absorbed by the unhardened gelatin. Red-orange dye is used on the blue-green negative and blue-green dye is used on the red-orange negative. This results in a positive image, which captured skin tones very well (for a two-colour process). However, because of the filters and optics needed, it was a slow process, limiting its use. Kodak launched this version of Kodachrome in March 1915 and adapted it for movie film. But initial impressions when demonstrated at the Royal Photographic Society and at the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco were poor. And World War I didn’t help either. In 1930 Fox Film Corp adopted it for a proposed colour film system, made to rival Technicolor, and renamed it Fox Nature Color film. A few movies were shot using it. 

The Two Leos

Leopold Godowsky Jr. (1900-83) and Leopold Damrosch Mannes (1899-1964)

In 1917, two teenaged musicians/physics students named Leopold watched a movie in Prizmacolor (Our Navy) – and were disappointed in its quality. It was so bad that they must have thought “we can do better than that.” And so, they did, beginning a journey into colour that’ll lead to Kodachrome.

 

The two Leos were sons of famous musicians who were schoolmates who were drawn together by their mutual interests in sonatas and the Brownie camera.

 

Leopold Godowsky Jr. was a violinist who also studied physics and chemistry at UCLA. He was first violin for the Los Angeles and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, and performed jointly with his dad Leopold Godowsky, who is considered one of the greatest pianists at his time. He would later marry artist Frances Gershwin, sister of the George Gershwin. In 1922 he give up his orchestral jobs in California and moved back to New York.

 

Leopold Damrosch Mannes was a concert pianist who studied physics at Harvard, where he earned a Pulitzer Music Scholarship and a Guggenheim fellowship to study music composition in Italy in 1926. He is the son of David Mannes, who later founded the Mannes School of Music. Leo would later become its president.

 

After college graduation they reunited in New York, where they worked as musicians while they began experimenting with photography again in their spare time.

The two Leopolds began by trying to make the perfect “additive” process (red, blue, green). They built a three-lens camera and a three-lens projector fitted with red, blue and green filters. But unlike previous three-lens systems, they designed a device in their projector that made it possible to obtain more accurate alinement of the projections, despite potential problems cause by the camera lenses capturing the same scene at slightly different angles. They filed a patent for their “Method and apparatus for producing colored motion pictures” in 1920. It was granted in 1927. Their parents were so impressed by it that they contributed an extra $800 for materials and equipment.

 

They tested their projector at the Rialto Theater, Broadway, with the help of impresario Samuel Roxy Rothafel. In 1921, after testing their system, they concluded that the “additive” process was never going to make great colour. So, they switched to a “subtractive” process, based on chemicals. They began by making a “simple” two-layer material. After considerable effort they managed to make a photographic plate that can record much of the visible spectrum. However, by then they were short on funds and their parents were unwilling to help them further. They were fed up of them using their kitchens and bathrooms!

After been kicked out by their parents, in 1922 they approached their work to George Eastman (who was non-committal) and then, in 1924, Kodak Research Director Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees. Mees offered to provide materials at cost if they would keep him informed of their progress, thus getting their foot in Kodak. Shortly afterward, thanks to a chance meeting by Mannes in Europe while performing in 1922, investment firm Kuhn, Loeb, and Co granted them a loan of $20,000. With those funds, they built their own dedicated lab. By 1931 the duo had filed over 40 patents.

In 1927 Dr. Mees supplied them with double-coated plates, with each layer sensitized to light of different colour. Before, they were making plates using emulsion scraped off black-and-white plates. They then learned about Rudolf Fischer’s work on colour couplers, and realized its true potential. In 1928 Kodak chemists, most notably Dr Leslie Brooker, created dyes that didn’t migrate through the gelatin layers in film. Then the duo developed a controlled diffusion processing system that developed the magenta, yellow and cyan images separately.

In 1929 the loan money ran out. In 1930 Dr Mees visited “the two Leos” and was very impressed with their progress. At the same time, Kodak itself made improvements to colour movie film, but they still lagged behind rival Technicolor, so anything that’ll make them the forefront in colour film would be great for Kodak. Knowing that, and that to make their work a commercial product required more concentrated effort, with professional staff and equipment, Mees invited them to Rochester to work for him in a newly built research facility at Kodak Park. Mees gave them a three-year deadline to develop a commercially viable product. Mees paid off the load and they moved to Rochester in 1931.

The duo hit their stride at Kodak, with access to great facilities, as well as the Eastman School of Music. They quickly became known as “those color experts” at the school and “man and God” at Kodak Park. Music was never far away from them at work. It is said they timed chemical reactions in the lab by playing violin sonatas in their heads or whistling Brahms at two beats to the second, which may have mystified colleagues, wondering what happened to Kodak’s famed efficiency ethic. Things were looking great for the duo.

But the Great Depression hit Kodak in 1932. Kodak (like everyone else then) was cutting costs there and there. The duo concluded that if they were to survive the cost-cutting axe they needed to develop their product as quickly as possible. Dr Mees, who was now a vice president, hoped to aid them by stalling other departments and pressuring the duo for results, with an additional year extension to the deadline. They decided to develop a direct-positive film. After a few months of intense work of a two-colour version, they were able to produce images that were sharper and more brilliant than any previous system. Dr Mees thought it was good enough to sell and got management approval to develop to as a commercial product.

But the duo weren’t happy. They wanted to make a three-colour version of the product. After much arguing, Mees promised to shift form the two-colour version to the three-colour version as soon as its ready. To aid them, Mees organized an all-out research effect to support them. Thanks to unexpected delays in the production of the 2-colour film, and the heroic effort of the entire research team, the three-colour process was perfect just in time. Production immediately switched to the three-colour version and Kodachrome was born.

 

In case the Kodachrome project failed, Kodak had arranged to introduce a substitute colour film based on the Dufaycolor system. Kodak even bought bulk quantities of film base rolls with Dufaycolor screen elements from manufacturer Ilford of England.

 

Coupling is a chemical reaction where a compound, the coupler, combines with an oxidized chemical. In colour film, the dye coupler combines with the oxidized developing agent to create the coloured dye. The structure of the coupler determines the colour of the dye. As conventional silver-halide-based photography uses oxidized developer, creating colour photos can be simplified by just developing the photo like a regular black-and-white photo. Most colour film systems have the couplers in the film. But Kodachrome has them dissolved in the developer.

 

“There is no need any longer for us to pretend that the world is a monochrome and to represent the glorious coloured world in which we live by a grey ghost on the screen.” – Dr C. E. Kenneth Mees, director of Kodak’s Research Labs

 

Initial impressions form amateur and professional photographers (as well as dealers and the press) were euphoric. One described seeing a movie on Kodachrome as follows - “The big screen filled with a motion picture in color – color so clear, unblurred, so utterly natural that my first impression was not of seeing a movie at all. It was more looking out a window at reality …”

 

“House movies in color! Movies which give you a permanent and true record of your sweetheart’s youthful complexion with all its colorful loveliness…” – John Brady, Boston Sunday Post

 

It didn’t take long for amateur photographers to adopt Kodachrome. Faster than many expected. One who did see it was Dr C. E. Kenneth Mees, director of Kodak’s Research Labs. He wagered with the president of Kodak, F.W. Lovejoy, that sales of Kodachrome would overtake that of black and white film within five years. It took less than three years, and Lovejoy paid for a gala dinner for all staff that worked on Kodachrome. However, initially, due to its low sensitivity and high cost, as well as world events at the time (World War II) professional photographers were slow to adopt it. But after World War II it became the standard colour film in photography - period, which can be used to compare others.

 

Until 1944 all Kodachrome film was processed in the Kodak Research Laboratory.

Kodachrome in Physical Form

Kodak sold Kodachrome in multiple forms and formulations over its 74-year lifespan, from Super-8 movie film to 30 x 40-inch Kotavachrome prints, via 35mm slides.

 

First Rolls

Kodak first announced the new Kodachrome to the press on 12^th April 1935. It was officially launched 15^th April 1935, with processing starting the next day. Initially available as 16mm movie “Daylight Type” film, it later came as 8mm movie film in May 1936, and 35mm and 8 exposure 828 roll film for still cameras in September 1936. The original retail price for an 18-exposure roll of Kodachrome 35mm film in 1936 was $3.50 and $1.75 for the 828 version, both prices included development by Kodak.

 

A blue conversion filter was offered for shooting under photoflood lights, but this entailed a loss of effective speed of about 1.5 stops.

 

Kodak introduced the 135 format “daylight loading” disposable film cartridge for its Retina cameras in 1934. As it was also designed to be used in Leica and Contax cameras, it soon became an industry standard.

 

 

16mm Daylight movie (ASA 6) – April 1935

16mm sound movie (ASA 6) – March 1936

16mm Type A movie (ASA 8) – April 1936

8mm Daylight Type movie (ASA 6) – May 1936

35mm Daylight Type (ASA 6) and Type A (ASA 8) photo film – September 1936

828 Daylight Type (ASA 6) and Type A (ASA 8) – September 1936

8mm Type A (ASA 8) cine film – October 1936

Cut sheet film Daylight (ASA 8) and Type B (ASA 10) – October 1938

 

16mm Daylight movie (ASA 10) – 1945

16mm Type A movie (ASA 16) – 1945

8mm Daylight Type movie (ASA 10) – 1945

35mm Daylight Type (ASA 10) and Type A (ASA 16) photo film – 1945

828 Daylight Type (ASA 10) and Type A (ASA 16) – 1945

8mm Type A (ASA 16) cine film – 1945

 

Kodachrome Color Print Material Type D (slide duping film) - 1955

35mm Type F (ASA 12) - 1955

828 Type F (ASA 12) – 1955

Kodachrome Professional film 35mm Type A (ASA 16) – 1956

 

Kodachrome II – February 1961

16mm Daylight (ASA 25) and Type A (ASA 40) – 1961

8mm Daylight (ASA 25) and Type A (ASA 40) – 1961

35mm Daylight (ASA 25) - 1961

828 Daylight (ASA 25) – 1961

Professional 35mm Type A (ASA 40) - 1962

 

Kodachrome-X for 35mm (ASA 64) – December 1962

Kodachrome-X for 126 instamatic cameras – March 1963

Super-8 Type A (ASA 40) – May 1965

Kodachrome-X for 110 instamatic cameras – 1972

 

35mm Daylight (ASA 25) – 1974

35mm Type A (ASA 40) - 1978

35mm Daylight (ASA 64) – 1974

16mm Daylight (ASA 25) – 1974

16mm Type A (ASA 40) – 1974

 

8mm Daylight (ASA 25) – 1974

8mm Type A (ASA 40) – 1974

Super-8 Type A (ASA 40) – 1974

Super-8 Sound Type A (ASA 40) – 1974

126 format Daylight (ASA 64) – 1974

110 format Daylight (ASA 64) – 1974

 

Professional 35mm Daylight (ASA25) – 1983

Professional 35mm Daylight (ASA 64) - 1983

Professional 120 format Daylight (ASA 64) - 1986

 

Professional 35mm Daylight (ASA 200) – November 1986

35mm Daylight (ASA 200) - 1988

 

Cine-Chrome 40A Double Regular 8 mm, tungsten (ASA 40) - 2003

 

The early days of Kodachrome processing allowed for some flexibility. Kodak offered “reprocessing,” where they could try to develop your photos to match a colour sample sent by the customer. One photographer from Texas once mailed to Rochester a flower with his exposed film in the hope Kodak got the colour right.

 

Speed of Kodachrome

The first Kodachrome film sold had a film speed of ASA 6, comparable to Kodak’s Panchromatic black and white film. This went up to ASA 64 by 1962 and ASA 200 in 1986. But it remained relatively slow compared to the competition, which were already making films with a speed of ASA 1000!

 

A note about Film Speed

“Film speed” is the measure of how light sensitive a film is. Photographers need to know the speed of their films because a “slow” film needs a longer exposure to take a picture than a “fast” film. This is why “Daylight” film has a lower speed. Higher speed films are made for use indoors, under artificial light that’s not as bright as sunlight. The ASA (American Standards Association) scale, developed by Kodak, is a linear scale. This means that a film speed of ASA 200 is twice as fast as a film with an ASA of 100.

Since the 1980s, film speed is measured in ISO (International Organization for Standardization), which is basically the same as ASA. In fact, the ISO ratings for all the films mentioned in this nibble can be obtained by just replacing “ASA” with “ISO.”

There is more, but this is plenty of info for now.

 

Kodachrome for all

Kodachrome was available for photographers in 35 mm, 120 (from the mid-1980s), 126 (from 1963), 110 (from 1972), 828 (a format that is basically 35mm film with fewer sprocket holes, which lasted until 1959) and large format sheet film. Sheets came in 4×5, 5×7, 8×10, 11×14, 2.25×3.25, 3.25×4.25, 6.5 cm × 9cm, and 9cm × 12cm. Compared to earlier colour films Kodachrome was far easier to use and delivered much better transparencies that were easier to reproduce. Great for magazine publishers. Kodachrome sheet film was discontinued in December 1955. But that didn’t end nicely, as some professional Kodachrome sheet users even sued Kodak over its discontinuation. But Kodachrome continued to be used in smaller film formats, as its qualities were trivial on larger formats.

 

Kodachrome can be credited for making 35mm cameras popular, due to it been only available as 35mm film for years. Before, many dismissed them as "miniature cameras," or toys, compared to grown-up cameras that used larger film formats.

 

Kodachrome I

Introduced in 1945, Kodachrome 2.0 was about twice the speed of the first Kodachrome. An increased solution temperature from 21°C (70°F) to 26°C (80°F) cut processing time by half, doubling the capacity of existing processing equipment.

 

Kodachrome II

Kodachrome was overhauled, creating Kodachrome II. Launched in February 1961, it was about 2.5 times faster than Kodachrome I. It also offered a softer gradation and was claimed to be “… capable of making sharper pictures with less graininess than the regular Kodachrome film.” Colour was improved to be “more nearly recreate the colors of the original scene.”

 

Kodachrome X

Kodachrome X (launched in December 1962 in 35mm, initially) was a game changer in colour photography. Before, all colour film was slow, requiring long exposure times, limiting its use. With a speed 2.5 times faster than daylight type Kodachrome II, it was now possible to photograph fast moving subjects with the colour and sharpness of Kodachrome. However, to achieve this some compromises were made in quality. It had more grain, higher contrast, poorer sharpness and greater processing variability, compared to Kodachrome II.

 

In March 1974, with the introduction of the K-14 developing system, Kodachrome II and Kodachrome X changed their name to Kodachrome 25 and 64.

 

Kodachrome 25 and 64 Professional (with finer grain for professional photographers) was launched in February 1983.

 

“It is as modern a color film as there is. Constant research has kept the product up-to-date. It still utilizes a color system capable of maximum sharpness, color brilliance, and lack of graininess. Kodachrome film provides a standard against which other films are usually compared.” - Kodak spokesman (1960)

 

“Kodachrome 25 film continues to provide the finest grain, sharpest images of all normal camera-type slide films. Kodachrome 64 is very close to Kodachrome 25 in these ana all other qualities.” – National Geographic (1985)

 

Kodachrome Movies

Kodak initially sold Kodachrome as 16mm movie film. It later came as 8mm, Super 8 (at its launch in 1965) and 35mm movie film. However, Kodachrome 35mm movie film was exclusively sold through Technicolor as their “Technicolor Monopack film.” Technicolor forbid Kodak from selling Kodachrome movie film wider than 16mm as their own product, until their “Monopack Agreement” expired in 1950. The agreement didn’t apply to film for still photography.

Technicolor Monopack film, introduced in 1942, was used to blown up camera footage film to 35mm film for projection. Been just a single film strip instead of three, requiring the use of special cameras with prisms in them, Technicolor Monopack film can be used in regular movie cameras. This proved ideal when filming things that were impossible for the bulky three-strip cameras, like outdoor scenes. In fact, Technicolor (in their 1944 annual report) said that they needed to collaborate with Kodak “… so that the Technicolor Monopack process may gradually supersede the present Technicolor 3-strip process and thus eliminate the necessity of special Technicolor cameras.” 

A 16mm version for use in cameras was also introduced in 1942. It was more successful than the 35mm version (in professional movie cameras) because it was cheaper and its emulsion was more even, producing more acceptable pictures.

 

Movies that used Kodachrome include – Lassie Come Home (1943), Memphis Belle (1944), Thunderhead, Son of Flicka (1945), King Solomon’s Mines (1950) and Stars and Stripes Forever (1952).

 

Kodak offered Kodachrome movie film duplication services from 1938. But tone reproduction quality was marginal, until the release of lower contrasting Kodachrome Commercial Original Cine film in 1946.

 

Other Kodak Colours

Kodak developed other colour film systems after Kodachrome. In 1942, Kodak created the first true colour negative film that allowed colour photos to be printed on paper – Kodacolor. In 1946 Kodak launched Ektachrome – a colour transparency film that photographers can process themselves. In 1950 Eastmancolor movie film was introduced, the first widely successful single strip colour movie film. It’s known under other names (seen in the end credits of movies), like DeLuxe Color, Warnercolor, Metrocolor, Pathécolor, Columbiacolor, etc.

 

Kodachrome Printed

Dr Mees had the idea that most photographers would want to view their colour photos printed to be displayed conveniently. So, he encouraged the development of a Kodachrome-like material for making prints instead of transparencies. Kodachrome reflection “paper,” as it was called, was a white, opaque cellulose acetate base. It was plastic to prevent unwanted coloured spots ruining the image, as well as tearing, delamination and severe staining during processing. Introduced in September 1941, it was advertised as suitable “… for portraiture, advertisers, commercial and industrial concerns, architects, interior decorators, landscape gardeners, and for private use on the walls or tables of the house.” Each cut sheet transparency was masked in order to achieve good tonal reproduction. Although fairly popular, the Kodachrome reflection color print service was discontinued in December 1955, due to Kodacolor and Ektachrome providing easier print making processes.

 

Minicolor Prints for Kodachrome 35mm slides came in sizes 2X (2.25 x 3.25 in) and 5X (5 x 7.5 in).

 

Kodachrome professional prints from sheet film, initially called Kotavachromes, were offered in sizes ranging from 8 x 10 in to 30 x 40 in.

 

Slides

Until 1939, your developed film came back as strips for customers to mount themselves into glass mounts for projection. Initially, slides were mounted in glass. In April 1937 they were given metal frames.

 

“Beginning April 1, miniature camera [35mm] Kodachrome films will be cut into single frames and placed in Kodachrome Ready-Mounts in the laboratory. This service will allow the owner of the film to project it as soon as it has been received from processing.” – Kodak announcement (February 1939)

In 1939 Kodak added a Ready-Mount Service for 35mm Kodachrome film, where the process lab sent back your processed photos in ready-mounted cardboard slides.

 

Designed by Dr H.C. Staehle of Kodak Research Labs, these slides were originally numbered in sequence and had a red border on the side that faced the screen. The new service, which was offered with no extra charge, also included lacquering of the emulsion surface of each slide to protect against “fingermarks” and abrasions. As gelatin hardeners improved to provide scratch resistance, lacquering was discontinued in 1957. This development prevented another problem – moisture getting trapped in the film’s layers, potentially causing fungus growth.

 

Red Plus Slides

In 1974 Kodak was transitioning from Kodachrome II (processed by the K-12 process) to Kodachrome 25/64 (processed by the K-12 process). To indicate which slides were Kodachrome II or not, from 1974 to 1983 a red plus appeared on slides to indicate they are of the newer K-24 processed film. Ones that didn’t were of the old Kodachrome II. The plus disappeared in 1984, when Kodak finally phased out K-12.

 

In the 1960s Kodak thought that cameras can be made to be simpler to use, with one issue been the ability to load film. They launched their first “Instamatic” camera in 1963. These cheap and simple cameras use film stored in easy-to-load cartridges. They were a hit, selling over 50 million by 1970. Initially, Instamatics used the 126 cartridge, containing 35mm wide film. That’s worth noting, if you plan to use such a camera this century.

In 1972 Kodak introduced the narrower 110 cartridge and the Pocket Instamatic camera that uses it. Been pocket-sized, it was a hit too, with Kodak making over 25 million within three years.

 “America’s Storyteller” – Kodak’s ad slogan (1980)

 

Kodak Slide Projectors

“All this beauty on your own home screen…” – 1942 ad

 

Most early slide projectors were cumbersome to use and most were made to project slides made from formats larger than 35mm.

 

Kodak made their first slide projector, the kodaslide, in February 1937. It’s a top-loading model that took one 2x2 inch glass-mounted slide at a time.

 

In February 1939 Kodak introduced the “small and compact” Kodaslide Model 2, which “… was ideal for projecting for small groups in an average room.”

 

The Model 2’s lamp housing was insulated with glass wool to prevent it from getting too hot.

 

Kodak introduced their first automatic slide projector, the Cavalcade Model 500, in 1958. User can now control it manually, by remote or program it.

 

In 1961, they introduced the iconic Carousel projector, with a round tray that can hold 80 slides. It had remote control focusing and operation, as well as a gravity feed.

 

Stereo Kodachrome

In 1953 Kodak began to offer slide mountings for photos taken in stereo. But it wasn’t until 1954 they began to advertise it … along with their newly made Kodaslide stereo viewers. In the end of 1954, Kodak launched their Stereo Camera. Been cheaper and easier to use than pervious stereo cameras (yes, they existed), Kodak’s stereo camera was an instant hit. But the craze for 3D fizzled out as soon as it was released. The camera was made until 1959, Kodaslide stereo viewers continued to be made for a few more years, and slides were mounted until the late-1980s.

 

Early stereo reels for the View-Master (launched in 1939) used Kodachrome.

 

Kodachrome and the press.

“The minute we saw this stuff projected we knew the millennium was here for magazine color reproduction. It had the possibility of almost infinite enlargement.” – Louis Marden, National Geographic

 

Kodachrome found many fans with magazine publishers. With its fine film grain, a Kodachrome image can be blown up to the size of the double page spread with no loss of detail. Also, been available in multiple formats, photographers had more freedom in their subject matter when using Kodachrome, resulting in lots of colourful images of war, nature, science and art.

 

In 1948 the National Geographic Society explored and photographed explored a little mapped area in Utah and found “A Color Photographer’s Paradise.” writer/photographer Jack Breed immortalized it in prose and imagery, published in the September 1949 issue. They named the area Kodachrome Flat, and the name was adopted when the are became a national park in 1962. 

Dye-Free Film

The secret to Kodachrome’s image quality and its longevity is how its developed. Unlike most colour films, the dyes that give colour film its colours are not found in the film itself. It gets added to it during processing. Because of this, there is no unused dye couplers in developed Kodachrome, which helps it keep its colour. Also, it allowed the film to have thinner emulsion layers, causing less light to scatter in the film during exposure, resulting in sharper images.

 

Been basically black-and-white film, Kodachrome can be used and developed like typical black-and-white film to make black-and-white photos. And people have done so, especially since 2010.

 

 

Kodachrome film is thin. It was originally 15 microns thick. Kodachrome II reduced this to about 10 microns. For comparison, Ektachrome film is 22 microns think.

 

“The Kodachrome development process has 14 steps.  It is very complicated and highly automated.  We splice 100 individual customer rolls of 35mm film into a master roll to run on the film processor.  We put the film on at the load end of the processor and it runs through the machine.  The main steps are rem jet bath (the back of Kodachrome film is coated in a black, carbon material called rem jet (the anti-halation layer that must be removed before the film can be developed), rem jet buffer, first developer, cyan re-exposure printer, cyan developer, yellow re-exposure printer, yellow developer, magenta developer, bleach, fix, final wash, dryer.  There is also a wash step after each developer.  The film processor runs at 32 feet per minute.  From the time you put film on at the load end to when it comes off at the take up takes about 45 minutes.” - Grant Steinle, from Dwayne’s Photo, the last Kodachrome process lab

 

Developing Kodachrome

Developing Kodachrome film is a complicated process. The process had a few revisions over the years, which made it simpler. The process pictured is the K-14 process, introduced in 1974 … and used to develop the last Kodachrome images.

1.       Backing removal: An alkaline bath softens the cellulose acetate phthalate binder. A spray wash and buffer removes the rem-jet anti-halation backing.

2.       First Developer: All exposed silver halide crystals are developed to metallic silver via a PQ developer. The yellow filter layer becomes opaque because it has a combination of Lippmann emulsion (very tiny grains) and Carey Lea silver (metallic silver particles that are small enough that they are yellow rather than grey.)

3.       Wash

4.       Red light re-exposure through the base: This makes the remaining undeveloped silver halide in the cyan layers developable.

5.       Cyan developer: The solution contains a colour developer and a cyan coupler. These are colourless in solution. After the colour developer develops the silver, the oxidized developer reacts with the cyan coupler to form cyan dye. The dye is much less soluble than either the developer or the coupler so it stays in the red layer of the film.

6.       Wash

7.       Blue light re-exposure from the top: This makes the remaining undeveloped grains in the blue sensitive layer (the yellow layer) developable. The now opaque yellow filter layers prevents the blue light from exposing the magenta layer (the green sensitive layer, which is also sensitive to blue light). It is important to avoid stray printing light exposing the film base of film.

8.       Yellow developer: Analogous to the cyan developer.

9.       Wash

10.   Magenta developer: This contains a chemical fogging agent that makes all of the remaining undeveloped silver developable. If everything has worked correctly, nearly all of this silver is in the magenta layers. The developer and magenta coupler work just like the cyan and yellow developers to produce magenta dye that is insoluble and stays in the film.

11.   Wash

12.   Conditioner: Prepares the metallic silver for the bleach step.

13.   Bleach: (ferric EDTA) Oxidises the metallic silver to silver halide. The bleach must be aerated. The former ferricyanide bleach did not require aeration and did not require a conditioner.

14.   Fix: Converts the silver halide to soluble compounds which are then dissolved and washed from the film

15.   Wash: Washes the fixer out of the film.

16.   Rinse: Contains a wetting agent to reduce water spots.

17.   Dry

Who can process Kodachrome?

In the beginning only Kodak can process Kodachrome film. Processing was included in the price of a roll of film – until 1955. In 1954 Kodak’s business practise led to them been sued by the US government for been anticompetitive, leading to a consent decree. This decree allowed independent photo labs in the US the right to develop Kodachrome, with Kodak selling them the equipment and chemicals needed. It led to a proliferation in independent labs, including one in Parsons, Kansas. However, outside the US, Kodak still had full control.

Kodachrome’s Final Years

As other colour films improved in speed and quality, and became more affordable, Kodachrome’s unique place as top choice for colour photos eroded. It also didn’t help that it took a complicated process to develop. And when digital cameras came, the erosion accelerated. Especially when slide shows became less popular – Kodachrome’s speciality. One sign for its fall from grace by the 1990s is that this author can’t find any ads for Kodachrome dating after 1991. But Kodak did try to increase sales - in 1999, they attempted to increase the availability of K-14 processing through its K-Lab program. This effort didn’t last and all the K-labs were closed by 2005. On 22^nd June 2009, Kodak announced it was discontinuing Kodachrome.

 

 

The Last Lab

As the use of film decreased, many once busy film processing labs closed down. By 2006 only three places on in the world had the facilities to process Kodachrome – Kodak’s own labs in New Jersey and Switzerland, and Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas. Kodak, to save money, closed its labs in 2007, leaving Dwayne’s Photo the last Kodachrome processing lab in the world.

 

In 1956 Dwayne Steinle (a lifelong photo enthusiast) borrowed an enlarger and set up shop in a room above a book and camera shop in downtown Parsons, Kansas. There, he developed and printed black-and-white film for local drug, camera, and discount stores. Over time, Dwayne’s operations broadened, as new technology came. In 1969, he moved the company to a 7,200ft² building. By the 1980s Dwayne was providing specialists processing to other labs. Major retailers, like Wal-Mart, had their own photo labs by then. But they were mostly geared to process colour negative film and nothing else. If they did receive such jobs, like slide film, they were given to Dwayne. In 1988 he got the contract to provide speciality processing services for Wal-Mart. During the 1990s, due to repeated requests from customers, Dwayne added slide processing to the business. This led to Dwayne acquiring the needs to process Kodachrome in 1994. The decision cost him over $500,000. By 1996 Dwayne’s Photo had 165 employees and operated in a 40,000ft² facility, providing processing services to virtually every national retailer that offered photo processing.

 

The Last Roll

Steve McCurry is a famed photographer who used Kodachrome to capture striking images for National Geographic. Through contacts with Kodak, he was given the last roll of Kodachrome film to come off the production line. He took a few photo in New York, India and Parsons, Kansas, - just before he handed the roll to Dwayne’s Photo on 14th July 2010. The resulting 36 slides were given to the George Eastman Museum.

 

The Last Photos

At noon, local time, 30^th December 2010, Dwayne’s Photo stopped accepting rolls for processing. So many rolls were left to process that it took until 18^th January 2011 for the lab to process the last roll – one shot by Dwayne Steinle himself.

 

Among those final rolls were rolls taken by a group of students from Webster university. In May 2010 photographer Tom Graves cleaned out his freezer and sent to the university rolls of Kodachrome. Students were ecstatic with the opportunity to use the iconic film stock during their summer … and their photos been some of the last ever taken on Kodachrome. They were published in a book in 2011 – Kodachrome - End of the Run: Photographs from the final Batches.

 

“From December 26, 2010 to the end of processing on January 18, 2011, we processed over 20,000 rolls of 35mm slide film, over 3,500 rolls of Super 8 movie film and about 57,000 feet of 16mm movie film.  That is about the same volume we did in the first 4 to 5 months of 2010.” - Grant Steinle

 

Kodachrome in the Digital Age

Despite its demise Kodachrome is looked at fondly by many photographers and its distinctive look is desired by some people, looking for a period feel in their photographs. Its surprise to hear that they are plug-ins that allow you to automatically convert any photo in Photoshop into one that looks like it was taken in Kodachrome.

 

“I’ve been shooting digital for years, but I don’t think you can make a better photograph under certain conditions than you can with Kodachrome. If you have good light and you’re at a fairly high shutter speed, it’s going to be a brilliant color photograph.” - Steve McCurry (photographer)

 

A 35mm Kodachrome slide can contain the equivalent of about 140 megapixels of data – or 420 MB (uncompressed)

 

Scanning Kodachrome slides for digitalization can be a challenge. Many digital film scanners use infrared light to detect dust, scratches and marks on slides before digitization, which the software can remove during processing. The cyan pigment in Kodachrome blocks infrared, making such automatic dust removal impossible. Kodachrome also has a pronounced relief image that can affect the infrared, which also hinders the dust removal function. As a result, the scanned images may lose some of its sharpness that made Kodachrome iconic. Even without the dust removal function in the scanner, Kodachrome tends to scan with a blue tint. Thankfully, there is software that corrects this.

 

“I have to thank Kodak for making that product. Without that product, we would not have the pictures. Pictures that were taken on other films have suffered more than Kodachrome. Kodachrome was thought to last 50 years, and it has.” - Fred Herzog