Kodak Retires Kodachrome Film

[Photo Engineer]

The official fateful day has finally arrived!

Sorry all.

And yes, Kodak gave permission for some to announce this on APUG, write about it and otherwise spread the word. Please stop jumping on them. Kodak does not see any infringement here (nor infridgement except to store lots of Kodachrome).

Now, if Kodak would only sell us some couplers so we could build our own Kodachrome!

PE

[Steve Smith]

Now, if Kodak would only sell us some couplers so we could build our own Kodachrome!

Welll.... If they don't need it anymore......... !!


Steve.

[Sirius Glass]

My condolences.

What he said.

Steve

[Mark Antony]

Sad to see it go, glad I have loads of little yellow boxes going back 25+ years. I have a few rolls left and will probably save them for a project next year.
I would have loved to have seen them give this notice next year after giving it a 75th birthday, I can't believe that they would pass up on all that anniversary stuff-after all it would be strange celebrating 75 yrs of a deleted product.
I guess they wanted it to slip away rather than going out with a bang...

[Clay2]

Sad news:

http://www.kodachromeproject.com/for...=2956#post2956

We have 18 months to enjoy my favourite film.

/Clay

[Wolfeye]

I dislike the film personally, but due to its legendary archive properties, I have shot a roll or two of it recently. I will shoot one more roll.

To those who love this film, I am sorry for your loss. Kodachrome has always been there. The silver lining to it all is that because of what it is, Kodachrome will probably outlive all the other film out there. Your Kodachrome slides may be discovered 100 years from now and still look great. That's a comfort, I hope. What's past is past, and that past has been preserved on Kodachrome.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Threads merged. That's four and counting.

[jnanian]

what a bummer.
i never shot very much of that film

now, i am waiting for the other shoes to drop ...

[Renato Tonelli]

I will miss this film - a truly unique emulsion. The convenience of E-6 films killed it.
I guess we all saw it coming. I have about twenty rolls in the freezer that need to be shot before processing becomes unavailable.

[accozzaglia]

OK, hi there all. It's been awhile, but there was this thing called university, and it owned me something seriously. But I survived, thesis and all.

1) There's a shorter way to say this, but in the "defecate before one masticates" approach to life, dwdmguy's comments are indicative of obsolescence — one more antiquarian and temperamental than any film stock could ever be. If he's going to bother impersonating an IP pit bull, he should at least learn how to sniff and bite first. The barking alone is just as annoying as a yappy little terrier that keeps the neighbourhood awake all night. With that, all hail the future of Creative Commons, shared attribution, open-source communities and the fruitful innovation to germinate from these, to say nothing for what they have already made possible (including core components of what makes APUG's communication platform possible).

2) I received Daniel's email announcement this morning. It made me sad, but as I walked around with my Konica rangefinder in my purse last week at my university convocation ceremonies, I made sure it was loaded with KR64. There was something ironic about this act, yet not defiant. My father, with whom I have had no working relationship for many years, introduced me to photography and Kodachrome when I was a kid — by example, mostly. I occasionally was allowed to take pictures with his SLR camera, but for the most part, I had to watch. At my graduation convocation last Monday, I took the high road and invited him to my country, my city, and my university. He accepted and arrived on a flight days later. The reunion, so to speak, was difficult and often uncomfortable for me, and there were no pretences that reconciliation was meant to build another attempt at a father-daughter relationship. But as I walked around holding and shooting my Kodachrome-loaded rangefinder, I saw that he had brought his camera to take pictures: a Kodak digital point-and-shoot. That was bizarre for me to see. Alas, I only have the digital shots now and will gladly wait for processing to come back from Parsons. Still, had I graduated in 2011 (which, well, is liable to happen again when I complete my masters degree), this would not have been possible. Bleh.

3) Once I exhaust my frozen supply of KR64, EIR, and EPJ, and HIE, I won't have any Kodak stock left. All I'll have in colour is Fujichrome and some leftover Fujicolor and an assemblage of black-and-white varieties from Ilford, Efke, Agfa/Arista, and a couple random others. I don't expect this to change often. I think Kodak's strength was the research, development, and evolution of creative, innovative emulsions made by brilliant chemists and engineers — many of whom have since retired or migrated to other chemical and optic ventures. Their weakness was that their bread-and-butter emulsions were either marketed as dumbed-down (or confusing to the average consumer with names that changed every few years and bore little meaning to what was inside) while Fuji, Ilford, and others made it less confusing and maintained better consistency in product naming, chemistry evolution, and marketing (including their products being used generically in retail store brands). What Fuji lacked in colour chemistry innovation they made up in these areas, and it's probably why they were able to hold their own against an entrenched, renown, established, and incipient competitor.

4) Bleh, once more.