Summer of (Kodachrome) 64

[mhanc]

I bought one roll from Freestyle several weeks ago just to shoot it again - first time since probably 1978 or so. I plan now to photograph my kids with it sometime this summer just so they too can one day look back at some old pictures with that certain look.

I have several carousels of kodachrome slides my grandfather took in the '50s on the around the world trip he took upon retirement. The world was certainly a different place back then and we all saw it in a specific way - thanks to kodak and kodachrome.

Anyway, maybe I will try to get several more rolls to shoot as its the last chance to create that type of thing.

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

If anyone wants to sell a hanful of rolls at some not ridiculous prices (or knows where to find some), let me know. I left my last half dozen rolls in Alaska 2 years ago with a friend, and I was off to buy some last week before the expenses of university life kicked in (not drinking, materials. and then drinking), and it looks like eBay has gone nuts and the major retailers are out of stock. I've got 2 more rolls of K25 from the 80's that I came into purely by chance, but I'd like to use some fresh K64. My grandpa used it around australia, my mum used it around the pacific, and the dozen rolls I have used were all quite lovely.

[accozzaglia]

After thinking that I'd shot my last Kodachrome frame on the Leslie Street Spit Thursday evening at sunset, I found one fresh roll of KR64 in my freezer yesterday and just pulled it out. Then I spoke to a camera geek friend here in town that I hadn't seen in months. The first thing I said to him, all pouty-lipped and mopey, was "They killed Kodachrome!" We talked for a while. He thinks he might still have a few old rolls of Kodachrome kicking around in his pile of stuff and said he will dig them out for me to use, since he hasn't shot it in years. I am kinda taken aback by this, and I am humbled. I guess when I see him in a couple of weeks I'll know for sure.

If so, then I will contact my dad, who hasn't shot Kodachrome in decades. He brought his Kodak digital point-and-shoot to my convocation, which I found to be a bit heartbreaking. Afterwards, he said he wanted to get me a gift for graduating but left it up to me to decide on what. I think I know what I want now: I'll ask if he still has a working film camera in his possession. If so, I will offer to mail him one roll of Kodachrome with the proviso that he shoots it on anything he wants. I'll add that every shot should count. When he's done, I'll ask that he send back the roll to me, and I'll process it with the rest of what I send to Dwayne's. I'll keep the roll and give him a CD with the scanned results, but I'll keep the roll. That's it. I know Kodachrome still matters to him, because his response to me this week was, "Now I never want to hear the Paul Simon song ever again."

I will say that I've yet to shoot a single roll of Kodachrome that was within its printed expiry date. I'm not sure if my life will be any different were I to shoot one of the last rolls put out for sale.

But when I get these all shot and ready for processing, I will be eating nothing but KD (the Canadian university student's power energy meal) for a long time to come so my meagre funds can cover processing costs at Dwayne's.

[aldevo]

Yeah, about 300+ of us over at the Kodachrome Project....

I have about 1,000 rolls to go through over the next 18 months, including 300 of Kodachrome 25. Been shooting it steadily for 5 years now with a sharp increase over the past two years:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yp6HARg7Fs

That's great. It sounds like you'll be giving K64 the "Viking Funeral" it richly deserves.

My father shot well over 100 rolls of K25 w/ his Kodak Retinette rangefinder in the late 50s and 60s. I think I'll start scanning them as a tribute...even though I know Kodachrome isn't ideal for scanning.

[Ektagraphic]

I would shoot it as my only color film if I had enough......

[DanielStone]

That's great. It sounds like you'll be giving K64 the "Viking Funeral" it richly deserves.

My father shot well over 100 rolls of K25 w/ his Kodak Retinette rangefinder in the late 50s and 60s. I think I'll start scanning them as a tribute...even though I know Kodachrome isn't ideal for scanning.

i would say the contrary to that... look at steve mccurry from National Geographic? he's shot for years on kodachrome before going digital, especially that shot of the afghan girl, before going digital. even on the kodak site they have a slideshow of kodachrome images he's shot over the years...

i remember reading an article from hasselblad about how steve had invested in a flextight x5 to scan his archive of slides. i'm not sure why he didn't go with a real drum scanner, but he seems to get terrific results from kodachrome getting scanned.

i've shot a few rolls over the last year or so or kr64 and i've scanned them with great success... that is if it isn't underexposed, but that's the same with all slide films, or all films in general


oh well, we have to take this little bit of time we have left with it, and savor it as much as we can.


LONG LIVE KODACHROME!

[Colin Corneau]

I have 14 or 15 rolls in my cooler, bought a few months before news of Kodachrome's demise came out.

In one month, exactly, I'm heading to China -- Beijing, Great Wall, and the southwest near Vietnam/Burma. I think that's a fitting use for the last rolls of this amazing film; my only worry is I won't have enough!

I like this thread - let's get shooting.

[kevs]

I bought three rolls last week, and plan to use at least one in my Yashica 635 unmasked, exposing over the perfs. I've done that before and it worked well, but just try hand-holding a TLR loaded with 35mm in horizontal format whilst guesstimating the parallax correction *and* holding a polariser over the taking lens... :-)

[bwfans]

You have to get me some, first.

Has anyone mail ordered and received the order recently?

[Larry.Manuel]

Is it possible to buy Kodachrome in Canada? I can imagine giving it one more go. 30 years ago, I did a lot of motocross photography with K25, and those slides are still as good as new.