First, let me say that, I'm not trashing Kodachrome. When good, K25 is one
of the best films ever. Measuring goodness, is, however, highly subjective.
Even ignoring the truly awful cardboard mounts, well processed it can look
incredible, and when dark stored, last a long time. What is also true,
though, is the perception of the magenta cast. For some of us, it is like a
rich, electric pink, while for others, it is imperceptable. I won't even to
begin to try to fathom this. What I can say, though, is that Kodak USA
processing is wildly inconsistent. Even discounting the far too often
occurance of water spots and scratches, it color balance is different from
roll to roll. some of this may indeed be due to the fact that Kodachrome
seems to have a more obvious reaction to ageing, but I think a lot is the
result of the process. Let me explain.
(I'm going to make some huge generalizations here. The chemists among us can
reply with equasions and so forth) E6 film (and any other than Kodachrome,
for that matter) have the dyes in the emulsion from the factory. Color is
removed as required in the processing. This is originally an Agfa process,
that became Ektachrome as war reparations. This has made it harder to
achieve fine grain and sharpness (almost sixty years after Kodak got the
process, they still can't make a film as sharp and fine grained as
Kodachrome, and Fuji just came close), but is much easier to process with
consistency.
Kodachrome is essentially a film with three black and white emulsions. As a
part of processing, dyes contained in the chenmicals are added, as
appropriate. This process is expensive, difficult to control, and to achieve
best results, requires a lot of quanitity (although that is in some part
true with any film processing). That's why there were never any home kits,
and for years, all was processed by Kodak. Some years ago (the eighties?),
Kodak announced a K12 or 14 "minilab" that was the size of a small house,
instead of a small factory. I assume that this is what A&I and whatever
other independant K14 labs use. It has been said that the Kodak K14 process
requires only about half as many men in lab coats watching carefully as did
K12.
Additionally, many feel that Kodak would like to kill off K14, as it is not
as profitable as E6, so they loose motivation for quality. In any event, it
is obvious that in the USA, it is the red-headed stepchild. Fuji has only
served to encourage this with the latest Provia, that has, in most
professional applications, supplanted Kodachrome.
Will Kodak put any more money into Kodachrome? Absolutely not, there's
simply not enough profit in it. Will they, and Fuji, continue to develop
other chromes? Certainly. Film sales continue to rise (although flat since
about 1990, SLR sales have yet to drop), and that's a pile of profit.
Remember, as we shoot film, we support R&D on digital, which isn't really
profitable yet.
Me? I shoot Provia, and I got rid of my 10cc green glasses.
Bill Pearce
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