Railfan Technology > Ektachrome to return.

http://photorumors.com/2017/01/05/kodak-to-brings-back-ektachrome-film/

http://www.kodakalaris.com/en-us/about/press-releases/2016/kodak-alaris-reintroduces-iconic-ektachrome-still-film
 

Why?

I miss Kodak Plus-X 125. Wish there was a slot for it in my Samsung Galaxy Note-4 or Nikon D50.

The reference to 8mm Ektachrome for the "KODAK Super 8 movie camera" sure had me looking for an April 1 date. But I guess they mean it. "You buy it, shoot it, ship it. We process it, scan it, deliver it." Huh? "Scan it"? For tack-sharp 8mm quality, I guess.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/17 00:41 by clem.

Why bother? I'm happy using Provia, once Kodak abandoned Kodachrome (first 25 and then 64). 

I didn't quit Kodak, Kodak quit me.

Don't know how they're still in business.

I looked at the company "about us" page, apparently they have licensed the Kodak name but are based in England.  They do have a presence in Rochester NY (the old home of Kodak).  I probably won't  be going back--I sold my 35mm SLR last year and have enough old "chemically based" images from the past to scan that'll keep me busy for a long time.
 

RayH Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why bother? I'm happy using Provia, once Kodak
> abandoned Kodachrome (first 25 and then 64). 
>
> I didn't quit Kodak, Kodak quit me.
>
> Don't know how they're still in business. 

 I'm of the same opinion and in the same boat.....

rev66vette Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RayH Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Why bother? I'm happy using Provia, once Kodak
> > abandoned Kodachrome (first 25 and then 64). 
> >
> > I didn't quit Kodak, Kodak quit me.
> >
> > Don't know how they're still in business. 
>
>  I'm of the same opinion and in the same
> boat.....

Ditto. It's nice to know there are other dinosaurs out there.
Still, if they reintroduce Ektachrome, I'll probably go back.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

I guess that shaky, blurry, grainy movies are all the rage right now.  It must be "artistic."  What's next, cell phones with rotary dial?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/17 10:24 by radar.

Kodachrome is dead so why bother?!?   The pixels have taken over!

Slide film is so yesterday...

RayH Wrote:
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> Why bother? I'm happy using Provia, once Kodak
> abandoned Kodachrome (first 25 and then 64). 
>
> I didn't quit Kodak, Kodak quit me.
 

Wonder if they'll bring back the lovely "fades to red in a couple decades" feature as well?  Grrr....
 

The press releases are interesting, but also seem more than a little bizarre...


Either this is a cold-blooded ploy to monetize our memories of days gone by while Kodak grew fat and unresponsive to customers (in which case you should not give them your money & emotional capital), OR this is a silly ham-handed attempt to make the last several decades "never happened" by embracing once again the restrictions of an archaic medium that they will lose money on providing (in which case you should also not give them your money & emotional capital). Your mileage may vary!


In my opinion, it basically boils down to "too little, too late" -and- "we're converting YOUR nostalgia into OUR money". Some venture capitalists smelled a cynical opportunity to supposedly earn a huge profit from the over-40 demographic, or some un-businesslike idealists think they can rewind 2017 into becoming 1997 without somehow going broke. But if those guys actually *deliver*, and then some fellow railfans manage to extract some enjoyment & satisfaction from using the product, then I wish said railfans well.


For me, the final, decisive factor is the tragic fact that the professional labs within ~50 miles of me that formerly provided professional E-6 developing/mounting have either long since ceased offering the service, or (more commonly) gone entirely out of business due to the Great Recession plus the digital revolution. The large-scale societal trend of always printing your exposures is dead and buried; those retail businesses who formerly facilitated this former habit have almost entirely vanished and taken their other, more useful photographic services with them.
No quality *local* developing? No sale.
I don't care if George Eastman himself came back from the dead to lovingly hand-mix the emulsions, with the packaging done by magic elves from the Black Forest. :P I am no longer willing to subject my exposures to the risks & randomness of shipping to and from for processing; home processing of E-6 is not something I'm interested in.


Even though "back in the day" I ran many feet of Ektachrome (as well as Kodachrome) through my film cameras, due to Kodak's increasing long-term disinterest in their own slide films I switched to Fuji's Provia 100F and never looked back. Instead of being a source of regret, it was a pleasure.


Notwithstanding the above, I switched to digital just over a decade ago. I once had five film-camera bodies; after the switch, I auctioned all of them away. Native digital capture now does *everything* (and then some!) I formerly accomplished by shooting E-6 and scanning/post-processing the resulting images myself. I'm not saying that everyone else has to, but I actually enjoy the so-called "digital darkroom".


This "new" Ektachrome can't realistically become more than a niche of a niche, suitable mainly as a fringe product / conversation piece. From that standpoint, it's the same as the initiative that those devoted Dutch film aficionados showed when they tried to resurrect manufacture of Polaroid instant film about seven years ago. True, there's nothing wrong with "art for art's sake," but I happen to think that in this case of a would-be Ektachrome rebirth, the negatives outweigh the positives. (Pun UN-intended.)


Sorry, film in general / Kodak in particular.
There was a war; you lost.

NDHolmes Wrote:
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> Wonder if they'll bring back the lovely "fades to
> red in a couple decades" feature as well? 

BS.  I have Ektachrome slides from the 1960s that are just fine.

Ray

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NDHolmes Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Wonder if they'll bring back the lovely "fades
> to
> > red in a couple decades" feature as well? 
>
> BS.  I have Ektachrome slides from the 1960s that
> are just fine.
>
> Ray

 Yep and slides fetch a good penny on E-Bay recently, so OK there, was a " war" but it's not over yet.....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/17 08:45 by rev66vette.

Paul Simon said it best "Momma don't take my Kodachrome away". They did,so we left ! There's no going back now ! Like one of the previous posters, I too have enough transparencies to keep me busy on a scanner for the rest of my life.

In the few years that I have been scanning my old Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides I have been amazed how many emulsion defects crept into Kodak's processing of slides and the amount of dust and other accumulations that landed on the surfaces of the film while in their hands.

I suppose an argument can be made that film is more "archive-friendly," since a high-level burst of gamma rays or an errant electro-magnetic pulse can disable / wipe a hard drive in seconds.  If there is really a concern about that, however, a "Faraday cage" works  pretty well to protect its contents.

When Kodak did away with Kodachrome ASA 25 I switched to FUJI Provia 100 and never looked back. Great speed and finer grain hands down over Kodachrome ASA 25. The price and the didital cameras finally made me give up slide taking. Started shooting slides back in 1963 and sure helped Kodaks bottom line buying film.

Stanley Jackowski
Valrico, FL

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I looked at the company "about us" page,
> apparently they have licensed the Kodak name but
> are based in England.

It appears that "Kodak Alaris" is owned by the Kodak UK pension fund, presumably as the result of a bankrupt Kodak being unable to pay UK pensions. From http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eastmankodak-emergence-idUSBRE98213220130903

"The company in April [2013] resolved a crucial dispute with its British pension fund, which dropped a $2.8 billion claim against Kodak. The fund also bought the company's personalized imaging and document imaging businesses, to be named Kodak Alaris, for $650 million."

As I read http://www.kodak.com/us/en/corp/press_center/kodak_brings_back_a_classic_with_ektachrome_film/default.htm, Kodak itself is reviving Ektachrome for the movie industry, and Kodak Alaris will package/market it as 35mm still film.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/17 20:26 by clem.

Didn't Kodak repackage movie film for the hobbyist market back in the 1980s?  I seem to recall somebody selling movie film as slide fodder.