Nostalgia & History > General question - old Kodachrome users

I know there will be a few of you out there that used Kodachrome in years past and I was wondering: how has the color has held up?

I would love to hear from anybody about how old their slides are and how faithful the color is. I just dug out some from the early 80's and I seem to recall the color be more vivid - maybe just my memory fading, or are the slides?

Thanks in advance for the replies,
Karl

While not railroad related I was going through some old Kodachromes that my late grandfather had taken. No clue as to when this was taken but I think that the latest it could have been shot was in the mid-1950's. Hope this helps answer your question.

Roger Holmes

---

Kodachromes that are kept cool, dry and dark survive in the best shape; moisture, humidity and light degrade them.

I have Kodachrome slides taken by my father in the 1940s that look as good as new. I have Anscochrome from the same time that are badly faded. I also have old Ektachrome slides from the 1950s that have faded.
Bill Pyper
Salem, OR

My parents Kodachrome shots from the 1940s are still in great shape and colorful. So are all the ones I took from the late 1950s to several years ago. Three examples follow. Almost no Photoshopping color correction used as they scanned very well the first time. Although I do have a few Ektachromes and other film types that have already started to fade or do a color shift.

C.C.Chas.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/12 00:24 by choochoocharlie.

---

---

---

The Kodachrome slides I too in the early '70s have faded only a little. The amount of fading is due in part to the conditions in which the slides have been stored. A dark, cool, dry place is best to preserve the quality. Gerry

Thanks to all that have chimed in, it's amazing how great some of your slides look from that long ago.

I think the storage might have been an issue with some of mine, back in the day we (the family) weren't really thinking about the longevity of these things.

Anyway, good to know that some of the more recent ones should have a good life if we continue to care for them.

All the best,
Karl

The oldest Kodachrome slide in my family photos was shot in 1940. Even though this slide has fingerprints on the emulsion slide and was stored in and un-airconditioned, dry but dusty storeroom for thirty years, the image and color is still perfect.

An internet source claims that an unmounted Kodachrome image, hermetically sealed between sheets of archival quality glass and kept in a cool, dry, dark environment would last an estimated 32,000 years.

Bob

Bob, that's amazing!!! That film might even outlast us eh =;0) Seriously though, I wonder what the digital images taken these days will be like in 32,000 years, heck even in 10 or 20 years.

Cheers,
Karl



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/12 10:09 by oldhound.

Kodachrome uses, or rather "used", aniline dyes, which were added to the image during processing. They are the best dyes in terms of stability but are carcinogenic, one of the reasons Kodachrome went away (that and the extremely poisonous nature of many of the processing chemicals). Until its demise, museums preferred it for taking archival records of their artifacts (primarily paintings etc.).

With Ektachrome, the dyes (called color couplers) are in the film, and they become visible as a result of the developing process. Over the years, Kodak has changed the formulation of the Ektachrome color couplers, sometimes for the better, other times for the worse. Professional grades of Ektachrome are ones most immune to fading, etc.

oldhound Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bob, that's amazing!!! That film might even
> outlast us eh =;0) Seriously though, I wonder what
> the digital images taken these days will be like
> in 32,000 years, heck even in 10 or 20 years.
>
> Cheers,
> Karl

You are thinking of a digital photo as an image like a photo print, negative or slide. It is not, it is a digital file. The image consists as a string of 1s and 0s which can be stored in any number of media. It does not have to be magnetic. You might burn holes in stainless steel plates or strips if you really want archival. Digital image files can last as long as humans want to retain them.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

A little OT, Charlie, I love your dad's shot of NY Central Mohawk 3008.

For years the archival life of properly processed and stored Ektachrome was touted as 50+ years, Kodakchrome 100+. Kodak held their labs to a high standard of quality, many others did not.

Fred in Wichita

I am experiencing some shifting toward magenta in some of my 1970's and 1980's Kodakcromes. Although they have been stored in steel file boxes in a cool dark place, they have been stored in less than ideal conditions in the past. The odd thing is that other Kodakcromes taken around the same time aren't shifting. Kodak closed their Toronto and Vancouver processing facilities around that time. There was discussion at the time that the "processing paid" Kodakcromes were being processed at contract labs in the US.

An oddity of that era was lots of UK Kodakcrome sold at discount in Canada, but the Hemel Hempstead (UK) film has held up as well as the US Kodakcromes.

Hi there, just to clarify the digital comment above, my thoughts were that Kodachrome was around for 50+ years, with some minor changes and if the info is correct, it could last 32,000 years. In the digital realm we have gone from floppy disks, to mini-floppys to cds, dvds, Blue ray in the span of 20 years, if you saved your images on a floppy and didn't "upgrade" good luck getting at them these days (I haven't seen a floppy drive in years). So, point is that one of the main issues down the road will be compatibility with new technology and if your jpg from 2012 will be the same format in 32,000 years....I have no idea, but apparently my Kodachrome will still be around =:0)

Yeah.... Dad and I believed that labs differed, and we always mailed ours to Fairlawn NJ (I think - it was NJ but memory fades.)

Even with that, K25 and K64 and K200 are not the same for color balance. I continue to believe that K25 had the best color balance, and that K64 tended toward the 'cool' side and blocked up more in the shadows. I never shot enough K200 to develop an opinion

I've not noticed any fade, but mine only go back to the 80s and Dad's to the 70s.


eminence_grise Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am experiencing some shifting toward magenta in
> some of my 1970's and 1980's Kodakcromes. Although
> they have been stored in steel file boxes in a
> cool dark place, they have been stored in less
> than ideal conditions in the past. The odd thing
> is that other Kodakcromes taken around the same
> time aren't shifting. Kodak closed their Toronto
> and Vancouver processing facilities around that
> time. There was discussion at the time that the
> "processing paid" Kodakcromes were being processed
> at contract labs in the US.
>
> An oddity of that era was lots of UK Kodakcrome
> sold at discount in Canada, but the Hemel
> Hempstead (UK) film has held up as well as the US
> Kodakcromes.

Steve Krause
Chillicothe, IL

CP's official photographer, Nicolas Morant was a Press photographer before he devoted most of his time to the railway (he never was an employee), and took images for other clients.

For most of his career, he took photographs in several formats, using a "Speed Graphic" for large format black and whites, a variety of mid size film format cameras for color negative, (in the end a Pentax 6x7) and Lieca M-series for color slides.

He sold the negatives to the clients, and simply stored the other images which were not purchased.

He had some of the very earliest Kodakcrome direct from the plant, acquired with permission during WW2 for taking images for Canada's Ministry of Defense. They are still in perfect shape, many have never been projected. I believe they are in the archive of the Glenbow Institute in Calgary.

Kodachrome film was based on B&W technology with many layers, including separate color layers and filters and the process involved 12 different steps. The color dies were added after several processing steps, whereas Ektachrome has the color dies already in the film when shot. Way back when, Kodachrome could be processed by many labs. In the '60s I have some processed by Kodak (of course), Fotomat, Drewery, Technicolor and others. It just depended on where you dropped off the film to be processed. I finally stayed with Kodak as some of the cheaper labs took their liberties with keeping the chemicals fresh and "clean". This may be the reason why some Kodachromes are not holding up as well as others. My slides are all stored in metal "Logan" single and double decker files and always inside the house under a dry and basically temperature controlled environment. Depending on the scanner used (have 3 for 35mm now), I usually have to do very little, and in some cases, no color correction at all in Photoshop. Ektachrome on the other hand, requires more color correction, and maybe a lot if it has started to shift color and/or fade.

Therefore, I am thankful that I stuck with Kodachrome over the 45 years that I took photos on film. I only bought Ektachrome when I had to get more film and the store that I was buying the film at didn't have any Kodachrome. Without even seeing what type of film it is printed on the slide mount, it is easy to pick out the Kodachrome from the Ektachrome. Ektachrome has a certain off color (to me) about it and it is fuzzier (not as sharp) as Kodachrome.

C.C.Chas.

It usually held up quite well compared to other slide films. Usually, the worse case scenario is that they could have darkened over time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/12 21:01 by wabash2800.

I have Kodack Extakrome slides of night shots I took in the erly 70's, that look just as good today as they did when I took them. I think K_25 was the best film Kodack had, and would have continued to use it if someone had been there to develop it.