“Mama, Please Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away”* Kodachrome 25 slide film
Written: Jul 18 '01 (Updated Jul 20 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great Resolution, Virtually Grainless, Neutral Color Palette, 100+ years Archival Storage life
Cons: Slow, Narrow Exposure Latitude, Contrasty, and K14 Development:
The Bottom Line: Grab a few rolls right away since Kodak is pulling the plug on K25 after more than 65 years.
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| Howard_Creech's Full Review: Kodak KL, 200 ASA (1973809) |
In 1973 Singer/Songwriter Paul Simon released an album called, “There goes Rhymin’ Simon” which included the classic hit song “Kodachrome” The album went to number two on the U. S. charts, and Paul Simon made Kodachrome slide shooters (and Nikon users) the world over very cool for one long hot summer.
“When I think back
On all the crap I learned in High School
It’s a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall
Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think the world’s a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them together for one night
I know they’d never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in Black & White
Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think the world’s a summer day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away”*
After more than sixty five years they are taking our Kodachrome away, Kodak has announced that as of December 31, 2001 Kodachrome 25 will disappear forever. Kodachrome, the world’s first widely available color film, was developed by two Rochester New York Chamber Musicians named Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky, who did all the lab and scientific work in the kitchen of their apartment.
Amateur photography really took off after the development of the Leica rangefinder camera (designed to use 35mm motion picture film) in 1923. By 1938 (the year Kodachrome was introduced) millions of amateur photographers worldwide were clamoring for 35mm color film. Kodak spent two years (1936-38) refining the film, building the manufacturing plants and labs to make and process it, and extensively testing the film. Kodak selected a young Harvard educated Doctor, Eliot Porter, who had given up medicine to pursue photography, for the job of refining the emulsion and testing how well it worked. Over the next fifty years Porter shot thousands of Kodachrome images of American birds, and intimate landscapes in Maine, New Mexico, Arizona, Antarctica, the Gallapagos, and Mexico. Porter and Kodachrome became almost synonymous and in 1960 David Brower, the Sierra Club’s “Arch Druid” selected Porter to shoot the images for the world’s very first coffee table book “In Wilderness is the Preservation of the World”** The book went on to become one of the best selling photo books ever, making color photography and the Sierra Club a major force in the emerging environmental movement.
Mannes and Godowsky continued their work with film emulsions and in 1946 developed the Ektachrome process, so interestingly enough, all transparency (slide) films available today are based on the pioneering work of two musicians. Kodachrome was at the vanguard of the color imaging revolution of the late fifties and early sixties. For almost four decades B&W photo magazines like “Life” and “Look” dominated the world’s news and periodical markets. By the early sixties beautiful images from color photographers Pete Turner, Eliot Elisofon, Marc Riboud, Cecil Beaton, Ernst Haas, Phillipe Halsman, Gordon Parks, and Eliot Porter drove the popular media and mass market advertising to change from Black & White to color images and Kodachrome was the film of choice for most of the world’s famous color photographers.
Technical Specifications
ISO: 25
Development: K14 Process (see the end of this review for more detail on the K14 process)
Grain: Extremely Fine
Resolution (Sharpness): Extremely Fine
Color Saturation: High
Color Balance/Palette: Neutral
Contrast: High
Exposure Latitude: Very Narrow (typically + 0 –1/4 stop)
Archival: 100 years plus
Kodachrome 25 film will be available until December 31, 2001. Many veteran photographers are buying large quantities of K25 and freezing it. Kodachrome stores well (virtually forever with refrigeration) and current stocks should last for many years. The film is incredibly stable, Kodachrome images shot in 1936 and stored properly show little or no fading, and the colors are as vibrant today as they were sixty five years ago, The first Kodachrome slide film was ISO 8, with the emulsion speed increasing gradually to ISO 25 as the film was continually refined and improved over the course of its 65 year lifespan.
What is Kodachrome 25 good for? K25 is an exceptional film for close up photography, still life/fine art applications, landscape photography, portraiture, and most general uses excluding action. K25 is the film of choice among pros when absolute color fidelity is needed for nature shots, portraiture, and copy work.
I had a wonderful “Photo/Spiritual” experience with Kodachrome 25 during the early eighties when my wife and I lived in El Paso, Texas. Kodachrome 25 handled the desert light, bright colors, and the hard contrast of the border country very well. The film allowed me to shoot at a fast 1/125th of a second with apertures of F8 or F11. My favorite street camera in those days was a beat up old Practica manual SLR and a “sharp as a tack” 30 year old Carl Zeiss 80/2.8 Tessar lens.
One afternoon while shooting “street” images at the Juarez City market I saw an old Tarrahumara Indian man walking up the street toward me. He was carrying a large heavy bundle wrapped in a colorful Mexican blanket, and his burden was supported by a tumpline that cut deeply into his forehead. He was dressed in Jeans, western shirt, beads, silver bracelets, and cowboy boots. He had long silver hair, and a creased leather colored face like the profile in a classic Edward S. Curtis photograph. I had read Carlos Castaneda’s first book about his experiences with an old Yaqui Indian Shaman named Don Juan and I was sure the old Tarrahumara was a shaman, he had an aura of mysticism and repressed power about him. I ran ahead about fifty yards so that I could set up a shot. I got ready, checked my meter, inspected the background carefully through the viewfinder, and framed the shot as the old Indian walked up the street toward me. The image came together beautifully and as I started to press the shutter release I noticed the old man’s piercing obsidian eyes were looking right at me and I felt a powerful silent plea from him that I not take the photograph. I instinctively knew that he felt I would be stealing a piece of his spirit if I captured his image on film.
I lowered the camera from my eye and as the old Indian walked by me he glanced up the side street to his left. It was a small street that I had seen (and ignored) a dozen times. I followed his gaze and noticed an ancient adobe building at the end of the street, two doors (about three feet apart) opened directly onto the old cobblestone street and the plaster at the bottom of the wall was chipped away exposing the adobe bricks. One door was about five and a half feet tall and the other was about four feet tall, the doors were old hand hewn wooden planks with brightly painted wooden doorframes. The frame for the smaller doorway was painted bright yellow and the taller doorframe was bright red. The late afternoon light on the sere adobe wall was absolutely magical. I walked down the street, lined up my shot from across the narrow street, and snapped off half a dozen frames, bracketing my exposures to insure that I got all the detail in the scene. I stopped at the “Kentucky Club” on Avenue 16th of September, on my way home, ordered an ice cold Tecate, sat down at the old mahogany bar to cool off and reflect on my mystical photographic experience.
The slide of the twin Juarez doorways is my favorite image of Mexico, and was the very first in a new category (Windows, Portals, & Doors). I have added many images in this category to my slide files over the years, while living and traveling in Europe, Japan, and the U.S.A. but I always remember that first slide with a special fondness.
Why are death bells tolling for Kodachrome 25, and why has Paul Simon’s musical plea fallen on deaf ears? In our “Instant Gratification” society photographers are no longer willing to wait two weeks for Kodak to develop and return their slides. Punchier emulsions like Velvia and Kodak’s Elite Chromes can be processed in two hours and these new generation E6 process (Ektachrome type) color slide films offer increased saturation (brighter colors), superb resolution, faster ISO speeds, and almost universal availability. Long-time color slide shooters often prefer accurate color rendition and regard Velvia and other super saturated “intense color” slide films as “circus-chromes” and feel the colors are un-real and have a “plasticky” wet paint look.
Kodachrome slides have an incredible realism, subtlety, and a luminous quality that no other slide film can match. Grain is all but invisible, virtually non-existent, allowing easy enlargement to sizes up to 16X20 inches. For projection, (slide shows) absolutely nothing measures up to Kodachrome; resolution is exceptional, colors are rich, but accurate and realistic. K25 images have a “pop” to them that looks almost 3-D. The density of the dark and saturated areas is much greater than with any of the E-6 films so you get much better shadow detail and a wider dynamic range. If you’ve never tried Kodachrome 25 you owe it yourself to shoot a roll or two before it disappears forever. If you’ve shot Kodachrome in the past and drifted away to the newer “flashier” emulsions, “return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear”*** and get reacquainted with a genuine classic, the film that made color photography respectable.
K14 is an “additive” process. Kodachrome emulsions are actually Black & White films with the color dyes “added” during the complicated development process. This produces much more accurate colors and more stable slides that are far less likely to fade (or color shift) over time than E6 (Ektachrome) process transparencies.
The good news is that both Kodachrome 64 and Kodachrome 200 are still available, and will remain in Kodak’s transparency film inventory for the foreseeable future.
* Paul Simon
** Henry David Thoreau
*** “The Lone Ranger” Radio Show
Recommended:
Yes
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Howard_Creech
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Member: Howard Creech
Location: Louisville, KY
Reviews written: 333
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About Me:
Photographer/Writer fascinated by Movies, Music, Books, American Diner Food, History, "Popular Culture", and Travel.
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