I do know how many of you,, today,,are still shooting slides,,,,,but for those who still are...check this out???

When you sent your slides out too KODAK,,,they no longer come back the old way....Kodak has now uses tape too close the slide box,...there is no longer no outer sleeve too keep the box closed....


I am just passing this along,,I picked up slides this past week,,,this is the way they got them back....

thank you Pat

You are correct. The past few years this has topic become a cursed part of my life. After 35+ years of using emulsion film I've been literally thrown into a guantlet in trying to process my images via Kodak. ( And it's not even Kodak, it's out-sourced to a lab in Maryland! In addition, they don't even take the time any more to use INK to number the images!!! They're just stamped on each mount! I've also been told that cardboard mounts may be next. It's like one step forward and two step backwards. It seems like only a matter of time that the remaining slide shooters will be force-fed into a new venture of recording our memories. Not that I'm afraid of a new technology, but only at this stage of the game I don't care to invest a worldly amount of money in new equipment including new cameras, scanners, lap-tops, and whatever. I'm thankful enough that I have the ability to even do what I'm doing at this moment on this system!!!

Frustrating, that's for sure!

If we truly want to stay with Kodachrome (like I do) then I guess we'll have to "put up" with their indifference. I suspect that they will completely get out of the slide business soon but I'm going to "ride the horse" until it is dead. My old Kodachromes have held up beautifully so I see no need to abandon them, they will abandon us (most likely) in the future.

Don C.

"Don't it always seem as though you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

Joannie Mitchell

A friend who is trying to use up his Kodachrome sent me the following:

When you submit a question with the topic Film Mailers for Kodachrome 64
film, you get a Qualex address in NC and an 800 number.

I called Qualex. They gave me an address of PO Box 3022, Beltsville, MN
20705 to where PK64 mailers should be sent. They "pretended" to know
nothing about Parsons, KS.

I called Dwayne's and asked why Kodak shows Dwayne's as the only US
Kodachrome lab, but Qualex gave me an address in Beltsville, MD. The woman
said "They send it to us."

I asked if I could address my PK64 mailer to Dwayne's. She said "No". It
has to go to Maryland to do the accounting and then the film is sent to
Dwayne's in Parsons.

I guess that's why it takes so frigging long!

Here's a portion of something I wrote to the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum a short time ago:

The bigger question for most is, other than nostalgia why would you still want to shoot Kodachrome? Aside from the processing hassles, both Fuji & Kodak have improved their E-6 process color transparency films to the point where they're better in every imaginable way - color rendition, fine-grain structure, resolution and, yes, even stability/longevity.

For those who still enjoy shooting film, I can highly recommend either Fuji Provia 100F or Astia 100F to replace K-64. The color balance is a bit different, but they're both ideal for shooting high-contrast subjects in the harsh lighting those of us who shoot steam often have to live with.

I shot my last roll of K-64 over three years ago. It took 4 weeks to come back, and the results were horrible. I don't know if it was due to Kodak not being terribly interested in Kodachrome quality, or because of whatever conditions the film was exposed to in the 4 intervening weeks or something else, but I realized that the days of the beautiful K-25 and K-64 transparencies that I remember were gone.

One addition to those remarks:

If you're committed to K-64, I'd recommend not using Kodak mailers. Kodak is completely out of the film processing business and all Kodak mailers go to 3rd parties. As John relates, for Kodachrome all US film now goes to Dwayne's Photo in Parsons KS - the only remaining K'chrome processer in the US. You CAN avoid the long delays and deal directly with Dwayne's. For the small convenience of the mailer, you buy yourself a very long delay.

Dwayne's can be found at www.dwaynesphoto.com .

Scott

Here's the reality check:

Look at my photo of West Va. Northern 9 on page 69 of the February Trains.

I shot a roll of Fuji E-6 Provia on that cold and blustery two days. I left early, drove straight from Madley, Pa. to a lab in College Park, Md. that could crank my film through in an hour. I Fed-Exed the slides to Kalmbach and sent them a couple digital previews so they would know what was coming at them.

The photo in the magazine is one of the digital prieviews, taken with my wife's tiny Olympus digital camera.

At this point, a full-two-page spread like my shot in the November Trains of the Cape Charles car float still demands an 8-meg camera and good optics, such as a $1000 Canon or Nikon digital SLR. That won't be the case by the end of this year, trust me. And the photos, in my opinion, do a lot more good multiplied by 100,000 in a magazine than gathering dust in a closet.

Why do I continue to shoot Kodachrome?.........because I know that it is going to look good, well into the future. I have flashbacks to several of Jim Boyd's articles in R&R and in one of his recent hard-cover books and his statements concerning his use of "Professional Ektachrome" in the early sixties while preserving for history (or so he thought at the time) the North Shore. Well, the "PE" has faded into a red haze. What do you think the shots would look like today if he had stuck with the tried and true Kodachrome? I'm not saying that this will happen to other than Kodachrome but I CAN say that I KNOW Kodachrome will not do this.

As for speed of processing, in the case of a Sandy's great article, shooting with something that has a short turnaround time made total sense. So would digital if one is predisposed to spend lots of money on new equipment and technology.

I have the patience to wait for a good thing. I have no time constraints nor publication deadlines to meet. I do want to have a collection (it is at 29,500 slides at the present time) that is capable of being used for publication in the future. I started seriously shooting slides in 1966. Many of our old favorite steam subjects and pre-Amtrak passenger trains are included in those old Kodachromes. I stand by my decision. To me, telling me I'm foolish to shoot Kodachrome is like telling me I should drive an Audi instead of a Mercedes.

I'll stick my ugly face through the clown cutout at the county fair and you can start hurling the cream pies at it.........

Don C.

Sandy,

Are you saying "forget film - go digital?"

1. From a preservation standpoint (to keep on topic), there is a problem that 100 years from now, one can view a well-kept slide, but may not be able to read the particular digital format or media used today unless one carefully copies all one's images into the latest format and onto the latest media as time goes by.

2. Since digital cameras are so dependent on batteries, one must be very careful to keep them fairly warm, but not too warm. Film cameras seem to be more tolerant of varying environments.

3. The auto-exposure batteries in film cameras last for years. The batteries in digital camera last minutes (or so it seems). Recharging batteries (both "main" and "spare") in the field is a problem. Foregoing use of the LCD screen will save a lot on battery consumption, but then you are in film mode - "Did I get the shot?"

While I agree that digital is certainly overtaking film as the shooting mode of choice, it seems to me that there are still some substantial hurdles to overcome. Suggestions for overcoming them are certainly welcome ;-)

-John

Putting words into my mouth, are we?



That debate has been ongoing for over a decade now and isn't going to be won anytime soon. In my personal experience, however, I will argue that the durability factor of formats is equally matched by the fragility of "drugstore" processing (and who's to say that the guys currently processing Kodachrome are any good? The very last three rolls of Kodachrome I shot all suffered from scratches and poor processing....) and faulty cataloging. Every last week, we are passing around Baltimore streetcar prints at the Maryland Rail Heritage Library, playing a lousy game of "where was that shot taken?" and taking our best guesses. A print photo with no data is about as equally worthless as a digital photo one can't read--except that the newer generation of cameras can digitally "date-stamp" the photo with time and date.

98% of rail photos taken today will never survive to be preserved. That ratio pretty well matches the ratio of 1950s or even 1910s survivors, in all probability. The saying goes, "A good photographer is no different from a bad photographer; he simply never shows anyone his bad stuff."

Trust me, in 50 years it will be the same price or cheaper to extract a photo from someone's CD and print it than it will be to print a "photograph" from a negative, just as it's expensive to capture an image today for commercial use from a dagguerotype or carte viste.



And how, pray tell, is this any different from the bozo that runs out of film thirty minutes into a Carl Franz or John Craft photo charter? (I've actually seen the first one firsthand.)

My car now has a battery charger plugged into the cigarette lighter socket full time--and my 1999 Epson camera is a power hog compared to the newest generation. Should that fail, I can walk into any convenience store and get AA batteries--not the case with Kodachrome. I've yet to find a Kodachrome factory or processor I can plug into my car's socket. Let me know when you find one.

And don't kid yourself--I've seen plenty of film cameras fail in cold weather, just as with digital.

I am in no way rejecting the virtues of good slide film for archival work. However, film durability is only one factor in the massive equation for the durability of a vintage image--and far too often captioning, cataloging, and actual archiving are completely forgotten for the obsession of the "my prec-c-c-c-c-ious-s-s-s-s-s!" Kodachrome. And as obnoxious and difficult as the obviously-bent-on-self-immolation Kodak has been in recent years regarding quality control and customer service, it's best to get the heck off the train in question before your car plunges off the burning trestle to its doom.

One last note: In Britain in September 1991, I saw Fuji Film (the company, not some camera shop) show up at TWO different rail enthusiast events, marketing and selling its new slide films and re-supplying enthusiasts that were running out of film. And Canon and Nikon are marketing their new digital camera lines in railfan publications.

When was the last time you saw the Kodak company at a railfan event in the United States?

I'm asking this from a position of ignorance, but do any of you process your own film? I remember loading my 35mm stuff onto a reel and putting it into a small developing tank. Carefully adding the chemicals for the proper time, etc. Does anyone do this anymore? Are the developers and fixers still available?

Fitz,

This is getting way off topic, but quickly...

I expect you may remember processing B&W which is fairly easy, practical and even desirable in a home darkroom.

C-41 (color negative) and E-6 (transparency) processing is certainly possible to do at home, but requires very precise temperature and time control, and the chemicals involved have relatively poor shelf life. While doable (and many have over the years), they're fairly impractical for most rudimentary home darkrooms unless you want to invest in some specialized equipment and have reasonably high volume.

K-14, the process used for Kodachrome, is extremely complex. There's a reason you can't get Kodachrome done at the local 1 hour lab, and there's only one US lab still operating. You're certainly not going to process it at home.

Scott

That's certainly true for 1960, and true even beyond that. I've got plenty of faded 1970's Ektachrome to prove it, including some shots of the first doubleheader of 844 (then 8444) and 3985 after the Challenger's resurrection which make me almost cry to look at. But that's 30-40 years ago. Fuji (and even Kodak) have improved their E6 films dramatically since then, including longevity, while Kodachrome continues to languish untouched. My Provia slides will certainly outlast me, and probably my kids.

It's more than just the lead-time - the quality simply isn't what it used to be, while other films have moved well past what K-chrome was even in its heyday. I expect similar improvements could've been made to K-14 film if Kodak wanted to, but they haven't.

Scott

Absolutely, just as I can also get parchment, oil paints, canvases, inks, and stone-tablet chisels. [grins] My darling wife works for an art-supply store, after all.

The more realistic question, as Scott pointed out, is the ability for the chemistry, etc. to be "idiot-proof". In b/w film, it's fairly simple and straightforward--just as one can learn to adjust aperture and speed according to the light, so can one even learn intuitively how much longer one needs to process the film because of that two-degree difference in developer temperature. B/W processing usually has a tolerance of plus or minus one degree.

However, color film is different. Somewhere on the shelves behind me is an old textbook describing in excruciating detail the processing for E-6 and K-14 processing. As I recall, the E-6 processing allowed for as much of two-tenth of a degree in variation of temperature, and the K-14 was THREE SEPARATE processes, each stripping away a separate layer of emulsion, with a tolerance of one-twentieth of a degree in temperature.

Now, how precise is your water heater thermostat again?

The Kodachrome process (invented about 1935) adds the three color dyes to the film during the processing, unlike the E-series films where the dyes are incorporated in layers in the film during manufacturing. That's why "home" processing of Kodachrome was impossible (you need a pro lab set up for it). It is effectively a three-layer B&W film before processing.

Yes, the early E-2, 3 and even E-4 films were not as stable as K-II or K-25/64. But the E-6 process was a great improvement, and the film makers (especially Fuji) have continued to refine and improve the E-6 films. I shot Kodachrome exclusively for almost 30 years, and haven't touched a roll in the last 10 years. I'm kind of picky when it comes to film and image quality, and Provia F 100 gives me the results I want.

One other thing: the faded old E-chromes can be quite adequately salvaged through PhotoShop, especially for use in printed reproduction (books, magazines, etc.). I suspect there were a lot of rare, one-of-a-kind 40s and 50s images on Ansco or Ekta chromes that faded to red within a few years and were then tossed out as hopeless. Most of them could be saved now. Might even have had those elusive color shots of NYO&Ws "Mountaineer"!!!!

Indeed digital photography can go hand in hand.

I'll second the comment that old reddened slides can be rescued using Photoshop or whatever other brand of photo program you desire to use. I had bought a bunch of old LIRR slides (late 50's/60's vintage), and they were so faded that they were practaclyy solid red. One quick scan into the PC, and a few mins of work, and the image lives again in a viewable way.

I am STILL not sold on digital storage, and probably never will be. I do music and radio production, and there are CD's that I burned only 5 years ago that are dead. 100% unplayable.

Hard copies are key. I still shoot slides. Hands down.

PS....In case you dont know.....NEVER put labels on CD-R's. Over time and temp changes, they tend to pull at the CD emultion, and that will render the CD-R to a coffee coaster.