Kodachrome
Kodak Kodachrome is a registered trademark of the company for a Kodak produced from 1935 to 2009 reversal or slide film. Precursor was produced from 1916 to 1930 two-color film. Kodachrome is also the title of a song by Paul Simon.
Kodachrome film was the first commercially successful color film with three natural color reproduction. Since its release in 1935 until the 1990s, he was the preferred slide film of many professional photographers and demanding amateur photographers. Kodachrome had a high sharpness, fine grain as well as vibrant colors and is extremely well preserved in archives. These properties were not reached by other films for over 50 years, which is why the Kodachrome exerted a significant influence on the development of color photography. Only in the 1990s reached approximately the other films Kodachrome level for further losses caused the emergence of digital photography. Kodak ceased production in 2009.
History and Development
Previous two-color film
The technically and qualitatively not similar predecessor, the Kodachrome two color film, was produced 1916-1930 and used as a cinema film. The photographs were taken with a special camera with twin lens and then copied to Dipo movie.
The classic Kodachrome
The classic Kodachrome three-color film underlying process was developed 1920-1935 by the two musicians and enthusiastic amateur photographers Leopold Godowsky Jr. ( son of the famous pianist Leopold Godowsky ) and Leopold man in order Kodak. This first Kodachrome emulsion had a film speed of 10 ASA. It is, Godowsky and man had always intended for her leading to Kodachrome test series in your own kitchen for lack of enough correct operating watches the exact development time by the common whistling of a Beethoven symphony. We speak because of the names of the two inventors in English jokingly of Kodachrome was shared by God and Man ( " God and man " ) were created.
The Kodachrome reversal film was first introduced in April 1935 as 16 -mm cine film; , these were around the first operating according to a chromogenic process color film ever.
The price of the material was then (although the development costs were included) significantly higher than for black and white material. An ad from 1936 quotes a price of $ 6.98 for the 100 -foot roll. Would Adjusted for inflation, the $ 107 in 2010 match. From 1936 also 35-mm material was available.
The end of production and development
The production of the once very popular Super8 narrow film Kodachrome K40 has already been set in 2004. On 22 June 2009, Kodak has announced 64 also adjust the production of the last remaining Kodachrome slide film after 74 years. The reason for this is that this film only 1 % of sales of products for the chemical Photography making up - which in turn is only a small division of Kodak. The last roll of Kodachrome, which ran from the tape, photographed the photographer Steve McCurry.
The Kodachrome development in Renens near Lausanne in Switzerland ended on 25 September 2006. Since all Kodachrome films sold worldwide were sent to the development of the last remaining private laboratory Dwayne 's Photo in Parsons, Kansas.
Kodak Stuttgart had announced in December 2009: The development of the last Kodachrome films by returning to Stuttgart until November 23, 2010 was possible. Films that were sent to Lausanne / Switzerland, could still be accepted until November 30, 2010.
Dwayne 's Photo took the last rolls of Kodachrome at noon on December 30, 2010 on the development. These films were developed on the same day of Dwayne's associates; the absolute last developed role came from the owner of the laboratory, Dwayne Steinle. The machines are now scheduled for scrapping.
Properties
The support of the Kodachrome color reversal films consists of 0.135 mm thick cellulose acetate.
The coordinated and available today only in remnants film series consisted mainly of the K25, K64 and K200 with the film speeds of 25, 64 and 200 ASA; for Super 8 and 16 mm, the K40 is also no longer produced has an additional special meaning.
The Kodachrome 25 has a granularity of 8 RMS, measured with a micro - densitometer at a measuring aperture of 48 microns and 12X magnification. The resolution is a test object contrast of 1.6:1 at 63 lines / mm and a test object contrast of 1000:1 at 100 lines / mm (manufacturer's data of 1998).
The Kodachrome 64 has a granularity of 10 RMS, measured with a micro - densitometer at a measuring aperture of 48 microns and 12 - fold magnification. The resolution is a test object contrast of 1.6:1 at 63 lines / mm and a test object contrast 1000:1 with 100 lines / mm (manufacturer's data of 2002).
The Kodachrome 200 has a granularity of 16 RMS, measured with a micro - densitometer at a measuring aperture of 48 microns and 12 - fold magnification. The resolution is a test object contrast of 1.6:1 at 50 lines / mm and a test object contrast of 1000:1 at 100 lines / mm (manufacturer's data of 2002).
Operation
The Kodachrome is actually a three-layered black-and-white film. The layers are separated from each other by color filters, and thus record the intensity of the three additive primary colors. Unlike "normal" color films, which are usually processed by the E-6 process, but missing the Kodachrome, the color couplers for color reproduction; they are included only in the developer. Therefore, the Kodachrome is less sensitive to incorrect storage (with respect to time, temperature, moisture ) than other color films. It should already have been in their original packaging Kodachrome films, more than 15 years were kept on the specified date noted (without frozen storage) and then still showed mediocre results after exposure and development. In another case were between exposure and development over 19 years and the slides were brauchbar.Weil the color arises only during development, the Kodachrome is one of the chromogenic films.
The absence of the embedded in the emulsion color couplers that must be performed to diffusion with long molecular chains in the E-6 films, explains the higher sharpness performance against these. The film is therefore ideally suited for large magnifications.
The development in K14 - process, however, was also very time-consuming, require above all, much more bathrooms than the E-6 process. It was carried out by Kodak itself and was therefore included in the film award at least in Europe.
Kodachrome slide films always had meaning only in professional or semi-professional. Slide film based on the much easier -to-use E- 6 processing principle had long dominated the market before the end of the K-14 development.
Pros and Cons
The Kodachrome films are generally characterized by their very high sharpness, their extremely natural and nuanced color reproduction - especially skin tones - and the high color stability. The latter property made him a long time the preferred film for applications in archives ( museums, art archives).
Kodachrome slide film is the only one that is reddish in the dark areas, while other slide films are bluish. This gives Kodachrome slides a warmer image impression. The greater emphasis on shades of green also leads to improved subjective image impression of landscapes, because people perceive green strong.
Tests have shown that the durability of Kodachrome dyes is only valid for the case of storage in the dark, here Kodachrome slide film for all other pictorial photography, which all operate according to the E-6 process, superior. The situation is different with the stability of the dyes in the projection: The enormous light throughput during projection resulted in tests after an hour in a noticeable fading ( loss of density of 0.1 ) of Kodachrome slides, E-6 Diamaterialien (eg B. Kodak Ektachrome, Agfa Chrome, Fujichrome ) here showed to be more stable. Kodachrome slides should therefore necessarily kept in complete darkness and the principle of " as little as possible, as often as necessary " will be presented by the projector.
Digitization ( scanning)
A framed Kodachrome slide may appear to fit into a slide scanner like any other slide. The result for a conventional scan but is in almost all cases not to use; usually it will be very bluish. Some manufacturers offer their scanning software special Kodachrome color profiles to choose from, which should prevent this. However, an IT8 calibration is necessary for really true color scans.
Since Kodachrome slides are particularly fine -grained, they are waiting for a very high resolution and a very large density range. If you want in the digitization here no losses take into account, so a high-resolution scanner ( min. 3000 dpi ) with a large range of density necessary.
Techniques of various scanners that detect undesirable defects, such as dust, scratches, fingerprints and the like automatically by means of an additional infrared channel and correct, may be used or only very limited on Kodachrome because of the silver halides used in it not. The appeared in 2004 film scanner Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED is the first and only available on the market scanner that allows a reliable dust and scratch removal in Kodachrome films without additional software with ICE4 Professional. Independent software developers work on their own tools for dust and scratch removal. SilverFast and VueScan offer their own infrared based methods for dust and scratch removal, the result with many scanners to produce high-quality results.
Kodachrome song
1973 Paul Simon wrote the song Kodachrome. Among other things, he played it together with Art Garfunkel in 1981 at the legendary benefit concert in Central Park, which led to the reunion of Simon & Garfunkel. In the 1990s, the song was also used as a promotional song by Kodak.