The End of Kodahcrome is near (PART 2)

[Henry Tenby]

The following email exchange between airline slide photographers is a very interesting read:

Richard et all!

I have to say that I had to do some serious soul-searching when I had to decide whether to stop shooting Kodachrome after 40+ years and change to digital, or hang on to the bitter end scouring the earth for the very last roll! The problem we all have is that this medium is ‘tried and tested’ and has stood the test of time, so we are obviously cautious about the new technology. Kodachrome has been going ‘down hill’ ever since the demise of Kodachrome II in the ‘60s. When this was replaced with KR25, it still wasn’t as good, then we lot that and had to contend with KR64 which was the placement for grainy 64 ASA Kodachrome X (remember that?).

Okay the grain was improved on KR64 but it still isn’t as good as it was and some have jumped ship to Fuji Provia, but I’ve tried it and seen like-for-like results taken at the same time and am not convinced! Kodachrome was regarded by many as ‘the top of the league for natural colour and quality’ and as this was a ‘first generation medium’ ( a positive negative!) you could not get better quality colour, providing you had an equally good quality camera! Digital photography has none of the problems with colour balance and processing variations as the colours are captured by the sensor without this becoming an issue.

Now if you knew what the quality of,say, a Canon 40D, could produce in 1962 and you were stood alongside that RCAF Lancaster, would you shoot it on Kodachrome film or with the digital 40D camera? It’s a bit like saying would you shoot it in b/w because you know b/w film has lasted since the early 1900s, or would you shoot it with the then new Kodacolour print film? During the early 1960s, I went to many air shows and stood beside several aircraft photographers who were shooting off rolls of b/w film, whilst I was using Kodachrome II film and carefully shooting one or two slides of each subject. Today, those same people have their b/w negatives to make their inferior second-generation prints, whilst I have all these subjects captured in colour to scan and use how I wish!

How pleased I am today that I had the foresight to embrace technology and look to the future! Now we have the same situation, so we have to look forward and ask yourself what you can do with a slide that you can’t do with a digital image…and I don’t mean hold it in your hand! When digital point-and shoot cameras first came out, I scorned them with their 2 and 3 Megal pixel sensors making anything larger than a postcard pixelate! Now we have DSLRs with 10 and 12 megapixels, giving you the finest quality image blown up to billboard size, so it would be churlish to chase that last roll of KR64 just because that’s what we have done for 40 years!!

Re the book “The Hawker Hunter in British Military Service”, all my shots in that book are scans of original KII slides. You will also note that even the cover photo on this book is mine!! I am so pleased that technology(sorry if I keep using that word!) has enabled me to scan rare slides and e.mail them to publishers, as It means I can publish so much more without fear of losing or having original slides damaged. Latest published shots are in the book “RAF Little Rissington”, in Alan Hall’s WARPAINT book on the Hastings and in the Aviation Workshop’s monographs on the Canberra and Mirage F.1…there are lots more of my photos in the process of being published right now!

I have lost too many rare slides to publishers in the past – Ian Allan lost a slide they published of the Concorde prototype flying at Farnborough in 72, in full sun with an ink-black stormy sky behind! Two people blamed eachother for its loss! Others have been returned scratched, finger-printed and worst of all, soaked in oil!! I know Dick Ward lost all his Scimitar slides to Aerospace Publishing! I know others who submitted their slides to them actually had to go to their offices and refused to leave without them, following which they were directed to a huge box where they were dumped!!! Just wonderful that a group of us can scan very rare slides and share them – slide trading was never THIS good!!

I did go through a transitional period last year where I was still shooting KR64 in my Nikon F801 and digital with my Nikon D70S, but completed ‘the conversion course’ and finished my last roll of ‘wet’ film, never to look back! No more running out of film at air shows, no more frugally deciding on what to use that last shot (999 shots on a 1 GB memory card….even enough for me!), no more processing charges, no more waiting for those films to come back only to be disappointed by quality of the shot or the processing…..you can shoot in low light where Kodachrome would fail miserably! No more storage problems - oh but I do recommend you buy a separate hard-drive for your shots, so if your main PC did fail, everything would be saved.

See you at the next digital CD swapmeet?

Adrian




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrian and all

Perhaps your line where you say "that nostalgic feeling of actually hold a 2”X2” square of card surrounding a piece of film" is the nearest thing I've seen yet which describes the problem of conversion for me. It's that tangibility thing. I've been using Kodachrome for almost as long as you did and after thousands and thousands of rolls of the stuff, it's not at all easy to give it up; yes, I'm addicted. As Martin says, it's hard to beat some of the Kodachrome from the earlier period, in fact some of the Sixties stuff is absolutely stunning (the 1962 RCAF Lancaster slide that Rich Hunt obtained comes to mind):

I've recently managed to obtain a book I've been after via eBay for over a year - The Hawker Hunter in British Military Service. Eventually last week I found it. I had an idea it was good, but not that good. And who's photos do I find it features heavily? Yours! I was so impressed I had a look round on the net and found your Air Britain collection. Wow. You have had some extraordinary air-to-air opportunities.

Anyway, back to the point - I even showed my wife some of the early colour in the Hunter book and she could see how high the quality actually was, even as a non-enthusiast. The Kodachrome in those days seemed to capture such natural though vibrant colour and she commented on that point. I was saying how the environmental considerations meant that Kodak had to take more and more of the 'chrome' out of their film (silver, in fact) which contributed to the reduction in richness from the Sixties onwards.

So, to the comparison with digital again. The youngsters who've known no different produce some remarkable results and I think most of the concerns about manipulation can be forgotten - that is within the control of the person that captured the image (no, I didn't say 'took the photograph' - perhaps we should reserve that term for when we used to do it properly in the 'wet' age). If like me you only collect material you've taken yourself, then no problem at all, and I certainly wouldn't resort to cloning objects out, except for perhaps the occasional edge of frame intrusion by say a small piece of branch in an otherwise clear sky surrounding a flying subject. Maybe in the back of our minds there is also the thought that digital makes it all too easy. Although I'm a 100% died-in-the-wool Kodachrome kind of guy,

I'm not one of those that believes that you can actually produce a better image from a scanned slide - I now have a good deal of scanning experience and have never found I can quite rival the tonal balance and somehow the in-your-face immediacy of an equivalent digital shot. I've made lots of side-by-side comparisons and it seems to me that digi wins every time. But here we get into the depths of what the brain perceives on screen. In pure technical terms, we have to accept that a well-taken transparency still holds far more information than a 10Mp digi file. As you say, it is remarkable what can be done with Photoshop skill to correct the inadequacies of imperfect old slides, and I've had great fun enhancing some of my Seventies stuff for Airliners.net.

As far as the digi future is concerned, I will be interested to see how the new Nikon D300 stacks up to the Canon opposition. That's been the other problem with digi for me. I'm pure Nikon and don't want to have a whole set of separate lenses for a DSLR, but have to accept that to date, the Canons have almost always had the edge. For me, the rendition of colour, particularly skies, is much more pleasing on the Canons.

Nikon are changing from CCD to CMOS sensor with this one, so for the first time they'll be using the same imaging method as Canon. I await with interest as a current D80 and ex D70 & D50 user. Whatever the future holds, I know that it's only a matter of time before Mr K pulls the plug and I'll have to get that old KIM used up pretty pronto. Fuji? Yes, superior in many ways but not for me. I have to admit I look forward to being able to capture more of those awesome action shots that we see so much of on the net, so maybe it's better sooner rather than later.

I took this one a few days ago on the way home from the office (Jet B773). Perhaps I should call it Sunset over Kodachrome?

Cheers

Richard

[Henry Tenby]

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 9:39 PM
Subject: RE: FILM - What would YOU do?

Martin,

I think the only reason that collectors are reluctant to trade large digital
format scans, is because of that old 'duplicate syndrome' in that there is
still that stigma that scans are a 'copy' from the original slide, albeit
the slide scanners are now so good you can't tell if it's an 'original'
digital image from a digital camera or a scan from an original slide? Once
slide film finally bites the dust, THEN I think you'll find scans from old
slides will find their place and CDs produced covering certain rare subjects
will appear!

After all, if someone asked me if I would be interested in a
CD of RCAF aircraft taken during the 1950s and '60s, I would not turn it
down, or perhaps USAFE aircraft in Europe 1950-65? These are subjects that
are very rare in slide form, so there will be a demand I'm sure.
Whilst I don't advocate 'manipulation' of the original digital image, I
would certainly prefer to have that than, say, an original slide on Perutz
film that was slowly turning red! I have 'turned back' several scans of such
slides to original and natural colours and thus preserving history for
longer! Like it or not, Digital WILL replace 'wet film' sooner than you
think!

Adrian

-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: FILM - What would YOU do?

Adrian

While I agree with you, I would make the observation that collectors still
seem unwilling to buy or trade large format digital scans.

Maybe this is short term as once Kodachrome has gone, perhaps people will
accept digi scans as they do slides today.

Problem I see with the digi is the age old question of what is "original"?
Is the scan you get (or in the future buy) from someone been manipulated? If
it has does that matter? In addition and others may be able to comment here, it seems that the vast majority of digital images produced from the current crop of DSLR's are not 100% sharp straight out of the sensor. So some work in PS or similar is required to obtain optimum results. For myself, I accept digi scans but only if it's a copy of the original file.

Dare I say it.....perhaps this question of film v digital is connected with
the generation of people interested in collecting aircraft photos??? After
all, we're moving into a scenario where new shooters have and never will use
film. For me, nothing will beat pre-digital era Kodak slides period
1960-2000, but now there is very little value to taking slides. As I have
said before, I only take them to cover some of the vast $$$ spent on buying
old slides and to exchange with those people who have slides I want and who
are only interested in a slide for slide deal.

Martin


"Adrian wrote:

> Richard,
> It seems clear me that until the final word comes from Mr.K to cease
> Kodachrome production, they are trying to wean the last K64 shooters off
it,
> so they will go without a fight! With poor service and quality, it is
clear
> that this ploy is working, so as you ceremoniously lift that final roll
out
> of the freezer, you will be relieved that you have no longer got to endure
> that shoddy processing any more and you can look forward to a bright
> self-quality-controlled digital future!!! After 40 years shooting
> Kodachrome(exactly) I decided to give up on the anniversary of that first
> slide shoot and, as I have said before, apart from that nostalgic feeling
of
> actually hold a 2”X2” square of card surrounding a piece of film, I can’t
> see any benefit of slides over digital. I assure you, it’s a physiological
> thing that will be overcome when the last roll of K64 is dead and buried!
>

> Cheers>
> Adrian

> _____
>
> From: Richard V
> Subject: Fw: FILM - What would YOU do?
>
> Martin, Henry et al
>
>
> What an evocative subject you have raised here. Watch out, you are really
> likely to ignite some sharp reaction from me. I am really hacked off by
the
> standard of processing by Dwayne's and no longer look forward to having my
> slides returned, I fear it.

> Rather than ramble on about how things have changed, I'll let anyone who's
> interested read the attached correspondence - says it all really.
>
> The Hollywood connection is one I didn't know about. The Fuji stigma will
> never go away, daft though it is in many ways. Also, the comments about
film
> storage caught my eye as I was well aware that colour/hue will change but
> not necessarily grain. The KR64 does sometimes seem rough in that respect
> now. I still have a fair bit of KM25 in the freezer and prefer (as I
always
> did) to use this whenever possible. It is sooooo much better than
> contrasty-bluesy-greeny 64, even if getting a bit pink in its old age.

> Digital? Vastly superior on nearly every count, but I still can't make the
> total transition - it remains secondary when the opportunity arises for
me.

> Cheers all, and back to scanning oldies from when everything was ok....
> Richard
>
>
>
> (Any comment from the DAPPA guys welcome!)

> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: HYPERLINK
>
> Subject: FW: FILM - What would YOU do?

>
> Richard
>

>
> _____
>
> From: HYPERLINK

> Subject: Re: FILM - What would YOU do?
>
>
>
> Henry let me also add that in the US there are probably no more than 5
> active slide shooters currently- that's it, with me being one of them.
> While that is sad, it is also good for those photographers as on auction
and
> in conventions my slides sell extremely well over and over and over. So
for
> me it's been a boon but at the same time there is no question that the
slide
> hobby is one that has retained only the most hardcore collectors in the
> world.

>
> Let me also add- that if you refrigerate your K64 for several months and
use
> the film in bright sunny conditions, the grain effect is mitigated. My
> shots from JFK ramp 2 weeks ago- the real sunny ones are not too bad but
the
> ones where it was somewhat hazy were significatly more grainy.

> JP
>
> Henry wrote:
>
> Hi Martin,

>
> I only shoot kodachrome on holidays and air-to-airs etc as the local scene
> is dead as a doorknob and slides would be untradable. So I no longer shoot
> K64 or any other slide film on a regular basis.
>
>
>
> That said, I have noticed the quality of K64 decline significantly over
the
> past 7 years or so. The last time I shot K64 was 8 rolls on the Honeywell
> B720 visit in February. I staggered the slides into Dwayne's two rolls at
a
> time, and was lucky in that none were damaged. But the grain is indeed
very
> much like Agfa of the 60s. Nothing like kodachrome we know and love.

>
> I get several emails a year from friends about their slides being
butchered
> by Dwayne's with scratches and chemical stains. The most recent was from
> Richard Vandervord who lost many of his recent Russia slides to deep
> scratching. Very frustrating indeed. So it is a real gamble sending
> kodachrome in for processing.. and I don't like having a heart attack due
to
> stress waiting for slides to come back from Dwayne's.
>

> But... local processing of Fuji in Canada is also a pure crap shoot. The
> only place to get Fuji processed is the Fuji lab in the UK, and that is
not
> available to me residing here in the backwaters of Canada.
>
>
>
> Conclusion: Use both K64 and Fuji and hope for the best. But stagger films
> into kodak otherwise you risk entire loss of a trip's shots.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> Henry