Kodachrome 25: CanTodays Films Duplicate

[Pawlowski6132]

I think I've got a couple 2 year old frozen fish in the freezer. We can trade, even up!

What kind?

[Drew Wiley]

I still have a roll of 120 Kodachrome in the freezer. Kept it just for the hell of it. Might
be worth a lot of money someday to career frozen undevelopable film collectors!

[Robert A. Zeichner]

I still have a roll of 120 Kodachrome in the freezer. Kept it just for the hell of it. Might
be worth a lot of money someday to career frozen undevelopable film collectors!

I have most of a brick of still frozen KP64-120. If only I could get it processed. I think the last run of 120 was about 8 or 10 years ago in England.

[rguinter]

Yes me too. I have a brick of it in 120 left in the freezer. Frankly, some of the finest images I've ever made in MF and SF are Kodachromes. It had some quirks like all films do but once you got used to them its performance was predictable and beautiful. I guess perhaps my reason for becoming nostalgic and wanting to come close to duplicating it with something newer in LF.

I also have half a dozen or so K-25 and K-64 left. Perhaps I'll use a few before Dwayne's pulls the plug. A few more examples attached. Bob G.

[Gordon Moat]

I'll keep this thread alive a bit longer. Thanks to all who provided suggestions for duplicating Kodachrome colors. To those who suggested Astia (i.e., RAP) I can only say that, after shooting about 10-15 sheets of it, my original opinion hasn't changed. I didn't like it at all when I shot it in 120 two years ago for the first time and I still don't.

To me it looks nothing at all like the old Kodchrome colors I tried to describe. In fact, for my typical use it is perhaps one of the poorest films I've ever used. My favorite time of day for photos is sunset (occasionally sunrise) and its performance at these hours is exceptionally bland. Kodachrome colors were brilliant pastel orange and reds at these times and RVP, RDP Fujichromes are equally brilliant with greater saturation and very strong blues. Not so with the RAP.

So unless I find a better use for it I think I'll pass on buying any more when my box is gone. Perhaps it will perform better at mid-day with stronger sunlight and I can use it there.

To those that suggested one of the Ektachromes I intend to buy a new box and try that one next. And any additional suggestions would be welcome.

Cheers. Bob G.

The film I use at sunset, blue hour, or night, is Kodak E100VS. If you don't like the saturation that much, I would suggest over-exposing by 1/3 stop.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

[rguinter]

The film I use at sunset, blue hour, or night, is Kodak E100VS. If you don't like the saturation that much, I would suggest over-exposing by 1/3 stop.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

Gordon: You are absolutely right on that. I use it sometimes for that application with 617 format and the pictures are very nice. It did a nice job for me on a recent trip to NYC as you can see.

It's super-saturation during the day is a bit much for me though and I haven't found any way to make it simulate Kodachrome. Cheers. Bob G.

[paulr]

We found a box of my grandmother's Kodachromes from 1939. It was amazing, and kind of spooky ... I'm used to thinking that the world back then existed only in black and white, or in some kind of old-timey color palette. To see it looking precisely like today (at least it seemed so ... this was in the 80s and the kodachrome palette was still familiar) was pretty amazing. My handsome young grandfather trying to look studious and authoritarian with his pipe and bath robe, close enough to touch ...

[Drew Wiley]

The sad fact of life is that Kodachrome CAN'T be duplicated by any E-6 film. It was
just another kind of animal altogether. You could pick one or two particular features
of it and find something analogous in a present film, but overall, we just have to learn things over again (or over and over and over, because film selection is always
changing). But E-6 films have dramatically improved since the heyday of Kodachrome, which I gave up way back when I switched mainly to large format.

[rguinter]

The sad fact of life is that Kodachrome CAN'T be duplicated by any E-6 film. It was
just another kind of animal altogether...

Drew: After starting this thread with less than high hopes, and following it through, and trying numerous other color films (underexposed, overexposed, cross-processed, etc.) I tend to agree with you.

Sometimes I can get the colors but not the grain. Sometimes the grain and not the colors. More often than not I can get a few of the colors but not the overall palette. I see this frequently with cross-processing or in the color shifts with long exposures.

But it didn't hurt to ask and I got some good suggestions for other trials.

Cheers. Bob G.