Kodachrome Takes Its Final Bow Today 262
Ellis D. Tripp writes "Today marks the end of an era for photo geeks, with the shutdown of the world's last Kodachrome film processing line. Dwayne's Photo, of Parson, KS will pull the plug on their K-14 processing equipment at the end of business today."
Paul Simon / Kodachrome (Score:5, Insightful)
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 all 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 all together for one night
I know they'd never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white
Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all 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
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
(Leave your boy so far from home)
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)
Comment removed (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Good Riddence! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cue some 'romantic' shit about how Kodachrome has some unmeasurable orgasmic quality over anything else...
It doesn't have to be "romantic shit." Kodachrome does have qualities that are different from anything else. Irreplaceable qualities? Unreproducible qualities? Maybe not. But until you've tried to shoot actual creative photographs (as opposed to "I wanna see this later" snapshots), you don't understand what a complex and highly analog process it is -- even for digital cameras.
Between shutter speeds, apertures, film ISO, lenses, flash timings, and just plain holding the camera in the right place at the right time, there are a lot of variables. In film stock there are variables also, much like how two different digital SLR cameras will produce different-looking pictures of the same thing under the same lighting conditions.
Can you fiddle with an exposure in Photoshop until most film snobs would swear it's a Kodachrome image? Sure. Is that a worthwhile way to spend your time? You tell me.
Bottom line: No, if you hand a roll of Kodachrome to an inexperienced photographer, he's not going to be able to take any better pictures than he would with any other film. On the other hand, in the hands of an experience photographer who understands Kodachrome and knows how to get what he wants from it, the film stock can make the difference between an OK photograph and a great one. It's kind of like playing an electric guitar: Whether your amp is tube or solid-state, your guitar and your amp -- in your hands -- is going to sound different from the guy down the street's. You play what works for you.
Kodachrome "worked" for a lot of photographers for many years. That picture from National Geographic of the Afghan girl with the crazy green eyes [nynetresources.org] that you've seen a million times? That's Kodachrome.