Kodachrome

Kodachrome, the legendary slide film beloved of generations, is endangered. There is only one lab in the entire world still processing it on the eve of its 75th anniversary in 2010.

It is still being sold and still being processed by Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas -- the only working Kodachrome lab in the world.

One photographer has been inspired by his love of Kodachrome to undertake the Kodachrome Project to celebrate the iconic film on its 75th anniversary and possibly help keep it around a bit longer.

If you have never used Kodachrome, you owe it to yourself to shoot a few rolls while it is still possible, because once it is gone it is unlikely ever to come back.

Of course you did!


I'm a slide guy, though I recently shot a couple of rolls of Ektar and liked it a lot.

When I got back into film photography about a year and a half ago, I went to the local film emporium expecting to find Kodachrome readily available. When I couldn't find it, I actually experienced the only panic attack of my life. It felt like a cartwheeling freefall into an abyss. Since then, there's been this big hole in my photographic life where Kodachrome used to be. Weeping in a cave is an apt metaphor.

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

I was basically married to Kodachrome 64 for ten years starting in '79 when I got my first Nikon F2. My first roll was shot entirely with a 200 f4 Nikkor-Q (the only lens I had at the time, given to me by a photojournalist friend of the family), and there were lots of keepers. Last weekend, I sorted the roughly 300 Kodachromes that represent my best photos from that period (clearly I couldn't afford much film in my teens) and took them to my local lab to be scanned. They'll be making their way to my Flickr gallery sometime next week.

I've also just purchased 36 rolls of Kodachrome 64 that I'll be shooting over the next couple of months, and when my supply gets low I'll order two dozen more. I'm ridiculously excited about still being able to shoot Kodachrome!

But I'm also sad that it's on the brink of extinction. Not that I don't love me some Velvia, but with its narrow exposure latitude, it's not Kodachrome by a rather large margin (and I'll be doing a comparison). When Kodachrome is gone, it will be the end of a golden era in Photography.

Don't miss the boat. Everybody, get out and shoot some Kodachrome while you still have the chance. If you're of the digital generation who has never even shot film, do yourself a favor and shoot some Kodachrome just so you can tell your future grandkids you did -- and show them the actual physical slides! Dust off some old film camera and experience the iconic film for yourself.

You can get it at Adorama, Just Film, Dwayne's and a number of other places (Amazon's price is fucking ridiculous, so fuck them). Send it to Dwayne's for processing (by good old snail mail like back in the day).

Celebrate 75 years of the most successful film in history and maybe help keep it around a while.

Canon P or Canon 7 in Leica thread mount (LTM) would be a great choice, but you'd need to use a separate meter. Cosina Voigtlander (CV) makes a range of LTM lenses that are a great quality for the price.

In Leica M mount, a number of the Bessas (I'm not familiar with their line) or the current Zeiss Ikon would be good choices. You might also consider a Leica M2 in user condition. The advantage of an M mount camera is that you could use a wider range of lenses than with LTM, including all Leica M and LTM lenses (LTM requires an adaptor), Carl Zeiss ZM lenses (less expensive than Leica), and the CV lenses (cheaper still).

Rangefinders are great!

Why not get a Leica-Minolta CL or Monolta CLE instead? They'd be more reliable, more versatile and more fun.

Kodachrome has a huge tolerance for underexposure in my experience.