UTMC

The best slide and movie film in history is now officially retired. Kodachrome: 1935-2010.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth
you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
-Kahlil Gibran

I'm not even a photographer, but this makes me sad.

And all they did was get a t-shirt.

How do they know they developed the last roll?
The last roll in their shop, the last roll their shop sold, the last roll Kodak sold?
There's gotta be tens of thousands of rolls of Kodachrome still out there.

Just looked it up, what actually happened is that Dwayne here shut down the last lab in the world where Kodachrome could be processed with Kodak's own K-14 development process. So, really, they didn't develop the last roll, they only developed the last genuine Kodachrome prints and/or slides (which is sad in and off itself, as Kodachrome slides have superior archival properties).

...and only a few blocks from Sid's house.

This is true! I live practically around the corner from there. In fact, one of my sisters used to work there.

I believe that very picture was on the front page of the local fishwrap this morning.

DerGolgo wrote:How do they know they developed the last roll?
The last roll in their shop, the last roll their shop sold, the last roll Kodak sold?

As I understand it, Kodak stopped producing the chemicals needed to develop the stuff and dwayne's opened the last of it just recently. Today was when they projected it would run out.

So really, it's more like they just developed the last roll that can be developed. I guess someone could come along and start making the chemicals again, but I believe they are proprietary and with no one making the film I don't see it happening.

The developing machine used to supposed to be sold off for scrap.

It's analog. You can still develop it, it just won't be proper Kodachrome.
I remember, when I was young and interested in photography, dropping rolls of Kodak film that I had bought on holiday off at the local photo place, which had it's own Fujifulm processing machine (I saw it). Photos came out alright. That was negative film though, not color reversal, but I doubt Kodak had some super-secret ingredient without which you can get the image out.

In school, when photography came up on the physics syllabus, the teacher had us take photos with regular old store-bought film and then sent us into the darkroom, where we cut it apart and developed it by hand. Didn't come out great, but came out.

DerGolgo wrote:It's analog. You can still develop it, it just won't be proper Kodachrome.

kodachrome is black and white film at the start, and the k-14 process adds color during re-exposure and re-development processes - unlike an other color process.

k-14 is not nearly as simple to re-create as processing e6, b&w or c41. kodachrome has been a process unto itself for the past 75 years, and no one has been able to successfully recreate it. certainly, there is an italian chemical company trying to manufacture the right stuff, but they have had no real success, and as of now, there is no longer anyone in the world that is commercially processing kodachrome as color reversal film.

In that case, I hope Kodak either does the honorable thing and publishes it's process (after all, they no longer really need to keep it a secret, as they are out of the analog photography business) or whoever does the actual job of scrapping Dwayne's processing line happens to be a photography geek and takes some notes.

DerGolgo wrote:In that case, I hope Kodak either does the honorable thing and publishes it's process (after all, they no longer really need to keep it a secret, as they are out of the analog photography business) or whoever does the actual job of scrapping Dwayne's processing line happens to be a photography geek and takes some notes.

i think it was back in the early '80s (when kodachrome was truly top of the heap) that kodak tried to get other manufacturers to utilize the k-14 process. it was freely offered i believe, but no one took them up on it, and poured their resources into making the mini-lab friendly e6 color reversal film better. all told i think there was only ever a max of about 25 labs in the world that processed k-14, and tens of thousands that processed e6.

a k14 mini lab (35mm film only) from colorado got bought up by a photo enthusiast, and i have a feeling dwayne's lab may end up in rochester, ny @ the home of george eastman, or somewhere along the same lines... (the eastman house is basically a museum of photographic history)

While this event might bookend an era, it has kind of been over for awhile. For all practical purposes, analog is dead. It has been interesting to watch, as it feels like it happened so fast.

I work for the a very large photo distributor, and started just as analog was being eliminated. There used to be scanning departments and dark rooms, but that is ancient history now. One year we handled XX million slides . . . the next year we handled 0. I think that was around 2002.