The Kodachrome Story
HIstory
The history of Kodachrome is really a traditional American success story. Two professional musicians, Leopold Godowsky and Leopold Mannes saw the movie Our Navy in 1918. The movie was one of the first in color. The two were very impressed with what they saw that they set out to see if they could do the same with still photography.
They had a chance meeting with an investment banker, Mr. Loeb who decided that he should bankroll their efforts. As
they started to get closer to the product we know as Kodachrome, Kodak offered the two lab space to perfect their color process.Their first product was actually movie film which I would assume was because of their desire to replicate or improve on what they saw back in 1918. After the introduction of the first Kodachrome product in 1935 they discovered that the film was not as stable as they had hoped. It wasn’t until about 1938 did their product take on the characteristics that we now attribute to Kodachrome - archival longevity and true reproduction of colors.
It is these characteristics that made Kodachrome such a success. All other processes that came before had not captured the essence of this new product. Even Agfa the giant German chemical company couldn’t best Kodak with their Agfachrome. The revelation of color photos of Hitler ( more below) was exciting but they were all taken on Kodachrome rather than the Agfa product. If it weren’t for that, those photos are likely to have faded into obscurity - literally.
The Process
K-12 now K-14 is the process by which the Kodachrome is produced. Unlike the newer Kodak E-6 films, Kodachrome is a silver halide film similar in many respects to traditional black and white film. The processing starts with the addition of color couplers that attach to the silver halide - each of the three colors cyan,magenta,yellow are processed separately. Then the silver halide is washed away leaving just the color. This is what gives the Kodachrome such longevity.
E-6 films have all the dyes needed incorporated in the emulsion and goes thru only one development stage. Herein lies the problem for Kodachrome - while the film itself is not hard to produce it required a dedicated lab and technicians to process. The turnaround time was measured in days. E-6 on the other hand is easy to produce and process with turn around time of hours.
Trends
The popularity of slide film was based on the interest in “the Slide show” - it was part of the tradition of gathering with others to view a show. The circus , the movie theater , and Dad’s trip to the West were all part of this tradition. The country started to ask for more - we want photographs that can be shared via the US mail. Portraits in the home, in lockets etc were also popular uses for photography. This of course was served by the black and white photo which was quick and relatively inexpensive. After the war there was an upsurge in the interest in color - I wonder if this was in part a response to the horror of war which came into American’s home and life with the Black and White film/photo. Well now that our society had survived the latest world war we were now ready for the life affirming color slide or photograph.
At the same time that Kodachrome was placed into the market, Kodak and the other film makers started to produce print film - Kodacolor, etc. This produced a print which was perfect for home use and for mailing to friends or for quick, impromptu showings without the burden of a slide projector and screen.
The first years of Kodacolor produced films that were not stable for long term viewing - something that it’s claimed that Kodak knew about. They ran longevity tests on all their products but didn’t want to reveal the data for Kodachrome ( which was very good) for fear of having questions asked of their other products. With more research and development this became less of an issue. Many of the original Kodacolor prints have however been lost to the imperfect nature of the early technology.
Fortunately many of the famous events of WWII and after had been captured on Kodachrome and survive today in excellent shape. We have photos from Hiroshima, Yalta and even of Hitler all on Kodachrome. This last bit of photographic history is due to one of Hitler’s personal photographer using Kodachrome in the first place. A competing product Agfachrome was a German product but it lacked the archival abilities of Kodachrome. Hugo Jaeger, Hitler’s photographer shot Kodachrome. At the end of the war Jaeger was attempting to leave Germany when he ran into an American Army squad. He had with him all of his slides from the war. Fortunately he also had a bottle of Cognac and this got the attention of the soldiers who never looked at the slides. Jaeger buried the slides outside of Munich. He retrieved them in 1955 and put them into a bank vault. 10 years later he took them out and sold them to Life, Inc. Just this year LIFE.com has published them. An amazing story which wouldn’t have happened save for Kodachrome and some luck.
As our society insisted upon instant everything the E-6 process took over as the popular slide film. E-6 films came in a variety of styles and speeds. The initial Kodachrome had an ASA speed of only 12. The ‘speed’ of a film refers to how fast a shutter speed one can use or how small a lens aperture ( for better depth of field) one can use. Even with speeds of 25,64 and eventually 200 the E-6 films had an edge for most photographers. Soon a ‘little’ company called Fuji was offering Velvia - a slow speed film ideally suited to nature and landscape photography. For ideal skin tones there was their product Astia. With two hour turn around on developing and most magazine insisting on ‘chromes the E-6 product line started to make Kodachromes less relevant.
This is not to say that no one was using Kodachrome. In the modern era we have such iconic photos as Steve McCurry’s “Afghan Girl” printed 1984 in the National Geographic. It is pretty clear that the digital era is most responsible for the demise of many products from the film era. The demise of Polaroid really was more of a financial mismanagement problem but it too may have succumbed without the assistance or poor management.
Returning to the theme of longevity, it is known that even digital storage as opposed to negative or slide storage is not archival past 5-10 years. The computer age has once again given the casual photographer the sense that storage is infinite and that it’s secure for years to come. Those who have been in the field since the days of mainframes understand the fallacy of this. Just look at removable media - tape, 5 1/2” and 3 1/4” discs - very difficult to get data off those machines with those media.
Shooting slides and film if stored in the dark provide longevity figures marked in terms of decades and even centuries. In the vein of truth it is to be mentioned that Kodachrome and the K-145 process have E-6 slides beat if you are talking about dark storage longevity. E-6 is actually better for projected longevity. So kiddies remember that if you are actually projecting your slides ( what an odd thought :) that don’t keep your Kodachromes in the slide machine too long.
Why shoot film anyway?
A fair question. We are now at a point where the top of the line digital SLR cameras with full frame sensors come close to and beat the abilities of their film counterparts. We even have software programs that will take the digital photo and put a “film” spin on it. Shoot a digital picture but want it to look like black and white Tri-X film - no problem. There is a “filter” for that look now. On the other hand we have numerous examples of photojournalists getting in to trouble by just doing a little photoshoping here and there - problem is that it’s not what happened. There is some happiness to be had knowing that if you get that perfect shot that it was your genius that got it.
Having been taught traditional darkroom technique by my Father I don’t have a problem with waiting till I get the film back from the lab or out of the film developer when I do it myself. We are such an instant society that we have a very hard time waiting for anything. As a child of the 50’s ( the next installment of The Village Idiot) I loved to wait for things in the mail. Is it going to be there when I got home from school? They said 4-6 weeks and when it showed in 2 weeks it still felt like a lifetime.
Therefore I shoot film and Kodachrome not because I have to but because I want to. Once Kodachrome is gone us analog shooters will do what we’ve always done - move on to the next shot with whatever film we happen to have in the camera.
E.Nitka
Take a look at samples of Kodachrome shot in the modern day
The history of Kodachrome is really a traditional American success story. Two professional musicians, Leopold Godowsky and Leopold Mannes saw the movie Our Navy in 1918. The movie was one of the first in color. The two were very impressed with what they saw that they set out to see if they could do the same with still photography.
They had a chance meeting with an investment banker, Mr. Loeb who decided that he should bankroll their efforts. As
they started to get closer to the product we know as Kodachrome, Kodak offered the two lab space to perfect their color process.Their first product was actually movie film which I would assume was because of their desire to replicate or improve on what they saw back in 1918. After the introduction of the first Kodachrome product in 1935 they discovered that the film was not as stable as they had hoped. It wasn’t until about 1938 did their product take on the characteristics that we now attribute to Kodachrome - archival longevity and true reproduction of colors.
It is these characteristics that made Kodachrome such a success. All other processes that came before had not captured the essence of this new product. Even Agfa the giant German chemical company couldn’t best Kodak with their Agfachrome. The revelation of color photos of Hitler ( more below) was exciting but they were all taken on Kodachrome rather than the Agfa product. If it weren’t for that, those photos are likely to have faded into obscurity - literally.
The Process
K-12 now K-14 is the process by which the Kodachrome is produced. Unlike the newer Kodak E-6 films, Kodachrome is a silver halide film similar in many respects to traditional black and white film. The processing starts with the addition of color couplers that attach to the silver halide - each of the three colors cyan,magenta,yellow are processed separately. Then the silver halide is washed away leaving just the color. This is what gives the Kodachrome such longevity.
E-6 films have all the dyes needed incorporated in the emulsion and goes thru only one development stage. Herein lies the problem for Kodachrome - while the film itself is not hard to produce it required a dedicated lab and technicians to process. The turnaround time was measured in days. E-6 on the other hand is easy to produce and process with turn around time of hours.
Trends
The popularity of slide film was based on the interest in “the Slide show” - it was part of the tradition of gathering with others to view a show. The circus , the movie theater , and Dad’s trip to the West were all part of this tradition. The country started to ask for more - we want photographs that can be shared via the US mail. Portraits in the home, in lockets etc were also popular uses for photography. This of course was served by the black and white photo which was quick and relatively inexpensive. After the war there was an upsurge in the interest in color - I wonder if this was in part a response to the horror of war which came into American’s home and life with the Black and White film/photo. Well now that our society had survived the latest world war we were now ready for the life affirming color slide or photograph.
At the same time that Kodachrome was placed into the market, Kodak and the other film makers started to produce print film - Kodacolor, etc. This produced a print which was perfect for home use and for mailing to friends or for quick, impromptu showings without the burden of a slide projector and screen.
The first years of Kodacolor produced films that were not stable for long term viewing - something that it’s claimed that Kodak knew about. They ran longevity tests on all their products but didn’t want to reveal the data for Kodachrome ( which was very good) for fear of having questions asked of their other products. With more research and development this became less of an issue. Many of the original Kodacolor prints have however been lost to the imperfect nature of the early technology.
Fortunately many of the famous events of WWII and after had been captured on Kodachrome and survive today in excellent shape. We have photos from Hiroshima, Yalta and even of Hitler all on Kodachrome. This last bit of photographic history is due to one of Hitler’s personal photographer using Kodachrome in the first place. A competing product Agfachrome was a German product but it lacked the archival abilities of Kodachrome. Hugo Jaeger, Hitler’s photographer shot Kodachrome. At the end of the war Jaeger was attempting to leave Germany when he ran into an American Army squad. He had with him all of his slides from the war. Fortunately he also had a bottle of Cognac and this got the attention of the soldiers who never looked at the slides. Jaeger buried the slides outside of Munich. He retrieved them in 1955 and put them into a bank vault. 10 years later he took them out and sold them to Life, Inc. Just this year LIFE.com has published them. An amazing story which wouldn’t have happened save for Kodachrome and some luck.
As our society insisted upon instant everything the E-6 process took over as the popular slide film. E-6 films came in a variety of styles and speeds. The initial Kodachrome had an ASA speed of only 12. The ‘speed’ of a film refers to how fast a shutter speed one can use or how small a lens aperture ( for better depth of field) one can use. Even with speeds of 25,64 and eventually 200 the E-6 films had an edge for most photographers. Soon a ‘little’ company called Fuji was offering Velvia - a slow speed film ideally suited to nature and landscape photography. For ideal skin tones there was their product Astia. With two hour turn around on developing and most magazine insisting on ‘chromes the E-6 product line started to make Kodachromes less relevant.
This is not to say that no one was using Kodachrome. In the modern era we have such iconic photos as Steve McCurry’s “Afghan Girl” printed 1984 in the National Geographic. It is pretty clear that the digital era is most responsible for the demise of many products from the film era. The demise of Polaroid really was more of a financial mismanagement problem but it too may have succumbed without the assistance or poor management.
Returning to the theme of longevity, it is known that even digital storage as opposed to negative or slide storage is not archival past 5-10 years. The computer age has once again given the casual photographer the sense that storage is infinite and that it’s secure for years to come. Those who have been in the field since the days of mainframes understand the fallacy of this. Just look at removable media - tape, 5 1/2” and 3 1/4” discs - very difficult to get data off those machines with those media.
Shooting slides and film if stored in the dark provide longevity figures marked in terms of decades and even centuries. In the vein of truth it is to be mentioned that Kodachrome and the K-145 process have E-6 slides beat if you are talking about dark storage longevity. E-6 is actually better for projected longevity. So kiddies remember that if you are actually projecting your slides ( what an odd thought :) that don’t keep your Kodachromes in the slide machine too long.
Why shoot film anyway?
A fair question. We are now at a point where the top of the line digital SLR cameras with full frame sensors come close to and beat the abilities of their film counterparts. We even have software programs that will take the digital photo and put a “film” spin on it. Shoot a digital picture but want it to look like black and white Tri-X film - no problem. There is a “filter” for that look now. On the other hand we have numerous examples of photojournalists getting in to trouble by just doing a little photoshoping here and there - problem is that it’s not what happened. There is some happiness to be had knowing that if you get that perfect shot that it was your genius that got it.
Having been taught traditional darkroom technique by my Father I don’t have a problem with waiting till I get the film back from the lab or out of the film developer when I do it myself. We are such an instant society that we have a very hard time waiting for anything. As a child of the 50’s ( the next installment of The Village Idiot) I loved to wait for things in the mail. Is it going to be there when I got home from school? They said 4-6 weeks and when it showed in 2 weeks it still felt like a lifetime.
Therefore I shoot film and Kodachrome not because I have to but because I want to. Once Kodachrome is gone us analog shooters will do what we’ve always done - move on to the next shot with whatever film we happen to have in the camera.
E.Nitka
Take a look at samples of Kodachrome shot in the modern day
