Fredrik's Kodachrome blog

I found another old booklet about using Kodachrome. This is published by The Focal Press; I don't know exactly when, but given that it talks about ASA 10 it must be from before the Kodachrome II era, i.e. pre-1960. It's pretty detailed and interesting; 50 pages long, and the PDF is 40 MB.

Download here

Two shots of the 1906 Bengtskär lighthouse (see earlier blog entry). Continue reading "Bengtskär lighthouse"

Tomorrow I'm off on a short trip to the tallest lighthouse in Scandinavia, namely Bengtskär, a very small and remote island in the Gulf of Finland, southwest of Hanko. I'm hoping for "Kodachrome weather" and lots of photo opportunities. I will perhaps, depending on the weather and scenery, shoot Kodachrome 25. In any case, I'll have Kodachrome 64 and Velvia 100 in my camera bag.

See http://www.bengtskar.fi/ for more information on the island and the lighthouse.

The trip is organized by the photo club Pictura that I'm a member of, and its goal is to result in an exhibition called Memories of a Lighthouse.

A few shots from March 24, when we suddenly and unexpectedly had heavy snowfall. These photos are from the small village Ingå where I grew up, and where my parents still live. Continue reading "Ingå"

Just returned from a short trip to Stavanger, Norway. Uncharacteristically for the country, the weather was perfect the whole time, with hardly a cloud on the sky for four days. I was on a boat trip in the beautiful fjord, and captured the scenery on K64, which I obtained in Stavanger Foto. From their website it looks like they only deal with digital photography, but they did have a good selection of films. Although no Kodachrome was visible on the shelf, the clerk could fetch some from the refrigerator for me when I requested it. It was emulsion batch #1553, expiry 02/2009 - I beleive that's the latest batch, if you've seen a higher number, please let me know!

Just ran out of KR-64, I put my last roll in my F100. So I went to the Anttila department store to pick up a few rolls, the only place that had it around here (none of the numerous camera stores carry it), only to discover that it was gone from the shelves. So from now on I'll have to mail order, which is not that big a deal for me, but it's still sad to see it get less available.

UPDATE 2008-07-01: Kodachrome is back at the department store. All's well!

A mallard in Aurajoki, the river running through my hometown Turku.

Kodachrome 64, March 19 2008

We had lots of snow last night. We haven't had a proper winter this year, and we were already looking forward to spring, but now we got a White Easter instead of a white Christmas. There's ice on the sea too, as it was well below freezing all night. And now the sun is out, and it's just beautiful. I was out on a long walk with my Nikon FM2n and consumed about one roll of Kodachrome 64.

I just noticed that Wittner Kinotechnik no longer offers their 40T film (which is really Kodachrome 40) in 16mm format. Of course, since K40 has not been manufactured for a few years we knew it was only a matter of time before Wittner would no longer be able to offer it, so this is no surprise, but it's a pity because I was considering getting some 16mm stock, but now I can't. 40T in 8mm formats is still available; I contacted Wittner and they estimate they can continue to offer it for 1-2 years. They also say they will start selling K40 in Super8 cartridges again! I don't do Super8 but for those that do, this is good news, but of course the supply is limited.

The other good news is that they now offer Wittner Chrome V50D (made from Fuji Velvia 50) in both 8mm and 16mm.

Interest in Kodachrome seems to be rising. Only in the last few days several people on various discussion forums such as http://photo.net/ have been talking about taking up the film again after many years of shooting digital and/or other films, and some are now trying Kodachrome for the first time! More people are realizing that Kodachrome is something out of the ordinary, and if you ever want to experience it, now is the time.

As far as I have understood, sales of Kodachrome and K14 processing have been dropping steadily since the 1990s. Wouldn't it be great if we could actually reverse that trend during the next two years leading up to Kodachrome's 75th anniversary in 2010?

Speaking of which, Ron Andrews has just put up a website intending to celebrate that anniversary. Check it out: http://ronald.andrews.googlepages.com/kodachrome.

Flowers in the botanical garden in Ruissalo, Turku, Finland - photographed on Kodachrome 200 on January 27.



Continue reading "Flowers"

I recently acquired this interesting booklet published by Eastman Kodak Co in 1939. It is a comprehensive guide to using the different types of Kodachrome film that existed at the time. I just scanned it, and you can download the whole thing in PDF format by following this link. Be warned, it's a 17MB file.

Polaroid instant film is no more. See here.

Like Kodachrome, Polaroid was revolutionary and unique, at one time. I didn't use it myself, but it's still sad to see such a prolific product go. It was often used for proofing before making 4x5 or larger exposures. Fortunately, Fuji continues to make instant film.

I'm still waiting for three rolls to show up... And a fourth one I only recently sent in. I'm trying to find out where and why they are being held up.

As background information for my overseas readers - this is how Kodachrome processing works in Europe: The film is always sold with processing included, unlike the situation in the US. With it comes a small envelope with which you mail the exposed film to the Kodak lab in Lausanne, Switzerland. There used to be a Kodachrome processing facility there, but as that no longer exists, they ship the received rolls to Dwayne's in Kansas, who processes the film and ships it back to Lausanne, and then it's finally mailed back to you. Yes, this is a roundabout way of doing it, but it's how Kodak decided to organize it. It's apparently much more convenient than keeping up K-14 processing in Lausanne...

However, I've been impressed with how fast this system actually works. Until now, that is. I have contacted Dwayne's, and they have records of receiving, processing, and shipping back my three rolls. Great. I have contacted the Lausanne lab, and they have records of receiving, shipping to Dwayne's, getting them returned, AND shipping them back to me one month ago. Wonderful. But they have not turned up here. Which sucks. I realize that mail can and does get lost, but I find it very unlikely that all three separate shipments would suddenly disappear like this, as the service has worked reliably before. I really have no idea what's going on.

If I do not get these rolls (108 carefully executed exposures that I'd hate to lose) and it turns out the service is not reliable I will have to ship my film to Dwayne's directly, perhaps by registered mail, and have them ship it directly to me. This will be a lot more expensive (I don't know if Dwayne's can honor the pre-paid processing if you bypass Kodak's system) and inconvenient. Your thoughts on this issue is most welcome!

Daniel Bayer has been expanding his Kodachrome project website and added discussion forums. Sign up, and spread the word!