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Kodachrome is the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and still photography. For many years, Kodachrome was widely used for professional color photography, especially for images intended for publication in print media.
Because of its complex processing requirements, the film was initially sold only with the cost of processing; independent photography stores were prohibited from developing Kodachrome. To develop the film, customers had to mail it to Kodak, which would then send the developed film back as part of the purchase price. In 1954, the U.S. Department of Justice found that this practice violated antitrust laws by being uncompetitive. Kodak then entered into a consent decree, requiring the company to offer Kodachrome film for sale without the development fee, as well as license Kodachrome development patents to independent photography stores. Kodak had sold mailers to users who wanted their films to be processed by them. Nonetheless, the process-paid arrangement continued in other markets around the world.
Eventually, the growth and popularity of alternative photographic materials, and, much later, the widespread transition to digital photography, led to Kodachrome’s loss of market share. Its manufacture was discontinued in 2009, and processing ended in December 2010. In early 2017, Kodak announced it was investigating the possibility of re-introducing Kodachrome, but later conceded that this was unlikely to happen.
Kodachrome is appreciated in the archival and professional market for its accurate color reproduction and dark-storage longevity. Because of these qualities, it was used by Walton Sound and Film Services in the UK in 1953 for the official 16mm film of the coronation of Elizabeth II. Copies of the film for sale to the public were also produced using Kodachrome. More recent professional film photographers such as Steve McCurry, David Alan Harvey, Peter Guttman and Alex Webb also favored the film. It was used by McCurry for his iconic 1984 portrait of Sharbat Gula, Afghan Girl, for the National Geographic magazine.
Rudolf Fischer was granted a patent in 1913 for a proposed color photography process in which three separate emulsions, each sensitive to a different color, would be exposed simultaneously. However, Fischer was unable to implement the idea.
Using dyes that were absorbed only by the unhardened gelatin, the negative that recorded the blue and green light was dyed red-orange and the red-exposed negative was dyed blue-green. The result was a pair of positive dye images. The plates were then assembled emulsion to emulsion, producing transparency that was capable of good (for a two-colour process) colour rendition of skin tones in portraits. Capstaff's Kodachrome was made commercially available in 1915. It was also adapted for use as a 35mm motion picture film process. Today, this first version of Kodachrome is nearly forgotten, overshadowed by the next Kodak product bearing the same name Kodachrome.
In 2012 Capstaff's early film tests were added to the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry under the title Two-Color Kodachrome Test Shots No. III (1922) for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
Mannes and Godowsky first took an interest in color photography as high school students in 1917, when they saw a movie called Our Navy, a movie production using a four-color additive process. Both agreed the color was terrible. After researching the subject in the library, they started to experiment with additive color processes. Their experiments were continued during their college years, eventually producing a camera having two lenses that projected images side by side on a single strip of film. The color rendition of this additive two-color process was of fair quality, but aligning the two lenses of the projector was difficult.
Their experiments, which continued after they finished college, turned from multiple lenses that produced multiple, differently colored images that had to be combined to form the final transparency, to multiple layered film in which the different color images were already combined and therefore perfectly aligned. Such a multi-layered film had already been invented and patented in 1912 by the German inventor Rudolph Fischer. Each of the three layers in the proposed film would be sensitive to one of the three primary colors, and each of the three layers would have substances (called "color couplers") embedded in them that would form a dye of the required color when combined with the by-products of the developing silver image. When the silver images were bleached away, the three-color dye image would remain. Fischer, however, failed to find a way to stop the color couplers and color sensitizing dyes from wandering from one layer into the other, where they would produce unwanted colors.
Mannes and Godowsky, using a similar approach, started experimenting with color couplers, but their experiments were hindered by a lack of money, supplies and facilities. In 1922 Robert Wood, a friend of Mannes, wrote a letter of introduction for Mannes and Godowsky to Kodak chief scientist Kenneth Mees, referencing their experiments and asking if Mees could let them use the Kodak facilities for a few days. Mees offered to help, and after meeting with Mannes and Godowsky, agreed to supply them with multi-layer emulsions made to their specifications. The pair then secured a $20,000 loan from the New York investment firm Kuhn, Loeb and Company, instigated by a secretary there that Mees had befriended.
By 1924, they patented a two-color process that employed "controlled diffusion". By timing how long it took for an image to form in the top layer ahead of the lower level, they began to probe the prospects of timed processing as a means of controlling wandering dyes. Some three years later they were still experimenting with such a method in a multi-layer emulsion, but by then they had decided that instead of incorporating the color couplers into the emulsion layers themselves, they could be added to the developing chemicals.
When their money ran out in 1929, Mees helped them once more. He knew that the solution to the problem of the wandering dyes had already been found by one of Kodak's scientists, Leslie Brooker, and so fronted Mannes and Godowsky the money to pay off their loan with Kuhn Loeb and offered them a yearly salary, coupled to a three-year deadline to come up with a finished and commercially viable product.
Shortly before their deadline at the end of 1933, Mannes and Godowsky had not produced anything usable, and thought their experiments would be terminated by Kodak. Instead, Mees granted them a one-year extension and, still having technical challenges, they eventually presented Mees with a mere two-color movie process in 1934, just as the original Kodachrome invented by John Capstaff some 20 years earlier.
Mees immediately set things in motion to produce and market this film, but just before Kodak was about to do so in 1935, Mannes and Godowsky completed work on the long-awaited but no longer expected, much better, three-color version. On April 15, 1935, this new film, borrowing the name from Capstaff's process, was formally announced.
In 1961, Kodak released Kodachrome II with sharper images and faster speeds at 25 ASA. In 1962, Kodachrome-X at ASA 64 was introduced. In 1974, with the transition to the K-14 process, Kodachrome II and Kodachrome-X were replaced by Kodachrome 25 and Kodachrome 64.
In later years, Kodachrome was produced in a wide variety of film formats including 120 and , and in ISO-ASA values ranging from 8 to 200.
Until manufacturing was taken over by rival film manufacturer American IG, view-master stereo reels used Kodachrome films.
For professional uses, where duplication is expected and required, a special version, Kodachrome Commercial (KCO), was available in a 35 mm BH-perforated base (exclusively through Technicolor) and in a 16 mm base (exclusively through Eastman Kodak's professional products division). In both cases, Eastman Kodak performed the processing.
Kodachrome Commercial has a low-contrast characteristic that complements the various duplication films with which it is intended to be used: silver separation negatives for 35 mm (controlled exclusively by Technicolor) and reversal duplicating and printing stocks for 16 mm (controlled exclusively by Eastman Kodak).
Kodachrome Commercial was available until the mid-1950s, after which Ektachrome Commercial (ECO) replaced it for these specific applications.
After the late 1950s, 16 mm Kodachrome Commercial-originated films (and Ektachrome Commercial-originated films as well) were quite often duplicated onto Eastmancolor internegative film, after which these films were printed on Eastmancolor positive print film, as a cost-reduction measure, thereby yielding relatively low-cost prints for direct projection.
Unprocessed Kodachrome film may survive long periods between exposure and processing. In one case, several rolls were exposed and then lost in a Canadian forest. Upon discovery 19 years later they were processed and the images were usable.
Many scanners use an additional infrared channel to detect defects, as the long wave infrared radiation passes through the film but not through dust particles. Dust, scratches, and fingerprints on the slide are typically detected and removed by a scanner's software. Kodachrome interacts with this infrared channel in two ways. The absorption of the cyan dye extends into the near infrared region, making this layer opaque to infrared radiation. Kodachrome also has a pronounced relief image that can affect the infrared channel. These effects can sometimes cause a slight loss of sharpness in the scanned image when Digital ICE or a similar infrared channel dust removal function is used.
The first step in the process was the removal of the antihalation with an alkaline solution and wash. The film was then developed using a developer containing phenidone and hydroquinone, which formed three superimposed negative images, one for each primary color. After the first developer was washed out, the film underwent re-exposure and redevelopment. Re-exposure fogged the silver halides that were not developed in the first developer, limiting development to one layer at a time. A color developer then developed the fogged image, and its exhaustion products reacted with a color coupler to form a dye in the color complementary to the layer's sensitivity. The red-sensitive layer was re-exposed through the base of the film with red light, then redeveloped forming cyan dye. The blue-sensitive layer was re-exposed through the emulsion side of the film with blue light, then redeveloped forming yellow dye. The green-sensitive layer was redeveloped with a developer that chemically fogged it and formed magenta dye. After color development, the metallic silver was converted to silver halide using a bleach solution. The film was then fixed, making these silver halides soluble and leaving only the final dye image. The final steps were to wash the film to remove residual chemicals that might cause deterioration of the dye image, then to dry, cut, and mount the film in slide frames.
Because of the decline in business, many Kodak-owned and independent Kodachrome processing facilities were closed. The loss of processing availability further accelerated the decline in Kodachrome sales. In 1999, Kodak attempted to increase the availability of K-14 processing through its K-Lab program, where small labs equipped with smaller Kodak processing machines would supplement Kodak's own processing services. This effort did not endure and all the K-labs were closed by 2005.
On July 25, 2006, extensive documentation about Kodak's Lausanne Kodachrome lab's impending closure was sent to the European Parliament by the Dutch office of the European Parliament because, although located in Switzerland, the facility served all of Europe and its closure would affect European photographers. The Parliamentary committees for Culture and Education and for Internal Market and Consumer Protection studied the matter.
Dwayne's Photo announced in late 2010 that it would process all Kodachrome rolls received at the lab by December 30, 2010, after which processing would cease. As Dwayne's final processing deadline approached, thousands of stored rolls of film were sent in for processing. Once film received by the deadline had been developed, the world's last K-14 processing machine was taken out of service. The final roll to be processed was exposed by Dwayne Steinle, owner of Dwayne's Photo. The cessation of processing by Dwayne's Photo is commemorated in the book Kodachrome – End of the Run: Photographs from the Final Batches, edited by photographers Bill Barrett and Susan Hacker Stang with introductory essays by Time magazine worldwide pictures editor Arnold Drapkin and Dwayne's Photo vice president Grant Steinle. The book presents a year of pictures shot by Webster University photography students on more than 100 rolls of by-then rare Kodachrome film and processed by Dwayne's on the last day (extended to January 18, 2011) before processing chemicals officially ceased production.See Susan Stang's detailed description of the collaboration in Bill Barrett and Susan Hacker Stang (editors), Kodachrome – End of the Run: Photographs from the Final Batches (St. Louis, Webster University Press, 2011), pages 2–10. Kodachrome film can no longer be processed in color, but it can be Cross processing in black and white by some labs that specialize in obsolete processes and old film processing.
The brand is mentioned in The Alan Parsons Project's 1982 song "Psychobabble": "Tell you 'bout a dream that I have every night / It ain't Kodachrome and it isn't black and white".
Anticipating the approval of their merger, in 1985, the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroad companies repainted hundreds of locomotives into a unified red and yellow livery, which nicknamed "Kodachrome".
In 2017 the film Kodachrome premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and featured a dying photographer, played by Ed Harris, whose son, played by Jason Sudeikis, helps him to get the last of his Kodachrome photography processed.
"Dreamland", the opening song to the 2020 album Dreamland by Glass Animals, references Kodachrome as part of the song's evocation of a nostalgic past.
Zach Bryan's 2024 single The Way Back makes heavy mention of the film, and was the original title of the song when he first previewed the track in March of 2024.
Discontinuation
The Kodachrome product range diminished progressively through the 1990s and 2000s.
Product timeline
Kodachrome film 16 mm, daylight (ASA 10) & Type A (ASA 16) 1935–1962 8 mm, daylight (ASA 10) & Type A (ASA 16) 1936–1962 35 mm and 828, daylight (ASA 10) & Type A (ASA 16) 1936–1962 Kodachrome Professional film (sheets) daylight (ASA 8) and Type B (ASA 10) 1938–1951 Kodachrome film 35 mm and 828, Type F (ASA 12) 1955–1962 Kodachrome Professional film 35 mm, Type A (ASA 16) 1956–1962 Kodak Color Print Material Type D (slide duping film) 1955–1957 Kodachrome II film 16 mm, daylight (ASA 25) and Type A (ASA 40) 1961–1974 8 mm, daylight (ASA 25) and Type A (ASA 40) 1961–1974 S-8, Type A (ASA 40) 1965–1974 35 mm and 828, daylight (ASA 25/early) (ASA 64/late) 1961–1974 Professional, 35 mm, Type A (ASA 40) 1962–1978 Kodachrome-X film 35 mm (ASA 64) 1962–1974 126 format 1963–1974 110 format 1972–1974 Kodachrome 25 film 35 mm, daylight 1974–2001 Movie film, 16 mm, daylight 1974–2002 Movie film, 8 mm, daylight 1974–1992 Professional film, 35 mm, daylight 1983–1999 Kodachrome 40 film 35 mm, Type A 1978–1997 Movie film, 16 mm, Type A 1974–2006 Movie film, S-8, Type A 1974–2005 Sound Movie film, S-8, Type A 1974–1998 Movie film, 8 mm, Type A 1974–1992 Kodachrome 64 35 mm, daylight 1974–2009 126 format, daylight 1974–1993 110 format, daylight 1974–1987 Professional film, 35 mm, daylight 1983–2009 Professional film, daylight, 120 format 1986–1996 Kodachrome 200 Professional film, 35 mm, daylight 1986–2004 35 mm, daylight 1988–2007 Cine-Chrome 40A Double Regular 8 mm, tungsten 2003–2006
In popular culture
Kodachrome was the subject of Paul Simon's 1973 song "Kodachrome", and Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah was named after it, becoming the only park named for a brand of film.
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