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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Kodak To Stop Making Kodachrome ( ! )
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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006
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posted 06-22-2009 04:36 PM
Kodak Retires Kodachrome Color Film After 74-Year Run
By Bloomberg News 7:25 AM PDT, June 22, 2009
(I seem to recall KODAK announced they were going to do this several years ago. It looks like "the end is near"-JC)
NoMoreKodachrome
Eastman Kodak Co., the photography pioneer whose Kodachrome
film inspired Paul Simon's 1973 hit of the same name, said it will retire the 74-year-old product this year after sales dwindled and most labs stopped processing it.
Revenue from Kodachrome represents "a fraction of one percent"
of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films, the company said today in a statement. Kodachrome became the world's first commercially successful color film in 1935, Kodak said.
The Rochester, New York-based company has seen its profitable
film business "evaporate" as digital cameras gained dominance,
Chief Executive Officer Antonio Perez said earlier this year.
The company lost $4.53 billion in market value in 2008 as it
struggled to show investors it had a place in the new technology.
"The majority of today's photographers have voiced their preference to capture images with newer technology -- both film and digital," said Mary Jane Hellyar, Kodak's outgoing president of the film, photofinishing and entertainment group. Kodak derives 70 percent of its revenue from commercial and consumer digital businesses, the company said in the statement.
Photofinishing labs that process Kodachrome film have dwindled
to one worldwide, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, Kodak said.
The lab will offer processing for the film through 2010, and Kodak estimates Kodachrome film supplies will last until "early fall" of this year, according to the statement.
"I love to take a photograph," Paul Simon sang in "Kodachrome,"
which reached second place in 1973 on Billboard's Hot 100 list.
"So mama don't take my Kodachrome away."
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David Buckley
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 525
From: Oxford, N. Canterbury, New Zealand
Registered: Aug 2004
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posted 06-25-2009 07:06 AM
quote: Steve Guttag
Kodachrome being a unique product that only Kodak made and only a special process could develop. Unfortunately, it was definitely the best color reversal process ever. In fact, I think it was the most magical film of all time.
It was only in the USA that you had local processing capability; for the rest of the world you needed to send the film to Kodak for processing. I believe that Kodak had to free up processing in the USA due to anti-trust laws. Processing (outside the USA) was "free", as in it was included in the price of the film. You posted the film to Kodak and Kodak posted back your slides. There was a big processing lab in Switzerland that did it all.
Kodak gave up processing Kodachrome a few years ago, directing everyone to Dwaynes. In many European countries the Kodak dropbox probably still works, and certainly a few years back Kodak forward the film to Dwaynes at their expense.
Kodak in the USA had a certification process for labs, which probably involved money changing hands, and some labs being certified, which Kodak (of course) recommended you use. In some sort of last laugh irony, I seem to remember a story that Dwaynes was never a certified lab...
My slides only go back to the sixties, but they are still pristine, just like everyone elses.
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