Film longevity

I went rummaging for some old pictures to use in a project I'm working on and came across some boxes of transparencies stored in reasonable conditions - dry, dark and cool - but nothing to impress a museum curator! This is Kodachrome 64 from 1975



Spotmatic F and 28mm SMC Takumar and polarizer I think

I'm quite amazed that it looks as good as new. Kodak processed Ektachrome looks OK but 3rd party lab and home processed are a bin case being either totally cyan or magenta now.

Anyone have similar experiences?

Another small thing to mention, I use a Minolta scanner whose software doesn't work with Vista or so I thought. Then one day all was fine. I hadn't realised until reading this week's AP that downloading the trial version of Vuescan sorts the problem out. This is what I had unwittingly done.

Kodachrome films have a unique structure where the dyes are in the processing chemicals rather than in the emulsion. This gives very good colour, very fine grain and almost copmplete resistance to fading providing they are kept cool, dry and dark. The downside is that the processing is a very complex and expensive process.

If you continually project slides though, the Kodachromes will fade faster under light than an E6 film will.

Original 1936 Kodachromes are in storage at Kodak and still retain their colour.

My slide archive doesn't go quite that far back - but my Fuji Chrome 50 & 100 is pretty good - my bad slides are ones where I had a case of "short arms/deep pockets" and didn't sling out out of date film - then it's got a green cast.

I have found some 1980 or 81 slides which came from a home/self processing pack - can't remember the brand - started with a 'B' IIRC. Still damn good


Steve

My old Kodachrome slides are still pretty damn good (they go back to 1982) but the "Boots" slide films fade. By the way gartmore, don't bin those slides. Our photographer has quite some success scanning old slides and restoring the colour in PS. His biggest success was scanning a set of slides which had been developed accidentally as print films and restoring those to close to what they should be.

Cheers, Kris.

Some senior lectures still use slides made during seventies for teaching at the university I work.
The kodak 35mm slide projectors (some of them 15 years old) are real workhorses and I have seen some of the best images of geography, landscapes and architecture projected on large projection screen in lecture rooms.

As john and kris mentioned keeping them in cool,dry and dark environment would maintain their quality for printing or scanning in future.

I got copies made of my favourite teaching slides because they started to fade. Now I have them all scanned and in powerpoint. The amount of time I used to spend sorting 35mm slides in and out of magazines for lectures seems incredible now. Getting all my lectures in powerpoint was a right royal pain at the time, but in the long run has saved me many hours of sorting. Now I just project slides for fun. Nothing quite like a Kodachrome 25 ASA slide on a big screen!

Cheers, Kris.

Hi,
If this is any use, when I worked for Ford Motor Company Pilot Plant,
the Ford Photographic Department was located within the same site.

All the film that Ford used, was stored in refridgerators, to protect and stabilize the emulsions, and were usable after the use by date!

I wish I'd known how your photographer fixed the cross-processed films. I had a job destroyed by Kodak no less when they put six rolls of Ektachrome through the C41 bath. 'The student done it' was the excuse. They eventually upped their compensation from six rolls to fifty, some of which are still in the freezer, Roscoe. No amount of photoshopping could sort them and this stuff always happens on things you cant re-shoot.

On the fridge/freezer front you should remember that all professional film stocks should be kept refridgerated and only amateur films like Kodacolor can survive sitting on shelves in shops. One of the best things about my local Jessops pro shop, that closed before Christmas, was that all the film was correctly stored.

I have some Kodachrome 10 ASA from 1961 and earlier which are all OK. I changed to Agfa CT18 for the higher speed (ASA50) but almost all of them have deteriorated badly and are now magenta and unusable. I also have plenty of Ektachrome from the late 60s onwards (when HS Ektachrome ASA160 came out) and they have survived OK. Ektachrome 64 from mid 70's was a favourite!
[IMG]http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr269/brownargus/kodachrome1961.jpg[/IMG]
Kodachrome 10 ASA, Kodak Retinette IIB with 45 mm lens

10 ASA I thought 64 was bad enough, and only used 25 when on holiday in Italy. You could try scanning the magenta slides and using the "remove colour cast" tool in PS. It seems to work extremely well.

Gartmore... I'll ask him next time I see him how he fixed those images.

Cheers, Kris.

You expect us to believe that? Own up, these were taken last year at a classic bus rally with your K10

Just look at the size of the TV aerial on the building - the old H type about 6 ft tall for Band 1 B&W. Historic stuff!!

I tried that on a few but the original colour had all but gone and it wasn't possible to get a suitable image. Thanks for the suggestion.

John

For correcting colour even "Auto Colour" can work out quite well.

I like the image, by the way.

Brownargus, have you seen this week's AP magazine? There is an article on Kodak retinettes