Film longevity

gartmore · 2009-01-13T11:06:01+0000

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.:D

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brownargus brownargus

101 posts
18 years
South Yorkshire

Posted 17/01/2009 - 11:01 Link

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

Will check it out. When my dad acquired the Retinette in 1959, it retailed at £29.19s.6d including a leather case - but this was about 2.5/3x the average weekly wage at the time - very expensive - equates to probably around £1,000 at today's prices! Also considered was the Voigtlander VitoB at about the same price. With the 10ASA film you needed a very bright day to get away from f2.8 @ 1/30th!

By the way, my first colour film was Ilfocolour, also 10 ASA but cheaper at around 30/- for 36 exp as opposed to 34/6 for Kodachrome. Looking back at the Ilford, they were quite grainy and they have also acquired an overall "blue" cast which I have tried to correct. Trouble is when you counteract for the overall blue cast, the sky goes green! The Agfa CT18 were about the same price as Kodak but in Switzerland where we holidayed in 1960, Agfa was around 21/- and Kodak over £2!

John

Pentax K7, Pentax DFA 100 macro, Sigma 17-70 macro, Tamron 70-200 Di LD zoom macro, Vivitar 28 f2.8 CF, Tamron 500 mirror lens, Pentax 360FGZ flash, Panasonic FZ28

Edited by brownargus: 17/01/2009 - 11:43