They sure made some good cameras "back in the day"

Those are some great shots. I still have a 4x5 camera, but you can't get Kodachrome (and more precisely, you can get it developed) anymore.

More on the site that those were lifted from: http://www.shorpy.com/
 
Some pretty fancy lighting tricks in some of those portraits, but man, there's nothing quite like Kodachrome. No digital simulation will ever match the unique quality of even the most humble Kodachrome snapshot, IMHO.
 
How many of these are not Kodachrome?

Kind of sad, isn't it... they are so crisp and clear and how long before we just won't be able to do that anymore.

Just hope that the electronics never become obsolete.
 
Film is nice and all, but most of the credit goes to the man pushing the button.
 
A couple of comments:

- Good photographs are made by good photographers. Ansel Adams with a Brownie camera could probably take better pictures than I ever will.

- Kodachrome gives you three things. Wait, 4 things.

  • Outstanding color in properly exposed areas.
  • Featureless washed out blobs 'o white in overexposed areas.
  • Black pits of nothing in underexposed areas.
  • Excellent definition
The narrow exposure latitude is a benefit in that it makes the properly exposed portion of a photo (hopefully the important part) really jump off the page, while everything else fades to white or black with little or no definition.

By turning the ISO way down and the contrast way up on today's cameras, you *might* be able to simulate the look of Kodachrome. I say might because I haven't tried.
 
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And my signature photo were taken within seconds of each other. Not exactly what you were talking about, but on that track..
 
Fuji velvia was a fantastic film for landscape in natural light. Color saturation was fantastic. Don't know if it's still available, been out of serious photography for quite some time.
 
Projected images like those from transparencies, computer monitor or TV will always have a wider contrast range than those on printed paper. This is why when you print your pictures they don't look as vivid as on the computer monitor.

José
 
Fuji always "pushed green" back in the day. Made for great shots of green grass fields with or without other "targets" on the grass.
 
denverpilot said:
Fuji always "pushed green" back in the day. Made for great shots of green grass fields with or without other "targets" on the grass.
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Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. I greatly preferred Kodachrome. Shot a lot of that 'back in the day'.
 
As I scanned the thousands of photos that my dad took, it was amazing to see how well the Kodachrome stood the test of time & how many of the photos jumped off the slide. The nature of the K process was such that the photos and colors did not deteriorate in the same way as Ektachrome, B&W, or various color print films. Even at the highest scan resolutions (5400 dpi), the digital TIF files don't compare to the K slides.
 
kyleb said:
A couple of comments:

- Good photographs are made by good photographers. Ansel Adams with a Brownie camera could probably take better pictures than I ever will.

- Kodachrome gives you three things. Wait, 4 things.

  • Outstanding color in properly exposed areas.
  • Featureless washed out blobs 'o white in overexposed areas.
  • Black pits of nothing in underexposed areas.
  • Excellent definition
The narrow exposure latitude is a benefit in that it makes the properly exposed portion of a photo (hopefully the important part) really jump off the page, while everything else fades to white or black with little or no definition.

By turning the ISO way down and the contrast way up on today's cameras, you *might* be able to simulate the look of Kodachrome. I say might because I haven't tried.
Click to expand...

I always thought that Kodachrome gave you

  • Nice bright colors
  • Greens of summers
  • Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
 
wsuffa said:
As I scanned the thousands of photos that my dad took, it was amazing to see how well the Kodachrome stood the test of time & how many of the photos jumped off the slide. The nature of the K process was such that the photos and colors did not deteriorate in the same way as Ektachrome, B&W, or various color print films. Even at the highest scan resolutions (5400 dpi), the digital TIF files don't compare to the K slides.
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Correct. The dyes were added to Kodachrome during processing and not part of the film emulsion itself. This accounts for both the increased sharpness of the images and the stability.

The computed resolution of a 35mm Kodachrome frame (24x36mm) is around 20 megapixels. The 4x5 resolution is staggering.
 
bartmc said:
I always thought that Kodachrome gave you

  • Nice bright colors
  • Greens of summers
  • Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
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That, and slow shutter speeds. The fastest Kodachrome was ISO 64. I can't imagine being saddled with that kind of limitation.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
The guy in number 23 is totally checking out that chick's rear end.
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I think he watching a group of people he's never seen in the work area before capture a staged photo. One of the most common illusions of all time is the spontaneous work photo. They just don't exist. I used to watch these groups in the hangar all the time.

"Here stick a scredriver in here and make it look like you're doing something." Look at the woman with the drill holding the drill by the chuck. What do you think she's gonna do?
 
I only shot Kodachrome 25 in the days it was available. Yes, it was narrow. Exposure was critical. When it was on, the colors were fantastic. But, I now prefer the digital and software editing. It is amazing where I can now increase exposures in dark areas and reduce exposures in bright areas and still retain detail. Here is a digital copy of an overexposed Kodachrome slide. I was disappointed on this particular roll because most were overexposed. After decades in the box, this digital copy of the slide and photo editing, the contrast and exposure was enhanced to pretty good. So, don't throw out those under/overexposed slides. New technology can really enhance them.
 

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Lighting, lighting, lighting. Oh yeah and (as previously posted) the really narrow range of the film (or "transparencies"). If you know (knew!?) how to work it, man it was magic. Further testament to the skill of the photographers is "what you see is what they shot" as there are no dodging and burning processing tricks when working with transparencies...
 
kontiki said:
One of the most common illusions of all time is the spontaneous work photo.
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Take a drive through Amish country and take some shots. Some will allow you to shoot some pictures, but those guys don't pose...
 
Ghery said:
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. I greatly preferred Kodachrome. Shot a lot of that 'back in the day'.
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As of yesterday, Ektachrome is finished, too. Kodak's out of the slide film business once stocks are depleted.
 
kyleb said:
That, and slow shutter speeds. The fastest Kodachrome was ISO 64. I can't imagine being saddled with that kind of limitation.
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Bunches and bunches of Kodachrome II film was used by my dad and grandmother. ASA 25 (different scale than ISO, IIRC). Slow film but unbelievable quality images when exposed correctly. We had an old Kodak 35 that we used for years. Separate viewfinder for the split image rangefinder focus. Used an external light meter (Weston Master II) with a circular calculator for setting the exposure based on the light reading. I used that combo on the band trip to Europe in 1971 and got very good at taking a reading, getting the shutter speed / aperture setting, setting them into the camera, focus and shoot on that trip. I have all those slided in a box and have scanned them into the computer. They're still great. The commercial slides I bought in a few locations didn't hold up so well. Agfa film, IIRC. Fortunately the scanner software was able to fix them in the scanned images.

I miss Kodachrome, but I don't miss the price. My DSLRs have paid for themselves several times over by not having to buy and process film.
 
Ghery said:
I miss Kodachrome, but I don't miss the price. My DSLRs have paid for themselves several times over by not having to buy and process film.
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Cost-wise, you're correct. But film still has some advantages over digital. For one, it's got a broader dynamic range.
 
wsuffa said:
Cost-wise, you're correct. But film still has some advantages over digital. For one, it's got a broader dynamic range.
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I would beg to differ in that. The Kodachrome I used appeared to have about a 5 stop range. My digital camera has about a 10 stop range, quite impressive.
 
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