Just waaaay out in the nostalgia field, but man…. I found myself thinking about the kind of of super rich beautiful colors you used to get from ektachrome.

And better yet, unlike Kodachrome, you could run the processing yourself. I wish I still had some of my stuff from way back in the 1980s. I can still remember the smell of the chemicals in the darkroom though.

Yeah, I know, probably a hundred and one reasons that digital is “better”, but…. I probably won’t be convinced, even though I know I’m wrong!

Bill R

E-6, baby! Was really satisfying to develop your own film, a great sense of accomplishment. And the color was great.

I ran a E-3 lab then E-6, processing 8x10 and 11x14 Extachrome sheet film in commercial Photo studios.
Re-exposing the film was always my favorite, except I was always nervous when I had to handle the warm, vulnerable film.
Eventually, Fujichrome took the spot from Ektachrome. It had a warmer tone and finer grain structure.
Nothing beats the feeling from back then like waiting for your film to come back to the studio when placed on rush service (1.5hrs).
Film delivered and right to the light box for inspection with your eyes and then a Lupe to your eye checking for sharpness/focus.
The color from those large 8x10 transparency's when up on the light box was stunning.

Ektachrome was always my favorite color film. I think the last time I used it was almost 30 years ago when I shot some aerial photos of my home in the country. Fond memories of my Nikon F3 and motordrive hanging out the window of a Citabria while I shot a roll.

Kodak was still offering very large blowups for next-to-nothing, don't know if they still do. I made use of the service and hung one of my pics on the wall.

I used Ektachrome a few times. It's been so long ago I that I almost forgot about it. I remember being amazed at the vivid colors. I miss developing film, it's been over thirty years since I've done it. Now I feel really old.

As I recall, it had a bit of a blue cast in open shade, but I shot a lot of it, yeah.

^^^^^
It did, but I always thought Kodachrome colors were overly-bold, Ektachrome about right, except for that blue cast.

While on yearbook staff in college shot buckets of this. We had in-house developing space and stacks and stacks of paper, a safe full of Ekta and others. Man, it was great!

Back then, working in tv news we also shot and processed commercials, stills and film. So yeah, processed a lot of Ektachrome.

I was also shooting a lot of stills on my own and, as no color film touched the detail and tonality of B&W, I just didn't care about the nuances of color films. Kodachrome, being so much slower, got the most out of quality optics, muddy Ektachrome grain, yuck.

So no, I don't miss Ektachrome but lord, I sure do miss the darkroom.

@ armored:

quote:

Eventually, Fujichrome took the spot from Ektachrome. It had a warmer tone and finer grain structure.

Yep. Ektachrome was nice but I eventually went to Fuji for my underwater shots.

All day I've been trying to remember the slide film name that we could NOT process locally, not Kodachrome but which yielded much more vibrant colors that Ektachrome. I can't get there, so someone will slap me upside the head with it I'm sure.

It was something cool and zippy sounding. Don't think it was even from Kodak. I've gotten Fujichrome stuck in my head but that's not it.

Hell, I've still got a couple prints at house from this. When the name comes to me at 0200 I'm gonna be pissed.

quote:

Kodachrome

always reminds me of Paul Simon

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
All day I've been trying to remember the slide film name that we could NOT process locally, not Kodachrome but which yielded much more vibrant colors that Ektachrome. I can't get there, so someone will slap me upside the head with it I'm sure.

Found this with Google

Kodachrome competed with other color transparency films like Agfachrome, Anscochrome, Fujichrome, and Ektachrome. These films offered faster, simpler, and more accessible processing. The rise of digital photography also contributed to the decline of Kodachrome.
Explanation

Ektachrome: Kodak's own alternative to Kodachrome that had a simpler development process. This allowed smaller photo labs to process the film.

Fujichrome: A transparency film from Fujifilm that competed with Kodachrome.
Agfachrome and Anscochrome: Other color transparency films that competed with Kodachrome.

Kodachrome was a popular film stock for many, including National Geographic, which used it for over 50 years. It was often used for documentation because the colors of the slides wouldn't fade if stored properly. Kodachrome was used to capture iconic photos and videos, including the Zapruder film of President Kennedy's assassination and Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.

Kodak announced the end of Kodachrome production on June 22, 2009. The final roll was processed in December 2010.

Ah, yes, Fujichrome. I'm gonna brag a bit. I'm pretty sure I've shot more rolls of Fujichrome than anyone here, and anyone that anyone here knows.

Fujichrome was my choice of slide films when I was a CRA (Certified Retinal Angiographer). I used one 24 exposure roll of Fujichrome on every patient sent my way. I don't have an exact count, but I can ballpark it. I shot 17,500 angiograms (on Tri-X) and each of those patients also had straight Fundus photography on Fujichrome. Fundus photography for documentation was more common than angiograms for analysis, and though it may sound improbable, in my career, I shot probably 70 or 75,000 rolls of Fujichrome.

Where I worked was not a typical ophthalmic practice; it was a referral center which saw patients from scores of ODs, and I was the only photographer. In the 1980s and 1990s, I was a busy son of a bitch.

When I was into photography in the 1970s, Kodachrome 64 was what I used for color; I didn't process my color film, and it had a reputation of fine grain, vibrant colors, etc. Plus, it was what my dad used all through our lives when he took family photos. But in the late 70s, my photography teacher insisted that Fuji was putting out a better product, switched to that for a couple of years.

But Para mentioned Tri-X, man I shot so much of that, since my darkroom was setup for B&W only. Bought lots of 100' rolls for bulk loading.

Well, in my opinion, Fujichrome wasn't better than Kodachrome 64. It was less expensive and it was a neutral film, but people need to remember in the pre-digital age, post-processing took place in the printing process, and K64 was slide film, and while it could, of course, be printed it usually was not, so what was on the film was all you had, and in that respect, K64 and K25 were king.

For the purposes of this discussion- since it appears the participants are familiar Kodak's K-14 and E-6 processes- it goes without saying that aside from price, Kodachrome's primary disadvantage was that K-14 was proprietary. I think in my part of the country, my Kodachrome went to Dallas, Texas for processing.

You just can't explain the feeling to people today who know of photography only through instantaneous digital means, the great pleasure of waiting for that tiny yellow box of slides to appear in your mailbox: A long time ago

.

Yes I do miss Kodachrome but I just shot some Ektachrome last year and it is still available.

Adorama Ektachrome

Exactly what Para said, to me it's like Christmas waiting to see what you caught on film. I just developed 2 rolls of B\W film this week that I took last year.



What I love about film is it slows you down and really makes you concentrate on what you are doing. Only two of the pictures out of 72 were bad. It amazes me is how many people are taking 100's of digital and then spending hours changing and processing them.

quote:

All day I've been trying to remember the slide film name that we could NOT process locally, not Kodachrome but which yielded much more vibrant colors that Ektachrome. I can't get there, so someone will slap me upside the head with it I'm sure.

It was something cool and zippy sounding. Don't think it was even from Kodak. I've gotten Fujichrome stuck in my head but that's not it.

Agfa ?
Ilford?

I remember those from back in the day.
Always liked Kodachrome for outdoors, but preferred Ektachrome for its faster speed.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WaterburyBob,

There was Fujichrome Velvia and Provia, one of those perhaps?

Didn't shoot Ektachrome much back when but learned to process it in a class that I took in '82. When Kodachrome and processing was being phased out, I shot about 36 rolls of it in a year.
Got the farewell t-shirt from Dwayne's Photo as a keepsake.

Have a roll of 35mm Ektachrome 100, and one of Portra 160 in the fridge still; two more rolls of Kodak Gold 200 and T-MAX 400. Digital is great, but I fondly remember the days of film and those nice publications like Shutterbug, Popular Photography, American Photo, etc.

Sorry for the thread drift.

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:

quote:

All day I've been trying to remember the slide film name that we could NOT process locally, not Kodachrome but which yielded much more vibrant colors that Ektachrome. I can't get there, so someone will slap me upside the head with it I'm sure.

It was something cool and zippy sounding. Don't think it was even from Kodak. I've gotten Fujichrome stuck in my head but that's not it.

Agfa ?
Ilford?

I remember those from back in the day.
Always liked Kodachrome for outdoors, but preferred Ektachrome for its faster speed.

Was it Cibachrome?
This was a print paper that had a very vivid color and a very durable dye set that resisted fading similar to Kodachrome. Prints could be rear lite and displayed like small bill boards or viewed like a regular print.
Other than a dye transfer print this was the longest lasting as far as fade but actual color rendering was not its strong point.A dye transfer was the very best but very expensive.

The advantage of Ektachrome for a Professional Photographer was the ability to get it back from the lab in 1 1/2 hrs on rush service and the ability to adjust the processing up or down (push/pull). A pro would always go for the largest format they could for grain resolution.
35mm was always the last choice as it would never hold up well to huge magnification like bill boards or the Art Directors Lupe. 35mm was also a Motion Picture format that did not crop well for a magazine ad size. Huge amounts of wasted space on the film made the actual live area even smaller and even more enlargement and grain. Ektachrome was not great at enlargement thus the use of 8x10 sheet film at the slowest ASA speed.
Retouching was the other strong point of Ektachrome. All the top retouchers at the different Art Studios had the correct dyes for retouching Ektachrome then Fujichrome. If you turned in your film and the Art Director sends it out for retouching then hears from the Retoucher that the film can't be retouched because its not what that Art Studio has dyes for, the Photographer would be in BIG trouble for using it instead of Ektachrome.
They were all tools, you pick the best you can for the job.