Kodak stops production of Ektachrome 100D

[mr_x]

Cripes :-|

What's the position for Regular 8 and 16mm please - colour and b/w?

I just spent a lifetime re-discovering Super 8 and then discovering Regular + 16mm formats: this is dreadfully worrying news. Photographic emulsion is art material like oil paint, it's like bundling all the Rembrandt paintings together and replacing them with kitsch digital reproductions of artificial landscapes because they sell better to the mass market, which may be true, but where does this leave us?

I will treasure my gauche attempts at film-making, they may be all I will ever have to remind me of the thrill of using real film.

Ric

[mr_x]

...processing colour neg in reversal chemistry, yes, it is possible. But you need to under rate the film by about two stops (ie if it is 200 asa, shoot it as 50 asa) and then also push process it by about two stops. This gives a rather lovely golden coloured low contrast positive.

Hi Richard,

Can you post or PM more details please - I am desperate to keep my own personal film-making alive so your suggestion is a straw I will clutch at against the day that all reversal stocks vanish.

This news is so bitterly ironic in light of perhaps some of the most beautiful and earliest colour footage to have surfaced so recently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19557914

Best thanks,

Ric

[Juergen]

the official statement

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/About/Th ... /index.htm

[milesandjules]

Guys that is depressing....so does this mean there is is no way to shoot colour double super8 reversal or neg?

[aj]

Despite statements from Wittner that DS8 would be possible for any material that is available in S8 cartridge they have reduced their DS8 assortment. The choice is now BW or BW. DS8 is an intermediate stage in production of Super-8 but apparently it is no so easy to get a stack of Color Neg. Color reversal seems now to go totally non-existent.

Or is Cinevia going to save the day?

[richard p. t.]

Hi Ric,
well, yes, you can do it. It is low contrast and golden in colour. I rather like it. It is very much an 'effect' rather than a substitute for reversal film. It is also something you would have to do yourself. You would be hard pressed to find a lab that will do this for you. The reversal process doesn't invovle a rem-jet removal stage, whereas the colour neg stock requires this. But if you process your own, you should try it. As I say, under rate the film two stops, then push process two stops. This is a starting point. I shot a couple of rolls and processed in this way after a little testing some years ago. i don't have a transfer of this footage. But given the fact that I have about $6000 worth of E6 chemistry on hand at the moment, I think I'll try it again next week. I'll do a transfer and post on this thread. The results are NOT classic colour reversal images. They are quite unique. Yes, they are golden.

Anyone want to buy some E6 chemistry?

[richard p. t.]

Another horrible thought is that in the absense of Ektachrome, how long will E6 chemistry itself be available? Even if ORWO comes to the rescue, the number of labs processing E6 mp film will collapse (and very quickly). I hope ORWO can save us fans of colour reversal, however I suspect the end of E6 labs will make that difficult.

[richard p. t.]

It also looks like the end of colour at all in standard 8mm ... unless someone is prepared to buy the MOQ of double perf 16mm colour neg from Kodak. 20 x 400' rolls. That is a lot. It wouldn't all have to be made into standard 8 however.

[wado1942]

Here you go.
http://crossprocessing.info/images/imag ... v_film.jpg
Also, Rollei/AGFA's "Crossbird" is just color neg film labeled as E6.
Forde Motion Picture Lab use to offer cross-processing, so I wonder if Alpha Cine does as well.
On another note why couldn't you just under-rate your film four stops? So 400 ISO film would be treated as 25 and you wouldn't need to push it.

[MIKI-814]

Fuji still manufactures colour dia films, as well as Agfa. And they are fresly manufactures for sure, not old stocks.

[woods01]

And to think just yesterday I just learned to develop film in E-6 Its actually easier than I thought even though I lack a nice tempering bath.

The collapse of E-6 labs will be the hardest thing to replace. In the short term while the chemistry is still available I think I will try cross processing colour neg in e-6. Coming up with a system to clear the rem jet will be the hardest part I think.

I wonder how long tri-x has got left? I had always heard that the sales numbers of Ektachrome were higher than Tri-X.

[mr_x]

Hi Ric,
well, yes, you can do it ... I shot a couple of rolls and processed in this way after a little testing some years ago. i don't have a transfer of this footage. But given the fact that I have about $6000 worth of E6 chemistry on hand at the moment, I think I'll try it again next week. I'll do a transfer and post on this thread. The results are NOT classic colour reversal images. They are quite unique. Yes, they are golden.

Thanks Richard,

Any option is better than no option at all. Remember also that Edward Turner was coaxing colour from black and white film stock, how he did this (filters) is still something of a mystery to me, but did it - he did.

Ric

[David M. Leugers]

A moment of silence remembering us old-schoolers who shoot film to project on a big screen... bummer.

[mr_x]

I wonder how long tri-x has got left? I had always heard that the sales numbers of Ektachrome were higher than Tri-X.

Kodak must have self-dealt the fatal body blow to movie reversal film when they pulled the plug on K40. Instantly people - loyal Kodak users - must have drifted away from analogue colour film to digital after this. Then followed the debacle of R&D (cost?) for 64T which was inexplicably withdrawn after a couple of years, only to be replaced (cost?) by 100D which has now gone the same way. Why axe K40 in the first place then? It looks to me like a premeditated winding up of colour reversal with excuses along the way, and with the end result always very clear in the minds of the executives.

Ric

[Nicholas_C]

Very frustrating, I was looking forward to getting into hand processing with this film myself.

What about Velvia 50D? is that still being manufactured? I see it's still sold on spectra and cinevia websites in super 8.
It's more expensive than 100D though...