They have taken my Kodachrome away.

[unclesyd]

Engineering history or just the end of a era?

I've seen several films and read numerous articles on the development of the Kodachrome process. There was quite a bit of chemistry and engineering that went into developing the process.

It is ironic that the banner on this article has an ad for a Canon Digital Camera

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30film.html

 

[Latexman]

Quite a run! 75 years.

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[btrueblood]

Wow, gone? Really?

Sold/gave away all of my darkroom equipment several years ago. Saw the switch to digital coming, and figured nobody but the artist types would still work with silver.

 

[Demon3]

Film still far surpasses digital in resolution as you can read in detail at

http://www.kenrockwell.com

You can still get film though so there's no panic yet.

Chris DeArmitt PhD FRSC CChem

http://www.phantomplastics.com

Consultant to the plastics industry

 

[ivymike]

"far surpasses" my arse.

reading through that site, I could only find two references to film as compared to digital:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/dslr-comparison/index.htm#summary

Digital SLRs are better than film has ever been.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

Film, like digital files, comes in many resolutions. 35mm is an amateur format, medium format (120 or 6x7) is for head shots, and large format (4x5" and up) is for landscapes...If you do fret the pixel counts, I find that it takes about 25 megapixels to simulate 35mm film, which is still far more than any practical digital camera.

The second one would seem to be what you're referring to?
Starting with 35mm film, which is what most people would understand that you mean when you just say "film," I disagree with his statement. My 35mm negatives (from regular fuji ISO 200 to ISO 400 film) showed significant graininess when scanned using a professional digitizer to give a 10MP image for long-term storage (not feasible to store negs for a long time and retain quality). Higher than 10MP just gave a better and better picture of the texture of the film, not any improvement in the resulting image. The other conceivable method of comparing - enlarging images directly from film and negative - would have required an analog enlarger which I don't have.

I agree that medium format film probably surpasses single-image resolution from a digital camera - that seems obvious... but then again you're using a 35mm-wide image sensor for all your comparisons vs larger and larger and larger sheets of film. You can readily stitch multiple digital images into a single one when you want better res. with digital, so why not compare your 5" film to a 161MP (13 stitched images from 12MP camera) digital (or 1GP)?

 

[Ron]

Yeah, much of the stuff said about film and photography over the years is more anecdotal than scientific. As an example, many photo print "experts" will tell you that the maximum size of print that can be done with a 35mm negative is about 16x20. I've done posters from 35mm negatives and I've splayed 35mm slides (Kodachrome and Fujichrome) on 6x8 foot screens for presentations without problem.

While quality might suffer slightly, the prints and projections are still pretty good.

I have digital, 35mm film, medium format, and large format cameras (yes, my wife says I have way too many cameras...and she's probably right...about 50 at last count). I have done 8x10 prints off a 5mp Olympus digital (E20N) that are almost as sharp as 35mm. Most would not be able to tell a big difference.

I routinely shoot with an 8mp Canon 20D. I have no issue with the resolution, even with photomicrography. More is always better of course, but you're getting into diminishing returns at some point.

Digital, as with film, is greatly controlled by the glass! A better lens will give better photos (all other parameters held equal) every time.

 

[Demon3]

Yeah, Ken Rockwell does focus on medium and large format as he's a nature photographer. As you said, 35mm is equivalent to around 25 megapixels which is the same as I read on another site years ago that actually did a proper scientific comparison. The point is that film is not dead.

You should see the quality of the BBC Pride and Prejudice shot on 16mm for TV and now on Blu Ray. For the most part the quality is stunning.

Chris DeArmitt PhD FRSC CChem

http://www.phantomplastics.com

Consultant to the plastics industry

 

[Demon3]

Here's his in depth comparison:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm

Chris DeArmitt PhD FRSC CChem

http://www.phantomplastics.com

Consultant to the plastics industry

 

[TheBlacksmith]

Like everything else, Kodachrome was a victim of declining use. It was complicted to develop, many people though it was too contrasty and probably 99 out of a 100 (or more) people never though about it and used whatever was cheapest or preloaded into disposbale cameras. I have thousands of Kodachromes but have made the switch to digital. I've just ordered my first prints from digital through a firm recomended by a professional photographer friend. We'll see how they compare with my 'chromes.

 

[ivymike]

I wouldn't take Ken Rockwell's site too seriously. I suppose some of it was more true in 2003 (when it was written) than it is today. There are plenty of good laughs in there, though, like the bit about digital cameras not being able to do double exposures (the point would be ___? ever heard of photoshop?)and "Digital cameras are very, very expensive for what they do. They become obsolete in a year." LMAO.

 

[ivymike]

I think the article must have been written just a few months before the Canon EOS Digital Rebel came out:

"If you splurge for a D1 then by all means you are in the drivers' seat (it's faster than any film camera I own), but today's 2003 cameras priced below $2,000 still have a long way to go."

The EOS Digital Rebel pretty well changed the game when it came out in late 2003. I pre-ordered and got myself one of the first ones ($999 including a lens and a few accessories). Back to the comment about digital cameras being obsolete in a year - that camera is still in use by a friend of mine who does wedding photography. It had already taken over 12,000 pictures for me when I sold it to her in 2006.

2003: "My real job is in Hollywood. The reason most of what you see on TV is shot at huge expense on 35mm movie film and then transferred to video (also at great expense) instead of being shot digitally (video) in the first place is for two simple reasons..."

2011:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinematography#Industry_acceptance_of_digital_cinematography

Digital cinematography accounts for a larger fraction of feature movie shooting every year, especially in A-budget productions, and seems destined to eventually eclipse film-based acquisition, much as digital photo cameras have largely replaced film based photo cameras in the still photography world. The majority of American episodic TV-series already are produced digitally.
Sales of digital cinema camera have massively surpassed mechanical cameras sales since 2007. The once market-leading manufacturers of mechanical cameras, panavisison, arri and aaton, have only introduced and developed digital cinema cameras since then.