Which Kodak filmstock do you miss the most?

[GeorgeSelinsky]

Sorry for any filmstocks I may have missed...

 

- G.

[David Mullen ASC]

I wish that Kodachrome was more supported at the labs and the Kodak manufactured it with keycode numbers. It would be interesting to have Kodachrome 200 available. I wish it were available in 35mm MP format with keycodes and was affordable to process.

 

I saw the one dye transfer print that Technicolor made for "The Thin Red Line" and it looked more "period" because of the rich dye colors, almost like the movie had been shot on Kodachrome. Imagine shooting a film set in the 1940's or 1950's all on Kodachrome.

 

I vaulted some old works of Ed Emschwiller at CalArts after he passed away. One thing that some experimental filmmakers were doing in the early 1970's was shooting on ECO and printing onto Kodachrome, which looked great. Of course, all the prints have perfect color while the original has faded to pink...

 

I miss 4X b&w reversal.

 

I wish Kodak had improved their b&w negative MP stocks though using T-grain.

 

I miss the short-lived replacement by Agfa to their famous XT-320 stock, which was called XTR-250. It was gorgeous! I miss that Agfa look as an option.

[Dan Salzmann]

I heartily second David on Kodachrome, especially the 200 speed. Why was this filmstock not offered to the cinema? Norman Parkinson, the British portraitist speaks about 8x10 Kodachrome in his book. Those must have been some stunning transparencies.

Telecine colorists always smile when Kodachrome images come up on the screen.

[Sam Wells]

Given that the new Tri-X supposedly has a bit less contrast (I haven't shot it) I'd try simply pushing it one stop, you might get something as good or better than the old 4X.

 

Or even risk underexposing ~ a stop, process at say Bono who at least used to give Tri-X a kind of push anyway -- see if this new 7266 will give you what 4X would have given you in the shadows.

 

-Sam

[Marty Hamrick]

. One thing that some experimental filmmakers were doing in the early 1970's was shooting on ECO and printing onto Kodachrome, which looked great. Of course, all the prints have perfect color while the original has faded to pink...

 

I was working in a lab back then.I miss ECO not only for an original but it made a great intermediate stock as well.I can understand why it was discontiued,but I have yet to see anything look quite like it.

ECO was bad to fade...ugh...gonna have to dig up some of my early work and see how bad it's gotten.

Marty

[Nate Downes]

I know that I'd enjoy a prestriped Super8, or Kodachrome 200 the most. Of course I know that sound-striped Super8 is not necessary, and the audio is not exactly high-fidelity, but it would simplify my shooting that's for sure.

[John Pytlak RIP]

The relatively small volumes of magnetic striped films did not justify the millions of dollars in capital expenditure that would have been required to upgrade solvent vapor recovery and recycling to meet new environmental standards.

[Nate Downes]

As I said, I understand the reasons why. I prefer to seperate video and sound anyways.

[Sam Wells]

I was working in a lab back then.I miss ECO not only for an original but it made a great intermediate stock as well.I can understand why it was discontiued,but I have yet to see anything look quite like it.

I've seen ECO blown up to 5272 IN & printed on Vision stock, it looks very good.

 

-Sam (whose prints on 7387 still look brand new, color wise)

[Marty Hamrick]

Wasn't there an Ektachrome 7256 MS.I want to say it was a daylight balanced stock ASA 50 or something like that??

Marty

[John Pytlak RIP]

Yep:

 

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/...t/chrono3.shtml

 

1963:  EKTACHROME MS film, 7/5256. Daylight, EI 64. Process ME-2A or ME-4. Discontinued January, 1984

[Marty Hamrick]

John,

When did you guys come out with mag striped 16mm for news?I know some of the old timers before me shot optical sound out in the field,though no one is sure when mag stripe came out.

Marty

[John Pytlak RIP]

I wasn't at Kodak when we first offered pre-striped camera films :P , but I suspect it was in the 1950's. The proposed standard for the stripe dimensions, SMPTE/ANSI PH22.87 was introduced in 1953, and Kodak engineers published SMPTE papers about magnetic striping from then and into the late 1960's.

[GeorgeSelinsky]

I miss ECO not only for an original but it made a great intermediate stock as well.I can understand why it was discontiued,but I have yet to see anything look quite like it.

If you're willing to shoot with a lot of light (something I abhore doing), you might get similar results if you shot 7245 and just let it go warm sans the 80 filter, then correct it in the printing. Even with a printer light correction instead of the f-stop killer 80 filter or the light eating CTB's, you'd probably get the same latitude if not better than you'd have with ECO, and the grain I'm sure would be identical (plus the archival stability would be optimal).

 

To me the ideal situation would be to have a cross processable color filmstock, which could be developed either as a negative or as a reversal. That would mean no orange coupler mask of course, and it would also probably mean the modification of the current color processes (and/or the necessity of giving each film two different ISO's), but that would of course be the coolest thing for me.

 

- G.

[Marty Hamrick]

- G.

If you're willing to shoot with a lot of light (something I abhore doing), you might get similar results if you shot 7245 and just let it go warm sans the 80 filter, then correct it in the printing. Even with a printer light correction instead of the f-stop killer 80 filter or the light eating CTB's, you'd probably get the same latitude if not better than you'd have with ECO, and the grain I'm sure would be identical (plus the archival stability would be optimal).

> Funny you should mention that.Someone called me the other day about a warming look for a political spot and I was thinking about that,though not sure what stock.Don't know if the lighting situation will afford that much light though.That's one thing I DON'T miss about ECO.<

 

To me the ideal situation would be to have a cross processable color filmstock, which could be developed either as a negative or as a reversal. That would mean no orange coupler mask of course, and it would also probably mean the modification of the current color processes (and/or the necessity of giving each film two different ISO's), but that would of course be the coolest thing for me.

 

>Interesting.I wonder if such a stock could be made cost effectively enough with sufficient demand.

Marty

[Sam Wells]

Well if we can magically reincarnate ECO can't we have it return faster than before, like some cool monster ? :D

 

Truthully I've been in situations lately - SE Asia - where EI 16 daylight would've been more than fine with me..........

 

No, I wouldn't want to light for ECO

 

-Sam

[Charlie Peich]

You may be adding Kodachrome 40 and all the VNF emulsions to your list of "Which Kodak filmstock do you miss the most?". I've read some rummors on other film lists that Kodak is discontinuing K-40 and the VNF stocks at the end of the year. The new 16mm 7285 is supposed to be replacement for those shooting color reversal VNF stocks in 16mm. Maybe John P. can enlighten us on this change and let us know who would be able to process the 16mm E-6. What will be left for the S-8 stocks? Does that mean there would be no more Kodachrome for stills work? :unsure:

Charlie

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, no doubt, Ektachrome 100D is a beautiful stock -- saturated, sharp, fine-grained, etc. So is Fuji Velvia. When these super-saturated E6 stocks hit the market a decade ago, Kodachrome seemed less unique, especially considering the problems of getting it processed somewhere. On the other hand, nothing looks quite like Kodachrome!

[John Pytlak RIP]

The market decides which films remain profitable enough to manufacture and sell. Reformulating old films to meet current environmental guidelines sometimes requires tough business decisions, as happened with the VNF films:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/plugins/acrobat/en...PCN040804_Q.pdf

 

I believe Yale labs already has the capability of processing 16mm E-6 films. Other labs are likely to follow:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products...4.6.4.6.4&lc=en

[Nate Downes]

That reminds me, can any movie films be processed using C-41?

[John Pytlak RIP]

That reminds me, can any movie films be processed using C-41?

 

All of the motion-picture color negative films (both Kodak and Fuji) are designed for the ECN-2 process. These films all have a black carbon rem-jet layer that needs to be properly removed by the ECN-2 process prebath and rem-jet removal step. The ECN-2 process uses CD-3 as the color developing agent, whereas C-41 uses CD-4.

 

NEVER try to process a motion-picture color negative film in the C-41 process -- you will ruin your work, and any other films going through the machine.

 

Here are the Kodak process ECN-2 specifications:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/plugins/acrobat/en.../h247/h2407.pdf

[GeorgeSelinsky]

The market decides which films remain profitable enough to manufacture and sell.

Well, to put it a bit more accurately it's a group of people who decide basing their decisions on the current market trend. Sometimes I wonder how sound their judgement is.

 

I still think that some discontinued films dropped in popularity because of the way they were marketed. I recall sometimes having a problem even FINDING some filmstocks in Kodak catalogs. I also used to see descriptions that were not realistic. For example, Kodak still lists VNF-1 films as perfect for documentary use, when in fact I don't recall hearing or seeing any Ektachrome based docs in ages. Nobody in the marketing department decided to give it a spin for the cross processing or "classic documentary/newsreel" look, for example. I guess so long as enough high speed car crashes were being filmed per month it was good enough. I also can't see how the death of 4-X was justified. B&W people are now shooting more Ilford because of the HP-5. It didn't help that 4-X was marketed with big letters saying "warning, this is a very grainy film". Grainy it was, but what do you expect with a 500 asa filmstock? Ilford never marketed their stuff that way.

 

I'm not even going to touch Super 8, which I think was clumsily handled in the marketing department during the video era, and only now finally is it picking up in a good direction (like the Kodak Super 8 site). Video really seemed to demoralize people in the film department and Kodak was busier trying to enter the VHS camcorder business. That ended up not being profitable, I don't remember the last time I saw a Kodak camcorder - while I still see Super 8 sells.

 

Anyway, my 2 c's for all its worth.

 

- G.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

On the other hand - Kodak do seem to be taking extra care to be charming as hell at the moment; their customer service is pretty good. I called them to request processing details for all this super-8 I shot, and while they couldn't do that, they did supply some prepaid processing envelopes for the K40 I bought in the US, and replaced the two carts of Vision 200 without even having seen them.

 

Phil

[Nate Downes]

Yes, Kodak has done wonders in their PR handling as of late. I am about to order a few reels of Vision2 Super8 for the annual timelapse project next weekend, and am excited to see the results.

[David Mullen ASC]

I would question Kodak's judgement if they decided to spend real money on a marketing campaign to promote 30-year old VNF technology. Imagine telling the board of directors "we have this really old film stock with poor image quality -- soft, grainy, poor latitude -- with really low sales figures.... So we've come up with this million dollar advertising campaign to boost the sales! Great idea, huh?" They'd probably ask "why are we still selling this stuff???"

 

Any old film technology is inherently interesting of course. If Kodak was still making a color negative stock from the 1950's just for kicks, I'm sure now and then, someone would find a use for it. But of course, it would have to go to a lab that specializes in that development process... I used VNF for a little project meant to look like a 1960's Chinese propaganda film. Used an old zoom lens on an Arri-S. Came out great. But anything that inherently has a low-usage like a specialty "look" stock has to make financial sense for the company to produce it.

 

Imagine if Kodak had dumped VNF in the early 1980's and had been promoting and developing new E6 stocks for 16mm ever since then, with a choice of modern color reversal stocks that rivalled the quality-level of color negative? Instead, they ultimately helped give 16mm color reversal a bad name by hanging onto to these pre-1980 stocks. THAT was more of a questionable decision...

 

Remember that MOST people want a fast, convenient stock with good image quality, not speciality stocks that are soft and grainy and harsh naturally. Even you, George, decided to shoot your feature on 5279, not on 16mm VNF stocks.