At 01:11 8/3/02, you wrote:
What about Rocky Mountain Film Lab' in Colorado? I don't know whether this
is the same K14 process, but ....
http://www.rockymountainfilm.com/
http://www.rockymountainfilm.com/oldfilm.htm
http://www.rockymountainfilm.com/newfilms.htm
http://www.rockymountainfilm.com/K14movie.htm
I recently bought an old camera that had a roll of Kodacolor-X 20-exposure
that was nearly used up. Assuming a few people (like I did when I bought
it) snapped the shutter a time or two after it was bought at an estate
sale it might have a dozen or so shots on it. I don't hold much hope of
anything - but can't bring myself to throw it in the trash.
Cheers
Lee
Kodacolor-X is C-22, the color negative process prior to C-41. Rocky
Mountain will certainly handle K-14 (135 size). I don't know if it's done
in house or sent to one of the other labs. *Original* Kodachrome is
K-11. Kodachrome II, Kodachrome-X and Kodachrome-F are K-12. These are
the prior processes, and the chemistry is no longer available for
them. Rocky Mountain will process it in house, but cannot do anything more
than create B&W negatives from it. All chrome film is essentially
structured like color negative film except it's optimized for reversal and
does not have an orange mask. The basic developing process begins as for
color negative. The "reversal" occurs when what is initially developed is
bleached out and what remains is then "flashed" chemically, equivalent of
exposing it completely. That is then developed.
What makes Kodachrome different is its lack of dye couplers in the
emulsion. These must *also* be added to each layer. The result is a much
thinner emulsion, one of the reasons for the shape of its MTF curve and its
apparent sharpness in spite of slightly higher diffuse rms granularity
numbers. Kodachrome can be developed to B&W negative. Also, IIRC, if
Kodachrome is cross-processed in E-6 it comes out as a B&W positive. How
good it looks or whether it screws up the E-6 chemistry (for other E-6
processing) I don't know. From top down, Kodachrome has the following
emulsion structure:
* Blue layer
* Green layer
* Red layer
* Film base
The K-14 process develops each layer separately:
* First developer to bring up a negative B&W image.
* Exposure to pure red light through the film base side.
* Cyan developer and cyan dye coupler introduced.
* Exposure to pure blue light from the emulsion side.
* Yellow developer and yellow dye coupler introduced.
* Chemical fogging of remaining silver halide (all in the green layer).
* Magenta developer and magenta coupler introduced.
* Bleach all developed silver back to silver-halide, fix it into
solution and wash it out.
Note: There are a total of 14 steps; I have left out some washes, etc.
The unique processing of Kodachrome using the introduction of the dye
couplers during developing solved the problem of dye coupler migration to
other color layers, one that both Agfa (the other film giant at the time)
and Kodak were pursuing in a technology race during the 1930's. Leopold
Mannes and Leopold Godowski, who were professional musicians and amateur
photographers, jointly created the prototype for Kodachrome at Kodak's
lab. This was done at the invitation of Dr. Mees, founder of Kodak
Research Laboratories. The pair had originally talked to George Eastman
who dismissed it. Mees saw potential that Eastman didn't. Kodak
introduced Kodachrome first in 1935 as a cinema film. Kodachrome may be a
complex process, but it's not as cumbersome as Technicolor. It was
introduced as 35mm still camera film a year later in 1936.
Dr. Gustav Wilmanns and Dr. Wilhelm Schneider at Agfa finally solved the
dye coupler migration problem to create Agfacolor Neu in 1936 (to
distinguish it from Agfacolor, a "screen film" which used a single layer of
miniscule, colored resin particles on top of a B&W emulsion). All current
color films, with the sole exception of Kodachrome, are based on the
technology used to embed dye couplers in the emulsion layers that Wilmanns
and Schneider created for Agfa.
By comparison, E-6 process starts with a first developer to bring up the
B&W negative, but then uses a single fogging and development reversal
process as the dye couplers are already present in the emulsion. It's all
done in 6 steps, less than half that required by Kodachrome. In addition,
the colors apparently cling tighter to the grains in Kodachrome than in the
E-6 films. The E-6's require finer granularity than Kodachrome to achieve
similar apparent sharpness, especially when combined with a thicker
emulsion (edge definition degradation from oblique ray paths through the
emulsion).
Kodachrome has always been, and **remains** The Standard by which all other
color transparency films are compared, in accurate color rendition,
apparent sharpness, color gradation, and archival life.
-- John
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