Kodachrome 2017 - In COLOR!

As dusk descended upon the historic town of Frederick, the man set his trusty 1947 vintage Kodak Bantam atop his tripod facing a scene of increasing darkness along Carroll Creek and fired off his last shot of the roll of Kodachrome 828 film, experimenting with a setting of 10 secconds at f/11 and drew his photographic day to a close.  The day had been a long one, starting off with delays and disruption from livestock on the B&O Railroad line linking Frederick with Washington, DC, but had managed to improve quite a bit, turning out to be an unseasonably warm Winter's day with vivid blue skies.  Returning home, he unloaded the film from the Bantam and prepared to mail the parcel off to be developed in the hopes he had made the proper exposure calls through his sojourn of the day so as to get some rich color slides back from the 828 Kodachrome.

Reading the narrative above, one might think it depicts a time long passed in settings vastly different in appearance than they are today, but this in fact a condensed retelling of the events I experienced on January 25, 2017.

Yes, you read that title right.  Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, it is possible to shoot Kodachrome again and get results in color!

Just what is this you are looking at?  Read on! (Photo by Kelly-Shane Fuller)

A Highly Unlikely Kodachromic Experiment

If you have ever perused the entries of  this blog, it is readily apparent that I have a huge reverence for Kodachrome film.  And this reverence is particularly strong for the first stable emulsion that was produced between 1938 and 1962.  The colors rendered by this "Red Border Kodachrome" tend to really favor the often nostalgic settings they are used to portray.

At times, I have gone through various efforts to replicate this look, either through attempts of digital manipulation or through carefully selecting my subject matter to try to exclude as many tell-tale modern anachronisms as I can.  The results have shown hints of promise, but were largely lacking to me, and as a result, I tended to shelve the efforts.

My conclusions of my first attempts were that the best starting point to replicate this nostalgic look was a film image taken on a vintage film camera.  However, my attempts on the few other transparency films left did not render a palette close to the Kodachrome hues that I'd seen.  In fact, I'd only seen one current film that gave me a hint of a Kodachrome look.

A little while back, I tested a new camera which, despite its operational quirks, did deliver a very retro looking vignetting in its results, while still giving off a sharp central image.  I was at least impressed with this aspect of the camera, and wondered where else I might use this to my advantage.

Which leads me to this - another completely blind stab at replicating the look of Kodachrome using the following as my ingredients:

• A film not made by Eastman Kodak
• A film that is not even a transparency film
• A camera using a format for which Kodachrome was never made.
• A significant amount of foolhardy faith. 
• A limited amount of digital intervention in case the above doesn't pan out.

My film for this experiment is Fuji Pro 400H, the last color negative film made by Fuji in the 120 format, and one pretty well known for its rendering of nice green tones.  In my usual oddball way, I'm not even using it in the 120 format.  Rather, I am cutting this film down to 127 format instead.  The traditionalist in me would have cut this down to 828 instead since it was technically the first format for which the early Kodachrome was made.  However, since this is a 400 speed film instead of a 10-12 speed film like the original Kodachrome, I need to use a camera with adequate enough of a top shutter speed to accomodate such a fast film.

And just which camera might that be?  Why the Foth Derby of course, somewhat appropriate for the course since it was in production when Kodachrome was first released in the late 1930's.  The 1/500 top speed will allow this fast speed film to be used in full sun with the camera stopped down to f/16, something that would not have been possible on a Bantam. Besides, since the Foth is a half-frame 127 camera, it has a 30x40mm image size nearly identical to the 28x40mm image size of the Bantam 828 format.

A couple of lovely days over the Fathers Day Weekend in 2016 delivered some picture perfect weather, so I brought out this classic camera with its unusual film choice to see if I could get results that resembled the Kodachrome of decades past.  Here are some of the better results:

Classic Kodachrome Monday #82

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Photo Time

Classic Kodachrome Monday #81

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: The Monument

Classic Kodachrome Monday #80

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: In the shadows

Kodachrome Classic Monday #79

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Mountain Town

Classic Kodachrome Monday #78

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Forms of Transit.

Classic Kodachrome Monday #77

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Hustle and Bustle

Classic Kodachrome Monday #76

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Around the Post Office

Classic Kodachrome Monday #75

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Summertime in the South

Kodachrome Classic Monday #74

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: The Colors of the 1950's mountainside

Kodachrome Classic Monday #73

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Dawning of an Icon

Classic Kodachrome Monday #72

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Hustle and Bustle

Classic Kodachrome Monday #71

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Commercial Crossroads

Classic Kodachrome Monday #70

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: At the Foot of the Mountain.

Following in My Father's Footsteps: The 828 Kodak Bantam Special.

It was among the first cameras to enter my hands that would rekindle an interest in shooting with film again.  And yet I am only now writing about it.  

Why you might ask? Let's just say the best laid plans do not always come to fruition.

It was quite possibly the most novel and quirky idea for this blog that I'd ever summoned up. It was going to be epic and a little bit amazing.  And it stalled.

In a nutshell, while going through items my mother had passed onto us, I encountered a remarkably small little camera of my father's that caught my eye.  After a little bit of investigation, I discovered it was none other than a Kodak Bantam camera that uses 828 film, a format discontinued in the mid-1980's that is slightly larger than 35mm.  Soon after, I found a batch of Kodachrome slides from the 1940's and 1950's that were clearly taken with this same camera, as evidenced by the larger transparency size.  Eventually a magnificent idea began to gel.

What if I took this camera and literally "followed in my father's footsteps" to retake the images from these perspectives today?  It seemed like the perfect "then and now" photo montage but with an interesting twist.  I'd not seen where anyone had done then an now images taken over 50 years apart with the exact same camera.  It was a flash of brilliance! 

Classic Anscochrome Monday #69

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Holiday Adornment

Classic Kodachrome Monday #68

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Small Town, Big City

Classic Kodachrome Monday #67

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: Posing

Classic Kodachrome Monday #66

Every Monday, I'll be spotlighting a different classic Kodachrome slide that I've picked up, and trying where I can to detail the who, what, when, where, why, and how (much) of the image:

This Week:

What: One out of a Hundred