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Revision as of 00:54, 29 November 2004 by MarkSweep (talk | contribs) (recat)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)This article is about the color film. The musician Paul Simon included a song titled Kodachrome on his 1973 album There Goes Rhymin' Simon. There is also a Kodachrome Basin State Park, in Utah, named after the color film.
Kodachrome is a brand of color transparency (slide) film sold by Kodak. First sold in 1935, it is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) mass-marketed color still film. Kodachrome has been through many incarnations and processing processes over the years; the current (2003) is the K14-process Kodachrome. Kodachrome is widely regarded as one of the best films available for the consumer because of its fine grain and vivid color reproduction.
Kodachrome film has a different structure to its emulsion than other slide films. Whereas nearly all color films have dye couplers incorporated into the 3 emulsion layers to ensure that the correct dye forms in the correct layer when all 3 are developed at the same time, Kodachrome film does not. The correct color dye is added in the developing process by performing the second exposure and development of the layers one at a time and adding the dye during development. This makes its rendering of color and response to light unique. Further, the dye couplers give the emulsion of competing films a much coarser grain. Their absence in Kodachrome film gives it its excellent resolution, almost matching a black and white film of comparable speed. A Kodachrome slide is quickly detectable by an expert reviewing a series of slides with indeterminate origins.
Kodachrome film has mostly been replaced by E-6 process transparency films, though it still finds use for applications where its archival stability is valued. Kodachrome 25 was taken off the market in 2002, though Kodachrome 64 and 200 remain available as of January 2004. A recent Kodak announcement that it will be reducing the number of production runs of the remaining Kodachrome films coupled with the dwindling number of labs which process Kodachrome are expected to expedite the film's demise. Despite these trends there are still a number of loyal Kodachrome photographers.
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