Film · Updated
Kodak Kodachrome 64
The film, its story, and how it was shot.
Kodak Kodachrome 64 was Kodak’s ISO 64 color slide film, made from 1974 until Kodak retired it in 2009, the last of the Kodachrome family that began in 1935. It had extremely fine grain (rms granularity 10), was meant for bright daylight, and was developed only in Kodak’s K-14 process, which put the color dyes in during development; the last lab that ran it stopped in December 2010, so Kodachrome can no longer be developed in color. A slide has no print: what the camera exposed is the picture, so it wants exact exposure. For decades it was the color of magazines, travel pictures and family slide shows.
Below: Kodak’s data in a table, the film’s story and why it was discontinued, why it was so hard to develop, what it looks like and why, exposing it, Kodachrome 25, 64 and 200 against Velvia and Ektachrome, Kodachrome recipes, and Chroma 64 (based on Kodak Kodachrome 64), the Clack film modeled on it.
01 · The film
Kodachrome 64 by Kodak’s datasheet
| Type | Color reversal (slide) film, process K-14 only |
|---|---|
| Speed | ISO 64 in daylight or flash; 16 under 3200 K tungsten with an 80A filter, 20 under 3400 K photolamps with an 80B |
| Grain | Diffuse rms granularity 10, “extremely fine grain”; Kodachrome 25 was 9, Kodachrome 200 16 |
| Sharpness | “Extremely high sharpness” |
| Made for | Outdoor, travel and nature; “reproduces subtle color naturally”; slides to project or view under 5000 K light |
| In sun | 1/125 s at f/11 in bright or hazy sun with distinct shadows (f/5.6 for backlit close-ups), f/16 on sand or snow, f/5.6 cloudy bright, f/4 in heavy overcast or open shade |
| Long exposures | No correction to 1/100 s; at 1/10 s a third of a stop more and a CC05R filter; 1 s and longer not recommended |
| Push | “We do not recommend push processing of KODACHROME 64 Film” |
| Keeping | Archival: “the most archival transparency films” (E-55); unexposed film kept at 13 °C (55 °F) or below |
From Kodak’s technical data E-88 (June 2009) and E-55 (1996). Kodak’s 1/125 s at f/11 in bright sun is the sunny 16 rule exactly: f/16 at 1/64 s is the same light (our arithmetic). The sunny 16 calculator does the rest.
02 · History
When Kodachrome was made, and why it was discontinued
| 1935 | Kodak announces Kodachrome, invented by Leopold Godowsky Jr. and Leopold Mannes, two professional musicians: one of the first color films |
|---|---|
| 1962 | Kodachrome-X, at ASA 64 |
| 1974 | The K-14 process; Kodachrome 64 replaces Kodachrome-X, and Kodachrome 25 replaces Kodachrome II |
| 2002 | Kodachrome 25 discontinued |
| 2006 | Kodachrome 200 discontinued |
| 2009 | 22 June: Kodak retires Kodachrome 64, then “a fraction of one percent” of its still film sales |
| 2010 | Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas, the last K-14 lab, develops one of the last rolls for Steve McCurry, and stops at the end of December |
Kodak’s reason, in its 2009 release, was demand: Kodachrome had become “just a fraction of one percent” of its still film sales, and “the majority of today’s photographers” had moved to newer technology. Its datasheet of the same month named Ektar 100 and Ektachrome E100G as alternatives, while saying there was “no exact replacement”. And Kodachrome could not be developed by just any lab (below).
The film people remember was shot on it. Steve McCurry’s 1984 Afghan Girl for National Geographic is a Kodachrome; McCurry told Vanity Fair that “Kodachrome had more poetry in it, a softness, an elegance”. Luigi Ghirri named his 1978 book Kodachrome, and Paul Simon a 1973 song.
03 · Process
Why Kodachrome was so hard to develop: K-14
Every other color film carries its dyes’ ingredients, the couplers, in its layers, so one color developer makes all three dyes at once. Kodachrome had none: its three layers were black and white emulsions, and K-14 added the color one layer at a time. The film was developed as a black and white negative, then each layer in turn was fogged, by colored light or chemically, and developed in a color developer carrying that layer’s coupler: four developers in all, after a first bath that washed off the anti-halation backing. It needed large machines and tight chemical control, which only a few labs in the world had.
| Kodachrome (K-14) | Ektachrome, Velvia (E-6) | |
|---|---|---|
| Dye couplers | In the developers, one per layer | In the film’s layers |
| Developers | One black and white, three color | One black and white, one color |
| Labs | A few in the world; none since 2010 | Any slide lab |
| In the dark | Kodak: “the most archival transparency films” | Less stable than Kodachrome (the films of its day) |
By Wikipedia’s account, Kodachrome slides made since 1938 keep their color and density to this day if kept in the dark; under a projector’s lamp they faded sooner than Fujichrome.
04 · The look
What Kodachrome looks like, and why
Most of the look comes from three things a negative does not have.
- No print. A slide is the film itself, held to the light. Nothing comes between the camera’s exposure and the picture, so nothing evens it out: a bright sky stays bright and the shadows go to black.
- Deep shadows. A slide is steep, made to be projected in a dark room, and its darkest dyes stack to a density near 2.9, about a thousandth of the light (our arithmetic). Wikipedia calls Kodachrome’s contrast “relatively high”.
- Color as dye, made in the lab. Kodak promised film that “reproduces subtle color naturally”. The dyes were made in K-14, which the datasheet does not describe; in Clack’s model of it, reds and yellows come out warm and rich and blues deep.
- Fine grain, sharp. rms granularity 10, close to Velvia 100’s 8; “extremely high sharpness”, Kodak says. More in what is film grain.
05 · Exposure
Shooting Kodachrome 64: exposure is the picture
A negative is printed, and the lab sets the printer light for each frame, so a stop over or under prints close to normal. A slide gets no second chance: a stop over is a lighter slide and a stop under a darker one. The usual advice for slides was to meter for the highlights and let the shadows fall; Kodak’s own table opens up from f/11 to f/5.6 in bright sun for a backlit close-up.
Pushing, tungsten and long exposures
Kodak did not recommend pushing Kodachrome 64, and published no push for it. Kodachrome 200 was the one to push: to EI 500 and 800 under stadium lights, with a shift to magenta-red that Kodak said offset the lamps’ green. Under tungsten (3200 K) Kodachrome 64 needed an 80A blue filter and became an ISO 16 film. At 1/10 s it needed a third of a stop more and a CC05R filter; from one second on, Kodak did not recommend it.
06 · Against
Kodachrome 25, 64 and 200, and Velvia
| Film | Process, speed | Rms granularity | The maker says | Made |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kodachrome 25 | K-14, ISO 25 | 9 | “Extremely fine grain”, “extremely sharp” | Discontinued 2002 |
| Kodachrome 64 | K-14, ISO 64 | 10 | “Reproduces subtle color naturally” | Discontinued 2009 |
| Kodachrome 200 | K-14, ISO 200 | 16 | Low light; “pushes very well to EI 500 and EI 800” | Discontinued 2006 |
| Velvia 100 | E-6, ISO 100 | 8 | “The world’s highest level of color saturation” | Made today |
Diffuse rms granularity at a density of 1.0 through a 48 µm aperture, lower is finer: Kodak’s E-55 and E-88, Fujifilm’s AF3-202E.
- Kodachrome 25 vs 64. The same film family, 25 a stop and a third slower and a touch finer grained (9 against 10). In bright sun Kodak gave 25 f/8 where it gave 64 f/11.
- Kodachrome 64 vs 200. 200 is a stop and two-thirds faster, for action and long lenses, and clearly grainier (16), and it pushed where 64 did not.
- Kodachrome vs Velvia. Velvia is Fujifilm’s E-6 slide for landscapes, still made, sold on its saturation. Modeled the same way from its datasheet in Clack’s engine (where it is not one of the six), Velvia 100 is the harder and more saturated slide, its blues leaning violet; Kodachrome is the warmer one.
Against the negatives in Clack, its model gives this:
| Clack film | Three stops of scene show over | Three stops under mid gray shows | Color (mean chroma) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chroma 64 (based on Kodak Kodachrome 64) | 4.1 stops | 5.4 stops under | 61 |
| Portrait 400 (based on Kodak Portra 400) | 4.2 stops | 4.6 stops under | 50 |
| Minilab 400 (based on Fujifilm Superia X-TRA 400) | 5.4 stops | 5.3 stops under | 54 |
Our measurements of Clack’s film models on a gray scale and a ColorChecker chart, the negatives each on its own paper (Portra Endura, Crystal Archive), the slide on a lightbox. The chart itself has a mean chroma of 45. Round mid gray the slide is no harder than Portra’s print; it is darker in the shadows and richer in color.
07 · Recipes
Kodachrome 64 recipes for Fujifilm, Lightroom and phones
A “Kodachrome 64 Fuji recipe” is a Fujifilm film simulation, often Classic Chrome, with settings tuned by eye until its JPEGs resemble Kodachrome slides. Some are close in feel; none comes from the film’s data, since a Fujifilm camera does not run film curves. More in Fujifilm recipes.
In Lightroom or any editor the levers are the ones above: expose for the highlights, one curve that lets the shadows go black instead of lifting them, reds and yellows rich and warm but darker as they saturate, blues deep, and a very fine grain. How to make photos look like film has the steps.
08 · Clack
Kodachrome 64 on an Android phone: Chroma 64
Clack is a film camera app for Android. One of its six films is Chroma 64 (based on Kodak Kodachrome 64): Kodachrome 64’s published curves and dyes (as digitized by spektrafilm), seen as a slide on a lightbox under 5000 K light, with no print. The color K-14 added is an estimate, each layer holding the others back a little (an interimage of 0.15, chosen by eye on the phone; real Kodachrome scans run a little richer). The look is in the finder as you frame and baked into the JPEG.
| Control | Steps | On Chroma 64 |
|---|---|---|
| White balance | Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten, Custom | Auto corrects the light’s color; Daylight keeps lamplight amber, as Kodachrome did without an 80A; Custom is measured off something white |
| Shift | Warmer or cooler, greener or pinker | Color-compensating filters on the lens, 2 CC a step: a slide has no printer to filter at |
| Contrast | Soft, Normal, Hard, Harder | Pulled one stop to pushed two: an estimate, since Kodak published no push for Kodachrome 64 |
| Color | Soft, Standard, Vivid | The slide as it comes at Standard; Clack turns its color down or up, the film had no other process |
| Grain | Fine, Normal, Coarse | Kodachrome’s own very fine grain at Normal, more in dim light |
| Halation | Normal, Strong | The anti-halation backing in place, or removed before the exposure (K-14 took it off only after) |
Clack comes with one recipe on it, Postcard 64: the film as it comes.
- The meter
- A slide is metered as a film camera’s averaging meter would: a lamp or a bright window in the frame pulls the exposure down, and a backlit face stays dark until the exposure dial says +1½. Nothing prints it back.
- The film base
- On Android phones whose camera offers a contrast curve, Clack takes the frame flat, with the phone’s local tone mapping and color enhancement off, before the film. On other phones the films run on the phone’s own frame.
- In Clack Pro
- Chroma 64 is one of the four films in Clack Pro. For the first seven days everything is open; after that the free tier keeps Minilab 400 and Press 400.
A model of the film’s data on a phone’s photo, not film. Tested mostly on the CMF Phone 2 Pro.
AndroidComing soon to Google Play. More about Clack
Questions
- Is Kodachrome still made?
- No. Kodak announced on 22 June 2009 that it was retiring Kodachrome 64, the last Kodachrome, and the last lab that could develop it, Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas, stopped at the end of 2010. Kodak named Ektar 100 and Ektachrome E100G as alternatives, while saying there was “no exact replacement”.
- Can you still develop Kodachrome?
- Not in color. Its dyes were made in the K-14 process, and no lab has run K-14 since December 2010. Some labs that handle obsolete films develop Kodachrome as a black and white negative.
- Why was Kodachrome discontinued?
- Demand fell. By 2009 it was “a fraction of one percent” of Kodak’s still film sales, and its process was the hardest of any color film: three color developers, each layer developed on its own, run by only a few labs in the world.
- Is Kodachrome a slide film or a negative?
- A slide film (a color reversal film): the developed film is a positive picture, made to be projected or viewed on a lightbox, with no negative and no print in between.
- What is Kodachrome 64 good for?
- Kodak names outdoor, travel and nature photography. It is a daylight film of ISO 64, so it wants bright light, and as a slide it wants exact exposure: Kodak gives 1/125 s at f/11 in bright sun.
- Kodachrome or Ektachrome?
- Both were Kodak slide films. Ektachrome carries its dye couplers in the film and develops in E-6, which any slide lab runs; Kodachrome had none and needed K-14, which no lab runs now. Kodachrome’s dyes kept far longer in the dark.
- Is Clack’s Chroma 64 the same as Kodachrome 64?
- No. It is a model of Kodachrome 64’s published data (its curves and dyes) as a slide on a lightbox, with an estimate for the color K-14 added, run on the phone’s photo, so the lens and sensor are the phone’s. Clack is not affiliated with Kodak.
Sources
- Kodak, Kodachrome 64 and 200 films, technical data E-88 (June 2009)
- Kodak, Kodachrome 25, 64 and 200 Professional films, technical data E-55 (1996)
- Kodak, “Kodak retires Kodachrome film” (press release, 22 June 2009)
- Wikipedia, Kodachrome (history, K-14, the films and the photographers)
- The New York Times, “For Kodachrome fans, road ends at photo lab in Kansas” (29 December 2010)
- Luigi Ghirri, Kodachrome (1978; MACK, 2012)
- Fujifilm, Velvia 100 Professional, data sheet AF3-202E
- spektrafilm: digitized curves and dyes of Kodachrome 64 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Kodak, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Ektar, Portra and Endura are Kodak’s; Fujifilm, Velvia and Classic Chrome are Fujifilm’s. Clack is not affiliated with any of them.