Kodak winds last rolls of Kodachrome | Crave - CNET

Kodak winds last rolls of Kodachrome | Crave - CNET:

"First we said good-bye to Polaroid, now it's Kodachrome. What's a film sentimentalist to do? After 74 years of making the color film used by many of photography's greats, Kodak announced Monday that it's ending Kodachrome's production.

Kodachrome makes up less than 1 percent of Kodak's total sales for still film, according to the company. Digital cameras are obviously the main culprit contributing to Kodachrome's demise, but photographers are also using newer kinds of color film that are easier to process. Only one photofinishing lab in the world still processes Kodachrome--Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kan. ..."

This is, of course, not unexpected since most other roll films for amateur photographers have been phased out. It seems a shame, nevertheless, to see Kodachrome disappear.

One of my favorite stories is that of William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) whose iconic photographs of the Yellowstone area in Wyoming were instrumental in its designation as Yellowstone National Park. For these photographs he lugged heavy equipment to make wet plates for exposure in large cameras. In the last several years of his life, he dabbled in a new film called Kodachrome.

On a personal note Kodachrome was the first 35mm color film I used, after having begun with 120 roll film in black and white. I still have many of those slides from the 1960s. My last camera system was a Nikon 8008 and when I made the switch to digital over between 2001 and 2005 I chose a Nikon D-70 SLR, since it would take all my older lenses. I still kept a Nikkormat and a Yashica 120 camera for those times when I wanted a little more nostalgia as I took photos. And besides, both would work with or without batteries.

Now I have two 35mm and 120 film cameras, an Omega B-22 enlarger and associated darkroom equipment -- all rapidly becoming relics of another era. Sounds like I'm getting to officially be an old codger.