Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/06/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Peterson Arthur G NSSC wrote: > >I can say that Kodachrome processing is not always (or everywhere) so slow. I've been shooting Kodachrome occasionally for years in Northern Virginia, and I always get my slides back > the very next day after I bring them in for processing. :-)<<<<<<<< Hi Art, Yes and that did happen in Vancouver and Toronto at one time when KODAK operated their labs in those cities. Actually you could take your KR to the lab in the morning and have it back later in the day, that was before KODAK closed the plants due to environmental concerns,,,, and lack of demand for KR films and processing! So KR in and out within 24 hours or shorter isn't unheard of in cities where there are labs. And if we could've maintained this simplicity many KR users would probably still be using it. In reality, KODAK actually started the demise of KR simply by improving the E6 films to such an extent it began slowing the sales of kodachrome. For me and many others it's never been a quality thing, today it's an "Out of hand time concern!" And the extra potential of disaster the farther afield the film travels before it's returned. If you bank roll a shoot where many thousands of dollars hang on the survival and sale of those images or a client pays you to go to another country, hire models, rent whatever from limo's, boats to helicopters. And then you have to "ship the film" by who knows what service on the hope that neither the courier truck nor plane crashes and burns. The lab techs who have no idea of the value of your film any more than Aunt Maud's flower slides, "both valuable mind you to the respective photographer." But one of considerable economic value compared to a simple re-shoot of flowers. I don't think anyone in their right mind is going to think more than a few seconds as to which film they're going to use. Unless there is a KODAK lab in your home town where you walk in, hand them film, pick up later! KR films are beautiful, no question. But as I've said, they are not the be all to end all of shooting colour slides! Not any more, as the E6 types out there are quite phenomenal and improving all the time. I think one should keep that in mind when addressing the value of them or KR. ted