Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/11
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Luggites,
Unfortunately, Ted may be right about Kodachrome going away.
On the other hand, a few years ago, Kodak introduced the new K-lab
Kodachrome processor. I was marginally involved with the project. A good
friend of mine designed it and it does solve almost all of the Kodachrome
problems. It is environmentally safe, it doe not require a full time chemist
on hand to monitor the line, and it can handle low volume with out loss of
consistency.
The only thing it can't solve is the lack of use of Kodachrome. Mark R.
is correct, people want the immediate turn around. FYI- the dry to dry
processing time for K-Lab is 45 minutes.
What Kodachrome needs is a marketing plan..... and many more K-labs in
use out in the real world. This would probably mean an investment by The
Great Yellow Father of about 50-60 million dollars and there is no guarantee
of success. There is a core group of people at Kodak who believe in
Kodachrome, but they aren't enough.
As much as I love Kodachrome, I can't use to professionally because of
the turn around time, and I'm glad I'm not in Dan Carp's (Kodak CEO) shoes
and have to decide about taking a 60 million roll of the dice.
Happy Snaps,
Sal DiMarco, Jr.
Philadelphia, PA
PS- To Ken Wilcox, Ken I suggest you write to Kodak and complain about the
poor quality processing. It is the only way it will stop.