I've had the opportunity to shoot several rolls of Kodachrome 25 and 64
again. It had been a long time since I had used the Kodachromes, having
been a Fujichromaholic. What has made this experience "special" is that I
happened to shoot many of the same subjects on Kodachrome as I did on
Provia and Sensia using the same camera and lens combinations.
I've come across and been reminded (board hitting side of head) of an
interesting characteristic of the Kodachromes that ended up destroying a
number of what would have been beautiful images: If there is an extremely
bright object in the scene, such as the sun during a sunset or sunrise,
there is far more reflectance off the film hitting the OTF sensor than with
the Fujichromes. (don't ask about Ektachromes as I rarely shoot them).
This resulted in auto exposures AT LEAST 2-3 stops underexposed. My manual
exposures were right on, but the auto exposures (using OM-2S) were way off.
What was showing on the meter scale prior to exposure was NOT the exposure
executed. Whenever there was a huge contrast range, the auto exposure
always underexposed. In this case, I know it was the film and not
technique as I can usually trust the camera with the Fujichromes.
I was shooting a barge going through Lock and Dam 21 back at the end of
November and finished a roll of K25, shot a whole roll of Provia and a roll
of K64 in the OM-2S primarily using the 24/2.8 and Tokina AT-X 35-70/2.8
lenses. I compared nearly identical images from the K64 and Provia and
made the following observations:
1. Provia is slightly ruddy in comparison to the Kodachrome. The sky is
more dramatic but has an ever so slight magenta tinge to it. The
Kodachrome had a cyan bias in the sky, but the whites, greys and silvers
were neutral.
2. Kodachrome had nuetral shadows and the blacks were blacker. The Provia
shadows were deeper than the Kodachromes' but not as color neutral.
3. Gray colored items remained nuetral in the Kodachrome, but picked up a
slight magenta in the Provia.
4. Yellow painted objects and lines on the Provia went full saturation and
jumped off the film, but the Kodachrome's yellows were muted and dull in
comparison. However, gradients did show up in the Kodachrome that
disappeared in the high contrast Provia.
5. Apparent sharpness was a complete surprise! I thought that the Provia
would appear sharper with the higher contrasts and edgeness, but the
Kodachrome won out in this case because the manmade objects were rendered
more accurately and the shadows didn't block up.
Overall, the gradients in the Kodachrome were a little better than the
Provia and metallic objects were rendered in a much more pleasing manner.
However, the color saturation of the Provia makes the images conform to the
now current standards for "color-pop." Had I been using a polorizer the
Kodachromes would have looked a lot more saturated.
I shot both sunrises and sunsets with the Kodachromes and had one
unbelievable morning with cloud formations lit on the underside by the
rising sun. These sunrises I used as a backdrop for photographs of TV and
Radio towers. The gradients in the clouds were outstanding and I know from
experience that Velvia or Provia would have gone too saturated and lost the
minute details in the clouds. I feel fortunate looking at the slides that
I had Kodachrome loaded instead of Fuji films. I spot metered the
exposures and didn't use auto, but bracketed wildly. (all bracketed +-1
shots were usable in this case)
Ken
Kenneth E. Norton
Image66 Photography
image66@xxxxxxx
(217) 224-5004
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