When Kodak announced the end of Kodachrome, I went to my film freezer
to find 15 remaining rolls, 11 of which was KM25. This film has been
frozen, thawed, and refrozen several times. Last summer when I turned
off the electricity before evacuating our home during the flood, I
forgot about my film freezer. Basically, the film sat in a defrosted
refrigerator for a month. Fortunately, all the film was in ziplock
bags within their plastic canisters. Still. This film doesn't owe me
anything at this point.
I decided, mostly in light of Dwayne's announcement about
discontinuing processing after 2010, to shoot the Kodachrome until it
is gone, concentrating on normal scenes around my home and environs.
I am documenting places and things I pass everyday, or often, as a
time capsule on film. Within that stricture, I am also trying to
follow the best light to get the best results for this magic-hour
film.
To my eyes, the film looks no worse for the wear. I am pleased in
that I think that I am the weak link in this project. Judge for
yourself.
For this first roll, I shot every frame with my OM-4 using fast Zuikos
(28/2, 50/1.2, and 85/2) as all were handheld shots with KM25. A lot
of f4 in the mix. Multispot metering for each frame and no
bracketing. I metered very carefully with apparent success, if I may
say so. The OM-4 is really made for shooting slide film economically!
Scanning via Polaroid Sprintscan 4000. Vuescan software. I boosted
color brightness for red and decreased it for blue to get color
balance matching the film, plus a basic curves adjustment that seems
to work well for all scans, so these settings have been saved as a
profile (.ini file) in Vuescan. In Photoshop, the highlight-shadow
tool has been invaluable, not so much to pull up shadows but to match
the dynamic range of the film more closely, particularly important for
the highlights.
The scans are mostly full-frame renditions of the actual slide,
without serious cropping or adjustments, but there are exceptions
where, for example, persepctive adjustment at the moment of shooting
may have left a large vacant area at the bottom of the frame, etc.
Here and there I have done a bit of perspective correction in software
as well, particularly if my in-camera correction was not quite
perfect. Sharpening was done using two light passes to get the
original scan into some kind of basic shape and once with a very light
pass of the web image through Intellisharpen.
Warning: Flickr link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99378213@N00/sets/72157621744074263/
I suggest finding the "slideshow" link on the page to view these.
Once the slideshow is underway, click "Options" to make certain
"embiggen" is NOT clicked. Then you'll be able to see the film scans
at the size intended (around 800 pixels on the long side).
Kodachrome forever ... (sniff)
Joel W.
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