Bison Bud

My Father was an avid slide photographer when I was young and he got me interested in photography at a very young age. He always said that he liked slides best because they were much easier to develop at home, but we also did some black and white prints in our darkroom and I loved every minute we spent together shooting and processing film. Anyway, Dad is gone now and I have recently been going through his slides, some probably 60 years old now, and have been scanning the ones I want to save and/or reprint. Unfortunately, many of these slides have badly discolored and faded and it's been a challenge to try to bring them back to photos reasonably worth keeping. I'm getting better at this and overall I've been pleased with the end results and saved many family memories. Anyway, there's one thing that I've noticed about these old slides that I thought I mention here. The ones marked Ectachrome are all very red and faded, but the ones marked Kodachrome are generally in pretty decent shape. What I'm wondering is why the difference and has anyone else noticed this sort of thing with old slides?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Generally speaking, color photos - and even movie film - tend to turn red with age. I don't know why the Kodachrome doesn't. You seem to be enjoying the process, but ScanCafe will do an excellent job, for about $0.35 per slide.

Some info on the phenomenon. Good article.
http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=42107

More info -
https://www.google.com/search?q=why+doesn%27t+kodachrome+trun+red+with+age&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS726US726&oq=why+doesn%27t+kodachrome+trun+red+with+age&aqs=chrome..69i57.9367j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

The color dyes in the Kodachrome developer were more stable than the dyes in the Ektachrome film.

rrkazman

Kodachrome, is the older of the two types being one of Kodak's original developments. It had a very complex development process, and was designed as an archival product. It was expensive to make and for 35 mm cameras was mostly distributed in 25 and 64 ASA. Ectachrome on the other hand was a later development and was less expensive to produce, and develop. Ectachrome was also produced in much faster speed ranges, first as 100 ASA, then a professional version in 160 ASA, and later a high speed version in 200 ASA. The Kodak continued to refine the Ectachrome development process to increase film performance, and reduce the grainy nature of Ectachrome. Kodachrome in the 25 ASA speed when used in a stable platform could produce images that when projected even on the largest screens were stunning it also had much deeper tones that Ectachrome. I have several hundred Kodachrome slides that I shot to be printed as pictures, some of them were blown up to 24 x 36 format. I also used it as studio portrait film, I had a second floor natural light studio. Kodachrome was balanced for natural light, so when used with incandescent lamps it yielded an ineradicable color. I never used Ectachrome even though it was cheaper, I tried it once and the results were so much inferior to Kodachrome, it was always worth the cost to me. In 2009 Kodak stop producing Kodachrome, some Ectachrome was discontinued in 2009, and the rest in 2011. These are iconic films, they mark an evolution in progress of image processing. Today I can take my D7100 and take shots for power point, or wall presentation, with no thought of do I have the right speed film in my bag, do I have slide or print film with me. So hold onto all you slides. I keep mine in a air tight box. I am sure they are only valuable to me. Happy processing. There is more history on Wikipedia about both products.

JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

True, and it made for a better song, because "Kodachrome" is smooth and a bit alliterative while "Ektachrome" is much harsher. Kodak was thinking ahead... for Simon.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Kodachrome was completely different, build, chemistry, developing process etc. Nat Geo and others pretty much handed the stuff to their photographers by the case. Expensive, slow, complicated to process but the results were great.

Get a copy of "Scanning Negatives and Slides: Digitizing Your Photographic Archives" by Sascha Steinhoff. He is the guy who sells the Vuescan scanner software and his "Vuescan Bible" is also useful even if you don't use his software. His books are available in paper and as e-books, maybe even as pdf. I have both in paper.

ecurb1105

As I understood the difference Kodachrome had the color dyes added to the film in processing, proprietary formula dyes, while Ektachrome had organic dyes in the film itself. Organic dyes fade, how fast depends on the quality of its processing.

carl hervol Loc: jacksonville florida

Kodachrome is coated with a kind of lacquer ectachrome is not that why.

drmike99 Loc: Fairfield Connecticut

I first knew Kodachrome as ASA 10 in the 1950's. It may have initially been ASA 6 but I'm not sure. Kodachrome II (ASA 25) and Kodachrome X (ASA 64) in the 60's, later renamed with just their ASA numbers and finally Kodachrome 200. Kodachrome actually fades FASTER than the E4/E6 films (Ektachrome, Fuji, Agfa) in the LIGHT (such as frequent or continuous projection) but fades very little and has little color shift in dark storage. That's one reason Kodachrome 16mm, 8mm & Super-8 movie film holds up so well over time- each time a reel is viewed each frame gets only a fraction of a second of light. Ektachrome, contrary to a comment above, did not start at ASA 100. In the 50's it was ASA 32 (when Kodachrome was ASA 10). Ektachrome-X at ASA 64 in the 60's (renamed Ektachrome 64). The original "High Speed Ektachrome " was ASA 100, later ASA 200.