Mama's taking your Kodachrome away...

[acroyear]

Kodak kills Kodachrome film after 74 years | Technology | Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kodachrome, the film brand touted as the stuff of memories, is about to become a memory itself as Eastman Kodak stops production due to overwhelming competition from digital cameras.

Eastman Kodak Co said it will retire Kodachrome color film this year, ending its 74-year run after a dramatic decline in sales.

Comments

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

I'll be over in the corner mourning the loss of another non-tech medium. The world just got one more step to being filled with completely disposable memories.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

well, two ways to look at it.
1) "disposable" memories
2) "infinitely duplicatable" memories.

right now i have a crap load of film that's dying, possibly dead, 'cause the and a bunch (2 boxes worth) of prints that rarely get noticed because it's too much trouble. plus they're sticking to each other (depending on the printer). the idea of the physical scrapbook is nice, but far more trouble than i have time for, especially as no matter how well i try, the glue never sticks, the prints go flying and get lost, and so it's never something I would ever take out.

My digital book assembled (with just as much care but much more comfortably since i didn't have to worry about ruining the only copy of the print, or the whole book, because my hand with a thing of glue in it is an artistic disaster waiting to happen) is just as permanent to me.

film doesn't last. no, really, it doesn't. there's always a degredation with every copy.

in short, prints and film require a care and detail that i don't have time or the skill (yes, "art" of the scrapbook type is a skill that my hands simply never and WILL NEVER master) to deal with.

the hassle of taking 26 rolls of film and only having 100 shots worth looking at (and not knowing that for weeks) also can put one hell of a damper on vacation memories.

yes, i respect film and print scrapbooks in the hands of those who can manage it...but i'm not one of them and never ever will be.

the fact that i have now 3 or 4 copies of every digital scan/shot i've ever made is very reassuring. *something* will survive, where-as i don't know how long the prints or the film will survive the humidity of life in DC.

[kiltboy]

My parents are HUGELY into film, and even they are making the jump to digital. It's also nice if the Kid wants to take 800 pictures of everything @ the zoo, it costs only the electricity to recharge the camera, not 26 rolls of film, as you stated earlier. Keep the good ones, delete the ones that look like they were taken by a 6 year old: the giraffe's knee, the ground, the left side of Mommy's head...

It's sad to see another thing from my childhood going away, but if there's just not enough demand anymore, it's no longer a viable product.

[silverstah.livejournal.com]

Sadness - I heard that report, too. :( And once that one lab that process it shuts down, there'll be no way to process all those thousands upon thousands of Kodachrome slides. A whole generation's worth of photography, gone.

[aliastaken.livejournal.com]

This bums me out, though I can't say I'm surprised...