十年前,我很擔心膠捲底片因為數位相機的出現,因而消失了。現在終於發生了,而且是我最欣賞的Kodak Kodachrome正片(彩色幻燈片),雖然沖洗很麻煩,得送到美國,但還是我的最愛之一。其實,數位相機一向讓摸習慣全手動機械式相機的我感到非常不滿意,雖然數位相機可以讓我猛按快門,且可以省很多膠捲的費用,但是總覺得少了一份攝影的感覺。

 

雖然,自己從沒沖洗與放大過正片,但在暗房自己沖洗與放大負片的經驗,是攝影最踏實的經驗。有人說,相片的內容在按下快門那一瞬間就決定了,可是暗房的作業,其實也可以玩很多技巧改變效果與內容的;而這種感覺與經驗,又和當今用電腦修圖的狀況相差天地之遠。

 

Afghan_refugee_577682a.jpg  

  (這一張國家地理雜誌最著名的阿富汗難民,正是Kodachrome的傑作)

 

小樽  

(這一張是2001年我在日本北海道小樽用柯達正片拍的,後來掃瞄成電腦數位檔。)

  

函館 

(這一張也是在2001年,在北海道函館拍的,同樣掃瞄成電腦數位檔。)

 

622日,Eastman Koda宣佈結束全球最早商業生產的彩色幻燈片底片Kodachrome1935年推出的Kodachrome,她的色調逼真、色彩鮮艷、顏色飽滿,而且可以保存75100年不褪色。我有三個大大的防潮箱,主要目的之一也是保存珍貴的正片和負片,我還記得當時攝影社集體向收藏家購買大批的防潮箱。我和學長開著車,來回去倉庫載貨;剛好一個國中同學當時正在收藏家上班,所以拿到了不錯的價錢。

 

Kodak01.jpg 

Kodachrome保留了很多人的記憶,Paul Simon1973年有一首歌就叫做<Kodachrome>,他唱著「They give us those nice bright colors. They give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the worlds a sunny day, oh yeah. I got a Nikon camera. I love to take a photograph. So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away.」而我的單眼相機,很巧地,不管機械或是數位,都是Nikon

 

 

 

Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak's taking Kodachrome away

Eastman Kodak announced Monday that it's retiring its oldest film stock because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age.

 

Kodak02.jpg 

 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2009370791_kodachrome23.html

 

The Associated Press

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak is taking your Kodachrome away.

Eastman Kodak announced Monday that it's retiring its oldest film stock because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age.

The world's first commercially successful color film, immortalized in the 1973 song by Simon, spent 74 years in Kodak's portfolio. It enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and '60s, but in recent years has nudged closer to obscurity: Sales of Kodachrome are now just a fraction of 1 percent of the company's total sales of still-picture films, and only one commercial lab in the world still processes it and it's in Kansas.

Those numbers and the unique materials needed to make it convinced Kodak to call its most recent manufacturing run the last, said Mary Jane Hellyar, the outgoing president of Kodak's Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group.

Hellyar estimates the retail supply of Kodachrome will run out in the fall, though it could be sooner if devotees stockpile. Kodachrome is available only through photo specialty dealers.

"Kodachrome is particularly difficult (to retire) because it really has become kind of an icon," Hellyar said.

The company now gets about 70 percent of its revenue from its digital business but plans to stay in the film business "as far into the future as possible," Hellyar said.

She points to the seven new professional still films and several new motion-picture films introduced in the last few years and to a strategy that emphasizes efficiency. Kodachrome, because of a unique formula, didn't fit in with the philosophy and was made only about once a year.

Simon sang about it in the aptly titled "Kodachrome."

"They give us those nice bright colors. They give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the world's a sunny day," he sang. "... So Mama don't take my Kodachrome away."

Indeed, Kodachrome was favored by still and motion-picture photographers for its rich but realistic tones, vibrant colors and durability.

Film's rich history

It was the basis not only for countless family slide shows on carousel projectors over the years but also for world-renowned images, including Abraham Zapruder's 8-mm reel of President John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

Photojournalist Steve McCurry's widely recognized portrait of an Afghan refugee girl, shot on Kodachrome, was on a National Geographic cover in 1985.

At Kodak's request, McCurry will shoot one of the last rolls of Kodachrome film and donate the images to the George Eastman House museum, which honors the company's founder, in Rochester.

For McCurry, who after 25 years with Kodachrome moved on to digital photography and other films in the last few years, the project will close out an era.

"I want to take (the last roll) with me and somehow make every frame count ... just as a way to honor the memory and always be able to look back with fond memories at how it capped and ended my shooting Kodachrome," McCurry said.

An online tribute

As a tribute to the film, Kodak has compiled on its Web site a gallery of iconic images, including McCurry's Afghan girl and others from photographers Eric Meola and Peter Guttman.

Guttman used Kodachrome for 16 years, until about 1990, before switching to Kodak's more modern Ektachrome film, and he calls it "the visual crib that I was nurtured in."

He used it to create a widely published image of a snowman beneath a solar eclipse, shot in the dead of winter in North Dakota.

"I was pretty much entranced by the incredibly realistic tones and really beautiful color," Guttman said, "but it didn't have that artificial Crayola coloration of some of the other products that were out there."

Unlike any other color film, Kodachrome is purely black and white when exposed.

The three primary colors that mix to form the spectrum are added in three development steps rather than built into its layers.

Because of the complexity, only Dwayne's Photo, in Parsons, Kan., still processes Kodachrome film.

The lab has agreed to continue through 2010, Kodak said.

Grant Steinle, vice president of operations and head of lab operations at Dwayne's, said the shop was fielding calls Monday from customers asking whether it would continue to handle Kodachrome, which accounts for 20 percent of the lab's business.

Steinle said he understood why Kodak reached its decision, but it was still disappointing.

"Kodachrome is still an important part of our business," he said.

Associated Press writer Sheila Ellis contributed to this report from Kansas City, Mo.

Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

 

 

Lyrics

 

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white

Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome
(Leave your boy so far from home)
Mama, don't take my Kodachrome (away)

 

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