Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/06/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Concerning the longevity of Kodachrome vs. E6, Fungus is another long-term defect that may differ between the materials and/or labs/processing technology. Five years ago I lived in NY and shot some Kodachrome and some Ektachrome. Like any other period since the mid-seventies, there were new Ektachromes out that "surpassed the old Ektachromes and the dated Kodachrome technology." I had all my slides processed by Kodak labs using Kodak mailers. The Ektachromes were OK when new. As were the Kodachromes. When returning home I stored my slides (Kodachromes & Ektachromes) together in less than perfect storing conditions. Not as dry as I would like. Today all my Ektachromes from that period suffer from fungus. They are a bit faded, but that doesn't really come into account as the fungus makes them totally un-enjoyable. I am storing all my slides in the same location and haven't experienced this problem on any of my other films. I have material dating back to the early seventies. I guess about 90+ % of it is Kodachrome, with the odd Ektachrome or Agfa. (I have used E6-film when I was out of Kodachrome or there was another "new fantastic" version of E6-film out) Given that my other E6 material has no sign of fungus, I guess something might have gone wrong at the Kodak E6 lab. Still, may be it is to the advantage of Kodachrome that it isn't handled on every street corner. Aside from longevity there are other differences: I am quite happy with the mounting of Kodachrome from the Kodak lab I use (Switzerland is the closest I believe). None of the E6 processing I have been able to find in Norway returns the slides as clean and as flatly mounted. They use more expensive mounts though (GePe). In spite of my long-time preference for Kodachrome I currently shoot more Ektachrome E100S/SW than anything else. I really like the images I get from those films and would possibly abandon Kodachrome for the most part, if I could could trust the longevity of these new Ektachromes. Unfortunately the answer until now has been negative. And I will only know for sure when it is too late. __ Tore