Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]on 4/4/2002 4:25 pm, Marc Attinasi at owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us wrote: >> The Kodachrome process was invented by a couple of musicians who did all the >> R & D in an appartment in N.Y. in the 1930's. Simply amazing! >> > Does anybody know the story of these guys? I have been searching for a > book or other information sources on them and their 'process' for > several years now. Hi Marc Rochester public TV produced an hour long documentary about Kodachrome some years ago. They showed how it was kept alive by people within Kodak who believed in it as a product and produced the compact computer controlled K-Labs to overcome the problems mentioned below. This unique film from the 1930s - originally developed as a motion picture stock - was researched by two musicians Leopold Godowsky and Leopold Mannes - - they used to time parts of their kitchen sink process by humming Beethoven sonatas I believe! I also believe there was a connection to Ira Gershwin through marriage. Kodachrome is unique because it is non-chromagenic and has no colour forming couplers. Colour is added by separate development of ultra thin dye layers which gives it its unsurpassed sharpness. The process was originally spectacularly complex with over 400 chemicals to be QCed on a daily basis (requiring an onsite analytical chemist) and a plant of nearly 10,000 sq ft. Kodachrome was the darling of the picture library as it was the nearest thing we had to archival colour slides. Today's E6 emulsions offer nearly as fine quality and something approaching Kodachrome's longevity. A 'second front' opened up when picture libraries went digital and Kodachrome is such a pig to scan on many film scanners. David Prakel - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html