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The End Of An Era.

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mumrar

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26 Sep 2008
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They axed 25 ages ago, but they're even killing Kodachrome 64 off?! Sadness, one of my favourite films.
I've used the Kodachrome before on my Dads camera and the quality was superb. That said, I wouldn't swap my dSLR for film because it's free to experiment. If I were paying to develop films I wouldn't try my more creative shots due to cost/waste. I can see why people are sad to see it go, but the advances digital is making means it's expensive and superceded I'm afraid.
 

Rebus

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31 May 2008
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Shame, I've recently scanned in some old transparencies of me as a baby and a young boy, and the rest of the family, taken by my late Uncle, and they still look superb today, with great colours and contrast. Oh, and I'm 50 years old!
 

Rebus

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No you're not - you're 50 years young.

:D

I'm still amazed at the quality from these old slides though - there are also some old Fuji and Kodak Ektachrome ones and they have faded colours, some quite badly...
 

Demps

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11 May 2006
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Big shame, i havent personally used kodachrome yet although im getting round to it, but i know how good it is.
 

Mike McCormac

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18 Sep 2008
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Paphos, Cyprus
All this raises an interesing point. I've been photting railways since 1968 - on a variety of films and now digital. Looking back through some of my older slides, I've been horrified by how much some of the emulsions have deteriorated. K64 is not one of those - its still true today - even with some 40 year old slides.

I have been having a major exercise to scan up the older stuff, so much so that I splashed out a thick wedge on a quality Nikon film scanner. It does a great job, but even so you find yourself making significant colour changes in Photoshop to get back to anything approaching natural colours.

Its also a soul destroying job. I've probably got 4,000 slides sat in a file cabinet, and scanning 30 in an evening is a busy time. On that basis I'll be 148 by the time I finish!

Check out http://www.mikemccormac.co.uk/Railway-Pictures-Pages/R_Top_Archive.php to see the scans so far (25s, 40s, 45s, 47s, 50s, 52s, ...!!!) - and watch this space - I've just finished scanning the 1982 stuff and I'll be uploading it soon.
 

33056

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12 Nov 2007
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On a train somewhere in Europe
Mike, I can identify with your scanning tribulations. The two of us have a collection of thousands of slides and negatives dating back to the early 1970s and it is a right pain finding time to do any scanning at all at present, bearing in mind that we are still (very) actively taking digital. Even by only scanning the best / most interesting ones I doubt whether the job will ever be finished.

Sounds like you have a Coolscan, fantastic piece of kit, but scanning takes so long with the "scratch and dust removal" facility activated; it is pretty essential though as it saves hours trying to clone marks out in Photoshop later.

Regarding colour correcting slides, apparently that is always necessary as they are intended to be viewed through a projector whose light source is a different colour temperature to that produced by a computer screen. Different makes of slide have different charateristics, but they most often have a magenta hue to them. My personal favourite slide film was Fuji Provia which is normally not far out in the colour stakes when scanned.

Our biggest problem is grain as we tended to use higher ISOs due to always having a camera handy to record anything we might see in our travels. 64 or even 100 was all very nice if specifically going out to take photos on a nice sunny day but not much use if the light was bad; for me, that is the one major advantage of digital.

Your collections are most interesting, the 47 at Old Oak is on my old stamping ground, if it was five yeras later I could say that was 4O71 Willesden FLT to Southampton with confidence :D I am also intrigued by the 73/33 combo on the GWML; bet the ED was a bit hot and bothered by the time it reached it's destination :lol:
 
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