Kodak Discontinuing Kodachrome

Sorry to start off your Monday with some decidedly sad news, but Kodak announced this morning that they're pulling the plug on Kodachrome after 74 years of incredibly dilligent service. Apparently, the iconinc film was only responsible for a fraction of one percent of Kodak's sales, which are now, predictibly, overwhelmingly based in digital photography. They expect supply to become exhausted by the fall and the last roll will be given to Steve McCurry, the photojournalist behind the iconic National Geographic photo of an Afghan refugee girl. He's going to shoot the roll and the photographs will be sold for charity.

While it's definitely sad news, it doesn't come as much of a surprise. The incredibly realistic tones it produced were the product of a very specific chemistry that most labs were glad to be rid of long ago. Only one lab, Dwayne's Photo in Kansas, will be processing the film through 2010.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Mary Jane Hellyar, the outgoing president of Kodak's Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group, said that the discontinuance doesn't signal Kodak's exit from the film game all together. So, don't take it too hard, film heads. They know they'll have to pry our TMAX 100 out of our cold dead hands.

Feel free to share your fond memories in the comments.

Comments

[professorevil]

In other news, Simon and Garfunkel are set to release a new single called "Digital" next Tuesday...

[Steven]

I suppose it had to happen sometime, but for those of us who learned photography with this wonderful tool it is a sad day.

[Jeff]

It really is a crying shame to kill a film that has been part of America's visual history. It would have been great if Kodak just limited production to two or three times a year. Kodak would then have stores, photographers and etc. order before the line starts up. Ilford does this for large format film. To me this shows that Ilford cares about all photographers, no matter how small of market demographic they are.

[Travis Johansen]

Jeff that's a great idea maybe Kodak could have implemented. I like to support companies that care about their customers- it's sad that Kodak isn't taking that alternative route though...