Re: Freight Victoria Black

[David Langley <del@ancc.com.au>]

Frank Jones wrote:

> One thing in Kodachrome's favour despite its relatively less
> 'exciting' colour, is that it is excellent in terms of its archival
> quality. I read somewhere that it has a *minimum* life of 50 years.

Most slide films claim this nowadays.

> This is because, unlike all other films, the colour dyes are not
> actually in the film as purchased - Kodachrome is initially basically
> several layers of colour-sensitive B/W film. The colour dyes are added
> to the appropriate layers at the colour processing stage. Kodachrome
> processing is quite different and considerably more complex than other
> processing, which is why only Kodak do it in Australia.
>
> Certainly all of my Kodachromes of the early 70s have retained their
> colour admirably, whereas other brands of film (Agfa in particular)
> have deteriorated considerably.

Mine are just fine. I used CT21 for years until they took it off the
market. My old Kodaks (kodachrome and a lesser extent Ektachrome) are a bit
light on.

> I also wonder about the longevity of colour prints - sometimes you
> will get them back reeking of chemicals and you have to wonder whether
> they have been washed properly. Have you ever been to a 21st and seen
> the usual collection of baby photos, and noted how often many of them
> are badly faded?

Definitely the processing in that case. Some time ago a thread talked about
the subject of processing houses and we can all tell stories. I can
guarantee that in Seymour, we process all films (yes even Kodak) with the
same care and quality that we would to our own. No chemical smells here.

David Langley.