characteristics of Kodachrome

Ben johns

Ben johns

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Ive really been enjoying Fred Herzogs work recently. Ive been trying to mimic the look of his work and Kodachrome which I believe he mainly used. However I wasnt able to use it before it stopped being made. To me it looks like reds really pop and over colours look a little muted in comparison. That might just be how Fred Herzog used it though
 
Think Paul Simon got it right -

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
Click to expand...
 
Ben johns said:
Ive really been enjoying Fred Herzogs work recently. Ive been trying to mimic the look of his work and Kodachrome which I believe he mainly used. However I wasnt able to use it before it stopped being made. To me it looks like reds really pop and over colours look a little muted in comparison. That might just be how Fred Herzog used it though
Click to expand...
Kodachrome was produced over quite a long period (decades) and it depends which era you are wanting to replicate. As a general characteristic, the shadows tended to go to pitch black fairly quickly, and colours were generally quite well saturated (think the original series of Star Trek), and the 1960s and 70s slides are difficult to home scan to accurately replicate the colour and 'feel'. The 1980s onwards film seems to scan reasonably well (accurately), but didn't lose the general characteristics.

However, if you want to emulate the style of a particular photographer then don't concentrate too much on trying to replicate the look of an obsolete film, concentrate on the look they got. Often, it's not the film but the way they shot it, and the subsequent print renditions of their published work. Hope this is useful.
 
Ben johns said:
Ive really been enjoying Fred Herzogs work recently. Ive been trying to mimic the look of his work and Kodachrome which I believe he mainly used. However I wasnt able to use it before it stopped being made. To me it looks like reds really pop and over colours look a little muted in comparison. That might just be how Fred Herzog used it though
Click to expand...
If you think its Freds signature is that his Kodachromes look a certain way, you could look at work by other photographers to see if the same key elements are present.
In fact you can scan across entire eras at Shorpy.
Personally, I don't think Kodachrome changes at all, the conditions under which it is shot do but maybe the conditions are Freds signature, I dunno I'm not familiar with him.

https://www.shorpy.com/Large_Format_Kodachromes
 
dmb said:
Think Paul Simon got it right -
Click to expand...
Not so sure I would agree, all the colours were vibrant but for me the reds dominated, having said that I have just remembered I am red/green colour blind, maybe he was right.
Pretty contrasty too as I recall and very intolerant of incorrect exposure, but a film I loved.
 
Mr Badger said:
Kodachrome was produced over quite a long period (decades) and it depends which era you are wanting to replicate. As a general characteristic, the shadows tended to go to pitch black fairly quickly, and colours were generally quite well saturated (think the original series of Star Trek), and the 1960s and 70s slides are difficult to home scan to accurately replicate the colour and 'feel'.
Click to expand...

I started my scanning retroconversion exercise with my boxes of Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides from the 1970s. I certainly agree with you about the shadows; I remember slides taken in the Northern Territory (of Australia) with sunlit rock gorges and deep, deep shadows, trying to scan them to at least appear reddish black rather than a weird reticulated mushy greeny black! OTOH, generally the slides scanned quite well, but I was using the Kodachrome option of Silverfast SE Plus, and it certainly did a good job then. Luckily I scanned all my Kodachromes before the SF software stopped working (Mac upgrade).

We took a 3 week holiday in New Zealand in 1974; I started with two rolls of Ektachrome, then bought rolls of Kodachrome after that. The thing is, if I hadn't made notes when scanning the slides, I'd have trouble working out which were the K and which the E. To my eyes, after scanning, the differences weren't huge.
 
ChrisR said:
I started my scanning retroconversion exercise with my boxes of Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides from the 1970s. I certainly agree with you about the shadows; I remember slides taken in the Northern Territory (of Australia) with sunlit rock gorges and deep, deep shadows, trying to scan them to at least appear reddish black rather than a weird reticulated mushy greeny black!
Click to expand...

Here's an example, taken at Simpson's Gap near Alice Springs in 1977; I can get rid of the mushy green top left with a bit of PP, but it's weird....

CS77B2ra06 Simpsons Gap.jpg

PS, the reason for the long trousers in central Australia is, yes, that was winter!
 
joxby said:
If you think its Freds signature is that his Kodachromes look a certain way, you could look at work by other photographers to see if the same key elements are present.
In fact you can scan across entire eras at Shorpy.
Personally, I don't think Kodachrome changes at all, the conditions under which it is shot do but maybe the conditions are Freds signature, I dunno I'm not familiar with him.

https://www.shorpy.com/Large_Format_Kodachromes
Click to expand...
I’d never heard of that site until now!
Joshua k Jackson’s day time stuff has a similar look, think he uses fuji cameras
 
Last edited:
joxby said:
If you think its Freds signature is that his Kodachromes look a certain way, you could look at work by other photographers to see if the same key elements are present.
In fact you can scan across entire eras at Shorpy.
Personally, I don't think Kodachrome changes at all, the conditions under which it is shot do but maybe the conditions are Freds signature, I dunno I'm not familiar with him.

https://www.shorpy.com/Large_Format_Kodachromes
Click to expand...

That site says "The images you see here have been adjusted by the Webmaster for color and contrast"; since we don't know how much, it's hard to be sure how much change there was. We do know there were several generations of Kodachrome film (I've no idea now which I was shooting, but it was 1970s...)

BTW what happened to our Kodachrome images thread?
 
Ben johns said:
I’d never heard of that site until now!
Joshua k Jackson’s day time stuff has a similar look, think he uses fuji cameras
Click to expand...

More than film/camera it's conditions more than anything else. Strong sunlight amplifies colours and creates strong shadows.
If you want black shadows shoot for the highlights and/or crush the blacks in post.

See also Alex Webb, Harry Gruyaert, Ernst Haas and Saul Leiter for similar colour photography
 
Snip:
Ste_S said:
See also Alex Webb, Harry Gruyaert, Ernst Haas and Saul Leiter for similar colour photography
Click to expand...

There's the 1970s work from Stephen Shore too; although I seem to recall he shot most(?) of that on Kodacolor print film.
 
Ben johns said:
I’d never heard of that site until now!
Joshua k Jackson’s day time stuff has a similar look, think he uses fuji cameras
Click to expand...

Shorpy forced me to shoot Kodachrome...:)
Although its obvious quite a bit of its Kodachrome content is professionally shot, they're still inspiring and too beautiful to ignore.
ChrisR said:
That site says "The images you see here have been adjusted by the Webmaster for color and contrast"; since we don't know how much, it's hard to be sure how much change there was. We do know there were several generations of Kodachrome film (I've no idea now which I was shooting, but it was 1970s...)

BTW what happened to our Kodachrome images thread?
Click to expand...

You could say the same for Freds images, or in fact anything posted online, but its all we have without comparing them in the wild.
I dunno how much difference there was between the various speeds and iterations of Kodachrome, it has a unique look, I would imagine there were no Earth shattering changes during its lifetime, in appearance at least.
 
My (probably superficial) take on Kodachrome was that it was highly saturated and high contrast; these two characteristics alone would be enough to create an illusion of sharpness, but it was inherently sharp and high resolution anyway.

The processing method was reputed to be the reason for its having a longer lifetime than other colour slide films. I must have around three filing cabinet drawers of Kodachromes in Diana Wylie ViewPacks.
 
StephenM said:
The processing method was reputed to be the reason for its having a longer lifetime than other colour slide films.
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As I recall with K you remove the colours you don't want in processing, you leave behind the long lasting compounds, with other slide film the processing creates the colours and they have a smaller shelf life as they are inherently less stable.
 
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