Re: Silly little Kodak History question.

----- Original Message -----
From: "fotoobscura" <fotoobscura@gmail.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: Silly little Kodak History question.

> This is what I figured. The camera shop was the middle
> man. So with regards to the magazines- When you brought
> this film in for processing you couldn't get the magazine
> back even if it didn't go to Kodak? E.G. "Adam's Camera
> Shop". Also if part of the price of the film was a
> deposit, does this mean you got money back when the film
> was returned developed and they took the mag? Just
> curious...
>
> Although the written information on the case most
> certainly implies there are are a lot of other
> laboratories to process the 16mm film other than Kodak,
> pre-1961, although all of you have said there was no way
> basically because of the expense of the machines.
> Although I would presume by 1961 16mm color was pretty
> common and in demand even by the consumer.
>
> I'm sort of trying to figure out how strong a hold Kodak
> had of keeping their films made in their labs and
> processed in their labs.
>
   Kodak wanted a strong hold on their films and processing.
Until an anti-trust action, the date of which I can't
remember exactly, processing cost was included when
Kodachrome and Kodacolor films were purchased. The film was
either mailed to Kodak in its original box or sent on by a
camera shop. The processed film was returned directly to the
consumer via mail. I suspect that the "deposit" on the
magazine was introduced at the time that processing had to
paid for separately. Kodak also sold reversal B&W film in
magazines with a similar set up, i.e., processing by Kodak.
I used magazine 16mm film when I was a kid. My parents had a
business that used 16mm film for promotional purposes so we
shot miles of Kodachrome in a Kodak magazine camera. All of
this was during the time the processing was included in the
film prices.
   There were people who sold bulk loaded magazines. This
was especially true following WW-2 when vast numbers of
these magazines became available on the surplus market. All
of the gun cameras used on fighter planes were of the
magazine type. The GSAP cameras still sold in modified form
by Alan Gorden are these cameras: there must have been many
thousands of them made.
   Kodachrome requres a very complicated process. The
current process is a version of one adopted about 2 years
after the original release of Kodachrome as 16mm motion
picture film in 1936. The original process was even more
elaborate and required the controlled penetration of bleach.
Kodak undoubtedly made their profit from the film not
processing but the processing was so complex, and required
such tight control of so many factors, that Kodak wanted to
keep control of it to prevent poor quality results, which
would have destroyed sales of the film.
   Evidently, George Eastman wanted to devise a color film
suitable for use by amateurs early on. However, the problems
were much more difficult than imagined. The idea for
incorporated coupler color films, of the type now used,
originated at a very early time, but it was not until 1935
or 36 that Agfa invented a practical method for anchoring
the dye couplers and resultant dyes so that they would not
migrate from layer to layer or within layers. Kodachrome has
the couplers in the second developers so it requires three
second developments. Kodak eventually found another method
of anchoring the couplers, the method used in Kodacolor. The
Kodak method is the one that has survived although both
kinds of film were made for decades.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@ix.netcom.com