Re: Silly little Kodak History question.

Always profoundly informative.

Thanks Richard.

Richard Knoppow wrote:

>
> ----- 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
>
Received on Wed Jul 13 18:11:43 2005