[rollei_list] Chrome Films

I am rather time-jammed at the moment, but here are a few observations.
First, Kodachrome was developed outside of Big Yellow by two chemistry scholars. They sold it for a decent sum to Kodak. As Richard has noted, AGFA was getting ready to produce color slide films and, in fact, already held patents which blocked Kodak from its initial approach. The original Kodachrome was "Process K", which had evolved to K-6 by 1948 and is today, I believe, K-12.
Second, the Alien Properties Act of 1942 seized all German and Italian and Japanese (and Finnish and Hungarian and Roumanian and Bulgarian, for what that matters) intellectual properties including patents. No US or UK manufaturer jumped into the market during the War but Kodak had teams of analysts at Wolfen (the main AGFA plant, later home to "Original Wolfen" , or ORWO films and papers) discovering the AGFA process. This was released in 1946 with the cryptic process designation of "E". We now know this as E-6.
Third, Kodachrome has incredible ability to resist decay if dark-stored. I have some Kodachrome slides of my folks on a picnic when Dad was in college, from 1948, and I have Kodachrome 8mm movies from 1938 and WWII which are as bright and snappy today as when just returned from the processor. Fuji E-6 slides have a better display life than does Kodachrome.
There is no question that modern E-6 chromes last better than did the earlier versions even two decades ago. But, for dark storage, stick with Kodachrome. 

Marc


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Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

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