[rollei_list] Re: The End of Kodachrome


David,  How about Central Camera on Wabash Ave?  I went to high school with Don 
Flesch it's President...Central has to be one of the oldest camera stores in 
the country...110 years in operation and all by the same family. 



Ehlert's son also grew up in my neighborhood in Chicago.. 






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Sadowski" <dsadowski@xxxxxxxxx> 
To: "rollei list" <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 10:33:20 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: The End of Kodachrome 

More than 20 years ago, Kodak closed their local Kodachrome processing 
facility at Prairie Avenue in Chicago.  Then, two local labs tried to 
pick up the baton. 

On the professional side, Ross Ehlert had a separate facility just for 
Kodachrome and offered four-hour turnaround.  This coincided roughly 
with the introduction of PKR120.  Ross Ehlert also offered a "push" 
service and I believe they went up to 1 1/3 stops. 

The thought was to entice professionals to use Kodachrome for shoots 
they had been doing with Ektachrome or Fujichrome by offering service 
that was somewhat comparable (at the time you could get E-6 turned 
around in two hours). 

On the amateur side, LaSalle Photo Service also established a 
Kodachrome line.  I worked there at the time and shot several rolls of 
film that were used for testing. 

This was a million dollar investment.  Because of the possibility of 
an explosion, LP had to install a blast cap in the building's roof. 

The chemicals used in processing Kodachrome were mixed from scratch 
and you had to keep a chemist on duty full-time. 

Kodak made this effort because Kodachrome was highly profitable.  They 
could reclaim the silver during processing. 

Unfortunately, both labs failed.  Pros did not switch to shooting 
Kodachrome and there wasn't enough of an amateur market to feed the 
amateur line. 

I don't know what sort of market research Ross-Ehlert did before 
opening their line, but I recall it only lasted a few months before 
they pulled the plug. 

LaSalle carried on a while longer and even won a contract to process 
Kodacheome for Wal-Mart but even this did not yield enough film to 
keep the chemistry in good shape, much less make any sort of profit. 

In this case, I know the owner was sold a bill of goods by Kodak. 
They wanted him to open a K-14 line at great expense to him and he 
ended up taking a huge financial loss on it.  The lab in general had 
other problems but this was one more reason that the LaSalle plant, 
once the region's largest indie lab, shut down forever shortly after 
the owner died in 1996. 

That's really when it became obvious to me that it was only a matter 
of time before Kodachrome went the way of the dinosaur, dodo and 116 
film.  Add to that the fact that you can shoot Fujichrome Velvia that 
serves much the same function as Kodacheome and uses E-6 processing. 
--- 
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