Super 8 Kodak K40

sorcerer · Post by **sorcerer** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:05 pm

My mother-in-law phoned me yesterday to see if I could help (she's 90 miles away so I'm relaying her message and haven't actually seen this for myself).

It seems that she was clearing out some cupboards and came across some reels of Super 8 cine film, including one which apparently hasn't been processed yet. The markings on the box/reel/whatever are:

Kodachrome 40 Movie Film Type A. Super 8 Cartridge. K40

Anyone know where she can get it processed please?

Cheers,

sorcerer
PS, just in case it makes a difference, perhaps I should have said that I'm in Preston, Lancashire and MIL is in Carlisle.

Post by **Dave Watterson** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:40 pm

Kodak do not process it at all any more.

They refer all US and European enquiries to
Dwayne's Photo
PO Box 274 or 415 S 32nd St.
Parsons, KS 67357
USA

who describe themselves as "America's most experienced, independent, specialty photo processor. " and "the only remaining Kodak certified Kodachrome film processor in the U.S."

http://www.dwaynesphoto.com

Their order form says $10 processing fee, international postage $13.95 - not fast but a lot cheaper than FedEx. They require payment by PayPal or Credit Card. Add your outbound postage.

That seems a reasonable price for seeing if there is anything of family importance on the film.

Dave

billyfromConsett · Post by **billyfromConsett** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:19 am

Is there a time limit on processing though, but for that little price it might be worth just going for it, and see if there's a nice surprise.

sorcerer · Post by **sorcerer** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:06 am

Thanks very much Dave, and you too Billy.

I knew that we were having a bit of difficulty finding somewhere locally but I never thought it would have to go to the states

Anyway, once again, thanks for your help and I'll let you know how if there's anything on it.

Sorcerer

tom hardwick · Post by **tom hardwick** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 9:31 am

Worth checking to make sure the film has actually been exposed and you're not sending an unexposed film off for processing, as it'll be dear. Look at the film strip in the gate area - does it show a cutout where the perforations should be?

But if it has been exposed then being Kodachrome it'll be fine - I'm sure. There was no more stable stock than Kodachrome, which is why Art Garfunkel sang about it.

tom.

Blue Audio Visual · Post by **Blue Audio Visual** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:04 am

tom hardwick wrote: Look at the film strip in the gate area - does it show a cutout where the perforations should be?

The word "EXPOSED" will also be printed at the end of the film next to the cutout if the cartridge has been finished.

But if it has been exposed then being Kodachrome it'll be fine - I'm sure. There was no more stable stock than Kodachrome, which is why Art Garfunkel sang about it.

There is a little bit more to it than that. Kodachrome is indeed very stable, but only once developed. Very old undeveloped K40 is likely to have shifted towards being magenta in colour, but in my experience generally acceptably so, or not so badly that it can't be improved somewhat with colour correction. I suppose that if it has gone really magenta it could be usefully viewable as a B&W image once a bit of computer trickery has been applied.

Bart

sorcerer · Post by **sorcerer** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:08 am

Strangely enough, my mother-in-law rang us just a couple of days ago to say that it had come back from Dwayne's Photo and that there was about three minutes of viewable footage, but that it was red in colour.

Anyway, red (magenta) or not, she's more than happy that she had it developed, so thanks to you all for your input and suggestions.

tom hardwick · Post by **tom hardwick** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:59 am

If the red footage is transferred to the timeline then digital colour correction can get to work. I've been simply staggered at what can be retrieved from apparently hopeless film.

tom.

sorcerer · Post by **sorcerer** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:47 pm

Thanks for that Tom - what software would be needed for this? I use Windows XP Pro (SP3) and have Nero Ultimate (7.7.5.1 IIRC)

tom hardwick · Post by **tom hardwick** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:29 pm

I always colour correct with the Canopus Storm2 software. It has a white and black balance filter - meaning that you can click your mouse cursor on anything in that frame that you consider should be white and the entire clip is so corrected. If that's too blue-white for your liking (for instance) you can fine tune the 4 sliders to give you exactly the colours you'd like.

I've pulled back ancient movie film from the brink that way, and an awful lot of ancient Ilfochrome, Perutzchrom and Orwochrome that have turned completely magenta or red have been salvaged.

I've got some before and after frame grabs on my computer here that look as if they've been done the other way around - i.e. starting off ok and being degraded by tom.

tom hardwick · Post by **tom hardwick** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:33 pm

There's an example on this page:

http://www.fortvir.net/gallery2/main.ph ... &g2_page=6

showing what my colour correction was able to do for the wedding speeches when a filmmaker had chip-block failure with his Sony PD170.

If you click on the individual pictures they'll enlarge.

tom.

sorcerer · Post by **sorcerer** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 3:38 pm

Wow, that's quite some improvement there Tom. Thanks for the suggestion.

John.

billyfromConsett · Post by **billyfromConsett** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 5:11 pm

I'm going to try your black and white balance filter with my Storm software (video filters in prem 6.5?) and see if helps with a colour balance problem of using two cams to do a wedding. I've fiddled without great success.

thanks for that little tip.

daveswan · Post by **daveswan** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:55 am

That's pretty good grading!
At the moment I'm grading a field-trip movie I'm doing for our Yr8 geography class.
Shot on a Sony A1E, with yellow highights, blue shadows and horrible contrast (Next time I'll use my HVX).
Fortunatly in Media Composer I can at least controll High, Mid and Shadow separatly else I'd be scuppered.
Dave