Thanks for posting this. I'm horrified. Sickened. My grandfather is rolling in his grave even as I type. I have K25 slides of his taken before I was born (I'm 44) and the color is still perfect.
K25 was the original color film, correct? Dating back to 1939? I remember that it has (had) four actual emulsions, one black & white, plus one for each of the primary colors of light. Back in my college days I worked for a short time in a K14 lab running the processor, 8mm on one side, 35mm on the other. It was something. Forgot exactly how many tanks the machine had, but with four separate developers plus rinses, fix, and bleach baths for each, it was easily in the twenties. Huge machine. Must have taken a while to pay for itself.
Good luck finding any. And what of National Geographic? They were strictly K25. Have they gone digital (sold out) as well?
There will never be another Tri-X, but does Ilford still make a good B & W?
So it begs the question: Why? Why the big changes? Were all these films environmentally incorrect, or were they just not profitable?
Not quite! The film has three layers, like all color film. What you are remembering is that there are four developers, the first developer (MQ in K-12 or PQ in K-14), cyan, yellow, and magenta. What sets apart Kodachrome from all other color films is that the dyes and couplers are contained in the three color developers rather than being incorporated into the film itself. This makes for a rather complicated and costly process but a very simple film. As for the number of tanks, the K-14 process is as follows:
1)Pre-bath or rem jet.
2)Rem-jet wash
3)First Developer
4)First Developer wash
5)Cyan developer
6)Cyan wash
7)Yellow Developer
8)Yellow wash
9)Magenta Developer
10)Magenta wash
11)Bleach
12)Bleach wash (spray)
13)Fixer
14)Final wash
For K-12, substitute Prehardner for the pre-bath, and add a magenta reversal bath and wash before the magenta developer.
I also worked at a Kodachrome lab many years ago (early '70's).
Mannes and Godowsky (two musicians!) invented it back in the 30s, originally as a two-color film (there were quite a few two-color films in the early days, the color rendition was not real good, but it was evidently good enough for some folks) and then when refined to a three-layer film, it went into production. IIRC it started out at ASA 8 (or the equiv in the pre-ASA days). When I started using it in the 1950s, it was ASA 10 (daylight), and Tungsten was ASA 16. There was a "Type F" for a while (for flashbulbs) which I think was ASA 12.
Then in the '60s they came out with "Kodachrome II", which was ASA 25, and sharper than the old ASA 10, with better color rendition. The K25 & K64 replacements came out in the '70s (with the new K14 process), and a lot of folks still lament KII, insisting that the "real reason" for the change was to use less silver.
K200 came out a little later, and there was a "secret" batch (kind of a beta test) of K100 a few years back that a select few got to play with. It never went into production.
The official story on why they killed K25 varies, they can't seem to get their story straight. :) One time they'll say it was because they can't get one of the key ingredients anymore, another time they say it's because the demand has dropped.
I've since heard that it's still in production for 16mm movie film, and if true, that would tend to clobber the first explanation. As to the second reason, when was the last time anyone saw any advertising for any Kodachrome?
My own conjecture is that they're letting it die because 1) E6 films have a better return, 2) they perceive "the market" as favoring speed over quality, and 3) they want to consolidate their lines in order to try to cut their production costs.
I think the "letting it die" theory is supported by the lack of advertising or other promotion.
BTW, E6 -- as well as all other chromogenic films (including C41 and the relatively new black and white C41 films) -- were originally off-limits to Kodak, because Agfa held the patents. After the war ended, the allies divvied up the spoils, negating German patents right and left. That's why there was a proliferation of Japanese cameras based on German designs.