Kodachrome K40        
         
 

Kodachrome K40 is a legend.
This amazing warm-colored film started an era in the early sixties: a three minute film in a cassette – super 8 was born. It was processed in Kodak labs all over the world up until a few years ago. The last lab, Dwaynes in Kansas, US, developed the very last roll end of December 2010.

Can I process the K40 myself?

Yesno.

Kodak's original recipe is not a secret but quite complicated: 13 baths! (see right column).
You can't use E6 which works fine with all other color reversal films.
Kodachrome is a B&W film in reality, color dyes are added by three separate color developers.

 

Want to know more?

Kodachrome on Wiki

Dwaynes

Kodak's recipe for specialists (PDF)

Rodinal

about Diafine (by Tim Layton)

Dagie processing a film:Spiralize it!

A great article on self-processing (German only) (Friedemann Wachsmuth in „Schmalfilm“PDF)

 

But: you can process it black&white, negative or reversal.

For brave chemical splashers: I recommend Rodinal (not available anymore – take Adonal, same recipe!!) which is cheap and long-lasting. 7 minutes, 20 Centigrade, dilution 1:25. The greys are incredible, contrasts just awesome.

Diafine is even better and lasts 100 years I heard, I'll check it out and keep you informed!

If you don't want to try it yourself – I can do it for you, see here: processing service!

Click on the images below and watch my test film results:

   
       
  I highly recommend these digitizer guys in Berlin:  
 

There's a great article on wonderhowto.com ...

... on cinematography.com ...

... and on apug.org!

  After watering: rubbing off the black remjet by hand.
 
This is how the freshly developed K40 looks like digitized (no way removing the orange layer during processing) The negative film, orange layer filtered out. The digitally inverted film becomes a positive!   My second try: „Gésine et Dagie vont en bateau“ - a canoe ride in Brandenburg. One of the last summer days. A bunch of grey nuances!