EKTACHROME IS BACK… KODACHROME LESS LIKELY

KODAK ALARIS – THE UK-based entity spun out of the old Eastman Kodak Corporation in 2013 – has announced plans to revive its E6-process Ektachrome colour transparency film. Amid all the futuristic tech of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Kodak revealed that there’s now sufficient demand globally to re-introduce a film product that was discontinued in 2012.

“We are seeing a broad resurgence of excitement about capturing images on film,” says Steven Overman, Kodak’s chief marketing officer and president of its Consumer and Film Division.

“Kodak is committed to continuing to manufacture film as an irreplaceable medium for image creators to capture their artistic vision. We are proud to help bring back this classic.”

Ektachrome 100 film will be available in the 35mm format (and 36-exposure lengths) later in the year. The USA-based Eastman Kodak will also produce Ektachrome in the popular cine film formats.

While the film revival isn’t anything on the scale of vinyl records just yet, there are plenty of signs of a growing revival, spearheaded mainly by the instant print category. Kodak Alaris says the resurgence in the popularity of analog photography has convinced it to consider re-introducing other discontinued film products, but sadly Kodachrome isn’t likely to be among them.

The highly specialised processing required for this film stock – which also isn’t very environmentally friendly – makes Kodachrome much more difficult to re-introduce and it’s unlikely that even substantial demand globally would make it a viable proposition financially.