holy cow! Train Enthusiast Pays $15,798 to Develop 1,580 Rolls of Dead Kodachrome Film i guess with any hobby, theres that certain mystery of people paying thousands for that one item that will complete their collection regardless of its original cost.
Well, as long as the processing quality is good.... I hope the subject matter is worth while. Boxcab E50
With Kodachrome it was, until last week, now or never. Anything that Dwayne's gets now is too late. I wouldn't have waited that long to send it in, but I am not that guy. Kodachrome has a wonderful image quality that I have not seen really matched anywhere else. It's sad to see it go.
Well, $15,800 seems like a lot of money, but if each roll of film had 24 photos, that is 37,920 photos, which works out to a little under $0.42/photo. When you look at it that way, it doesn't seem too bad. I agree with Boxcar though. The processing quality better be excellent, and he had certainly better hope that there are some sought after photos among them. To each their own I suppose.
Dwayne's does (did?) an excellent job with Kodachrome. I shot a couple more rolls fall 2009 just to re-visit the film. Dwayne's is wrapping up the rolls sent by their deadline, which I believe was last Friday, and then it's over. If this guy had good photos on these this may end up being very worthwhile.
I had read that article a few days back, and it was a situation where the firm who had the developing machine are shutting it down to scrap, since Kodak stopped producing the chemicals needed. They stopped accepting film a few days ago so they could put in one last order of chemicals, but have months worth of film left to develop. I suspect Kodak told this firm to make a final order, then we are turning off the chemical pumps. So hopefully the guy has a lot of great shots that he can sell to cover his expenses.
Kodachrome 35mm develops as a slide. I recently went back and had prints made from old slides, some from as far back as the 1960s. Used to be a few years back, it cost 25 cents to have a snapshot made from a color negative, $1 from a slide. Now all my color slides cannot be printed direct from slides, must be scanned to digital at a cost of $2.50 a piece for the scanning, plus cost of a CD, plus the 25 or so cents to print it. My scanner is supposed to be able to scan slides but has never done a good job. If "train enthusiast" can scan his slides himself, he can scan what he wants to put on web, on CD or prints. But otherwise, it will cost an ADDITIONAL mint to do anything with slides other than run through projector. At least, that's how it seems to me...
If it was rare Milwaukee Road photos from inaccessible parts of MT/ID/WA state, I would prolly do that too, in a heartbeat, if money were no object. If it were D&RGW in CO/UT, from those inacessible places, I would jump too.
Depending on what these shots are of, they could prove to be priceless down the road that we as Railfan's will surely appreciate got developed... :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin:
i was thinking to myself just how lucrative selling these photos can get but i suppose it can get pretty lucrative if there are some rare shots in there of fallen rails! i doubt spending the $15k was just purely based on pure hobby
This is procrastination taken to a high level, however. How else does one amass that many rolls of undeveloped film?