Chris's camera pages
Kodak Kodachrome Safety Color Film
Recently the final processing run for Kodachrome at Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas was in the news. Now here are some pictures of a very old roll of Kodachrome from the early days of this famous film.
Film speed was very slow in those days. After a bit of searching the internet I have come to the conclusion that the film speed settings on the carton were most likely 22° on the European Scheiner scale and 12/10° on the old DIN scale. Which is a film speed of around ASA/ISO 12. The Kodak Reference Handbook of 1940 recommends these exposure meter settings, Weston 8, and GE 12, which is more like ASA/ISO 10. Elsewhere the book mentions that various makes of meters require different settings for Scheiner or DIN, and suggests the range to be between 17° and 25° Scheiner, and that meters calibrated in DIN frequently require a setting of 14/10°.
It is marked "Develop before Dec 1939". The very faint printing at the top under the 'EMULSION NUMBER' says 'tropical packing'. I don't know what this means, and I'm not going to rip the box open to find out, but I expect it meant the film was very well sealed against moisture.
The film purchase price included the cost of processing.
The ends of the carton were identical.
Notice the '18 exposures', the only data I can find suggest that longer rolls were just not available at that time.
