End Times

 

 

The Best Picture Academy Award winners, from Wings to No Country for Old Men, were all shot on Kodak film. As one more sign pointing to the End Times for film, this record was broken at a recent (2009) Academy Awards Ceremony. Although some of the winning movie was shot on film (to add insult to injury, I think the film they used was made by Fuji), more than half of Slumdog Millionaire was captured with the (sometimes very grainy) SI-2K digital camera.

 

It is not a good time for those who like to work with film. Kodak ended the production of Kodachrome slide film by the end of 2009 and stopped accepting mailers after December 31^st. So in addition to the scarcity of film, getting it processed will be an increasing problem. For decades, Kodachrome film was the mainstay of dermatologic imaging. So much so that the review of clinical images with the residents is referred to as Kodachromes in most dermatology programs even today. This loss is just another stage in the consequences of digital imaging as a disruptive technology that began to take effect in the 1990s. These effects are propagating, at slightly different but inexorable rates, through the use of film for slides, prints, movies and medical applications. A hallmark of the culture in the twentieth century, film photography will rapidly become a specialized hobby in the twenty-first.

 

The Skin Appearance Laboratory has three carousel slide projectors. They are used to project texture on uniform 3D objects to improve photogrammetry performance. When the classic 1964 version pictured above was made, the carousel projector was a mainstream imaging accessory for business, research and for consumers. It remained so for another quarter century. Production of this product was discontinued by Kodak in June, 2004.