My Grandpa's old Kodak had a roll of undeveloped film from 1978

I was cleaning out his attic last weekend and found his old Kodak Retina IIc in a box. When I opened it up, there was still a half-used roll of Kodachrome 64 inside. I had no idea film could even survive that long, like 45 years just sitting there. Apparently if it's kept cool and dry, the latency and color shift isn't as bad as people think. I'm debating whether to send it off to a place that does old film development or just leave it as is. Has anyone here ever tried developing film that old before?

2 comments

2 Comments

mason_jackson1mo ago

Dwayne's Photo in Kansas is the go-to spot for old Kodachrome. I sent a roll from my dad's old Minolta from 1982 there a few years ago and they got pretty solid results, honestly. The color was a little magenta shifted but nothing crazy, you could fix most of it in scanning or basic editing. Just make sure you tell them it's been sitting for decades so they adjust their process, otherwise they might over-develop and ruin the shots.

uma3061mo ago

Ngl that magenta shift is pretty much par for the course with old Kodachrome, especially if it hasn't been stored perfectly. I had a roll from the 70s that came back with this weird pink tint on all the shadows, but a simple color balance tweak in Lightroom fixed it in like two minutes. The real trick is getting the exposure right in the first place since expired film loses speed over time, so if you meter it like fresh film you'll probably end up with underexposed shots that look muddy no matter how much you edit.