But since it had to come to an end, I tried to send it out with style. I just mailed in my last roll — Christmas morning family pictures taken on a last roll of Kodachrome 25 I saved when Kodak discontinued it.. One last traditional spin around the block with the best filmstock ever.

But you won’t know it until you get to the end of the alley.

I work at a place that simulates the vast EMP and radiation bursts of things like nuclear weapon detonations and solar storms. Our customers range from *CLASSIFIED* to those making things like satellites that live beyond the Earth’s protective magnetosphere and are vulnerable to solar events. Digital cameras just *die* when we attempt to image the moments of these conditions, so we have a handful of film cameras that we screw into observation ports on the simulator machines.

At present, these cameras use increasingly rare “instant” Polaroid film (in black-and-white). Already we spend somewhere around $60 – $80 for a 10-shot cartridge… what are we to do when film goes away entirely (practically speaking; yes I understand that there will always be specialist manufacturers that will provide photographic film – at exorbitant cost)?

At some point we must balance the cost of somehow shielding the innards of digital cameras – if possible, since essentially we need to put a sheet of 1″ thick lead in front of the lens that somehow the CCD chip can see the visual spectrum through (anyone invent transparent lead yet?) – or the cost of custom-made film. Either way, it just lends increasing cost to an already costly enterprise ($30K each test at least).

*Sigh*… this was so much easier 20 years ago when I could go down to the local drug store and buy a cartridge of black-and-white on sale for $5.00 … but time moves on.

-MJ