dyna-what?

Dynachrome 35mm slide film ad in LIFE

Toronto. In the March 27th, 1964 issue of LIFE magazine (p42), the 3M company ran this unusual ad for a colour transparency film called Dynachrome. Did you ever use it?

In 1954, the American government was hell-bent to separate any perceived trusts by large companies . In that year, Kodak was forced to separate Kodachrome manufacture and processing.

When Kodachrome patents expired, some organizations made a Kodachrome clone with built-in processing, selling for the price of Kodak’s film alone (companies too small for the trust busters). Around 1959 a clone was made by Dynacolor and called Dynachrome. Around 1963, the company was sold to 3M and the above advertisement showed up and ran for a few months in LIFE magazine. 3M used price to whittle off a bit of the burgeoning amateur photography market for itself.

You can read more detail about the history of the film and the suspected production and processing variations underneath the marketing names on the Photography Forums web site.

A big thank you to fellow PHSC member George Dunbar for spotting this bit of film history and passing it along.

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