So, goodbye Kodachrome. I'm not sure why I feel sad that Kodak is ending production of its iconic film stock: after all, I haven't shot a single frame of Kodachrome in many years. But it does seem like the passing of something important.

Kodak says it will continue to make processing available - at the one lab in the world where it's still done - until the end of 2010. And so K'chrome will make it to its 75th anniversary.

Why did we love it? Rich blacks and fine grain (for its day). And for less technical, more emotive reasons - like the thrill of getting that little yellow box through the mail.

It wasn't always the most convenient film stock. The special processing requirements meant that most of us, for most of the years the film was available, had to send it away to Kodak and wait several days for its return. None of that one-hour turnaround you get with E-6 processed films.

Kodak did what it could to cut the waiting time. For a period, in the UK, you could drop off your film at KJP in Soho and then, the next day, scoot down to Wimbledon to pick up the processed slides. I remember doing that with a writer friend when we'd come back from covering the Reno air races. Too impatient to wait until we got home, we sat in his car opening one after another of the little yellow boxes, holding transparencies up to the light and grunting with joy whenever we found a gem - much the same way as we 'togs now chimp with our digital cameras.

But on the whole, you always knew you were going to have to wait, and that was part of K'chrome's charm.

It was slow in other ways, too. The first roll I ever used was rated at ISO 25 (well, actually, 25 ASA in those days). Most of the Kodachrome I shot - and I've shot thousands of rolls - was the ISO 64 stock. And Kodak did introduce an ISO 200 version. But as I mentioned, one of the qualities we so loved with K'chrome was its grain, and you couldn't beat the ISO 25 version for that.

Of course, it was lucky to get this far. When I was writing for the photographic press, back in the 1980s, there were constant rumours of Kodak trying to kill off the film. It was difficult and expensive to manufacture and process. Kodak, it was said, wanted to concentrate on more modern, faster and more profitable products, like Ektachrome.

Kodak made mistakes, too - like the time it switched from card mounts to plastic ones. Photographers were up in arms. Those nasty plastic frames created static and so attracted dust: and they seemed to glue themselves to the lightbox. If you wanted to pick up a transparency, you had to slide it to the edge of lightbox. And if you wanted to write on the mount, you needed a special felt-tip pen, not just any old pen or pencil you had lying around. (I often used a Rotring draughtsman's pen with a very fine tip which allowed me to write an enormous amount of information on that tiny mount.)

The mount was indeed a major part of Kodachrome's character and attraction. It had the same effect as putting a print in a picture frame. Seeing a row of Kodachrome transparencies laid out on the lightbox was like seeing pictures at an exhibition. It gave the images authority. And the mount framed the image the same way we'd framed the scene in the viewfinder. The Kodachrome slide was itself a finished work, worthy of admiration. Who cares if the image got published?

At other times, Kodak was enthusiastic about its most famous film. There was the release of that ISO 200 version, and the professional emulsions. And Kodak even encouraged independent processing houses to set up Kodachrome lines. Very few did, being put off by the enormous cost and high maintenance. But the brave souls who invested in K'chrome lines finally made it possible for us to push process the film. Turned out, it wasn't a good idea, and certainly never more than a stop.

Yet, in spite of its charm and technical qualities, Kodachrome started losing its grip on professional and amateur photographers some time ago. I remember a trip with a bunch of other photography journalists to Tokyo and Penang in 1984, as the guests of Nikon. We were festooned with enough cameras to make even Japanese tourists envious. And nearly every one of those cameras was loaded with the new Fuji films. Kodachrome just couldn't compete with new film technologies. Kodak says that current sales of K'chrome account for a fraction of one per cent of its film sales: that's a tiny slice of a dwindling market. Digital is, of course, the final nail in the coffin.

While I haven't shot Kodachrome for a long time, I still have frequent occasion to appreciate its qualities. As I scan my archive of images, I can see how well 20+ year old transparencies are holding up: Kodachrome was always claimed to have a much longer archival life than any other emulsion. And when I pull the pictures up in Photoshop, viewing at 100% to check for dust spots, I'm constantly wowed by the resolution and tonal qualities of this great emulsion.

And so the film may be out of production, but with some many images in professional photographers' archives, in photo libraries and in amateurs' cherished portfolios, Kodachrome will be with us in some way for many years to come.