End of an Era?

Next week is the last meeting of all my fall classes, and typically I shoot examples of student work, to use both as examples in class for students and in job applications. These days that includes digital, which I've used on the class online pages, and most job listings these days allow (or even require) digital images in place of slides. But I also still like the slides, too, especially for students where slides are still the only way I have of showing images in the classroom to the students. (many college lecture classrooms are now equiped with digital projectors, but studio rooms not so much) So I made a stop at my local photo store today to pick up a roll of tungsten slide film to shoot some good samples from final student portfolios. Got some bad news- no Elite Chrome 160T in stock. Got some worse news- it seems that Kodak has discontinued the product. At least that's what the shop owner was told by his distibutor. It may be that all that's left is whatever stores have in stock. Is this true? A brief look around the web didn't confirm this, but Amazon lists it as out of stock and may not be available again, and the product does not appear in the list of slide films on Kodak's site.

So unless I run across a spare roll somewhere, or someone stocks a different tungsten balanced slide film, my slide shooting days may be over. There are other slide films still available, but they would either require shooting in daylight (at the mercy of breezes and constantly varying light) or using film that may have unpredictable results (unlike the various exposure settings I have worked out to use with different size works shot under sets of 250 watt photo bulbs). And that's not even getting into color balance issues. On the other hand my ancient SLR may not have too many rolls left in it before it reaches a total breakdown. And I don't think I'll be replacing it. So maybe the end of my preferred slide film is not the disaster it seems. I shot several digital images since leaving that store, including the one above (an empty box found in my photo supply crate), so I guess I'm ready.