Back to film

[soupdragon]

Is anyone concerned at all about being able to show there kids pictures of themselves as they grow up.
I am, and to this end, do not feel confident in the maturity of the whole digital thing.
I hear stories of, unreadable CD's and CF cards, compatibility of media issues, prints fading overnight and so on.
In short:
Anyone in the UK want to swap there EOS 3 or 1v for a new 350d, lens, 2cf cards and a pixma 5000?

[Rob612]

I believe that you should be a little more faithful about digital. Of course, do whatever you want, but why loose the digital versatility ? If you have doubts (and somehow you have a good point here, albeit what you read on the forums is usually just a minority, happy people does not write how much they are satisfied with their gear) you canm always have your selected picture printed in a digital lab on standard photo paper, that will last at least as a traditional chemical print. Good luck, anyway.

[nosquare2003]

Film has similar problems. It can be faded and the print turned bad over time.

[deedas]

I'm not concerned at all. If anything, digital pictures last longer since there is nothing physical to wear out. So not only will my kids have their pictures when they grow up but they can also show all their descendants to infinity as long as they keep a copy of those pictures.

[soupdragon]

I am not trying to start a digital vs film debate here (it's all been said before)I am just concerned I will not be able to show my grandchildren what there parents looked like at there age.
I am just getting frustrated at spending tons of cash on stuff that may not prove to be an archive of any real longevity.
I have seen some truly awsome images on this forum from people calling themselves "newbies" and that's got to be a good thing.
Digital is probably not for me.

[Andy_T]

Soupdragon,

as was already mentioned, if you have that fear, than you can back up your pictures regularly.

Of course, you might have a hard time reading your 8" or 5.25" flopppy disks today, but if you had something worthwile and memorable saved on them and knew it beforehand, you would have been able to copy it to 3.5" floppy disk, CD-Rom, DVD-ROM and whatever will come in the future in very short time.

Best regards,
Andy

[malum]

I am not trying to start a digital vs film debate here (it's all been said before)I am just concerned I will not be able to show my grandchildren what there parents looked like at there age.
I am just getting frustrated at spending tons of cash on stuff that may not prove to be an archive of any real longevity.

You could always just get them printed at the lab, what's the difference then?

[nosquare2003]

If you really feel secured by using film, I suggest you to get a film scanner (and I did).
Backup the data regularly and place them separately. Hope you can get what you want.

[lancea]

Is anyone concerned at all about being able to show there kids pictures of themselves as they grow up.
Not really a problem for me, but I'm sure future generations will want to look at my photos just as I like to see the ones taken by my father and his father :)

I absolutely see your point and there is a lot of worry from a wide variety of people that we are already loosing a lot of images - but then people are going crazy taking zillions of shots where they would have been frugal with film. But as malum suggests, just get the ones you select printed as you would your film - and put them in albums.

I got an Epson 4990 scanner last week, and was shocked at the state of my old slides. The negatives have fared much better - especially my old b&w Box Brownie and Lubitel 6x6 negatives from 40 years ago. A lot of my prints (commercially processed) from 25 years ago look really bad, and they've been kept in the dark. Nothing lasts forever. Perhaps jpeg files on a CD-ROM will be readable in 100 years. Who knows - I've got dozens of floppy disks with a "lifetime warranty" that are no longer readable.

[griff2]

If you're worried about losing your files, back them up to archive quality cd-r: http://store.mam-a-store.com/standard---archive-gold.html. These should last longer than the cd format itself, at which time you'll be able to back the files up to the archive quality version of that format.

[Carzee]

[ falsetto voice ] "Is this the way to the stoning?"
[ street stall prattler ] "Stones, bargain beauties! Rocks, solid quality here!"

http://www.frontiermodels.co.uk/images/products/4802.jpg [ Pharisee ] "Are there any women here today??"



Couldn't resist!!:lol:


that LoB scene (http://www.uq.net.au/%7Ezzliacoo/LOB_stoning.jpg)

[soupdragon]

NOSQUARE2003:

Thanks for that, I am really warming to the scanner Idea as I used to shoot mainly slide film anyway.
Nice One!

As a side issue regarding longevity of film.
Some of the more mature members of this forum will doubtless have used kodachrome 64 or even 25. I have viewed my fathers chromes of me as toddler some 40+ years ago and the quality is still superb.


Anybody got any examples of high res scans from slides they would like to post?

[Carzee]

Some of my galleries are scanned negs... and one is scanned Ektachrome 200

http://www.pbase.com/pulp_depiction/scooter_shoot

Noritszu minilab scanned, each file was about 3mb, about 3000 x 2000 pixels.

Cost here was about AU$1 for each frame. The costs of film, dev, scan made me wince, digi removes a restriction and makes it all fun again, like when I had K1000 and K25. [ I still have a box of K25 in the fridge. ]

This shot (http://www.pbase.com/pulp_depiction/image/41243517) shows the limits of latitude... its against overcast sunlight and I wasn't using a Polariser, some is burnt out just like digital, but wouldn't there be even more burnout on a CCD or CMOS shot? Maybe, but I'm staying with CMOS 'film'.:cool:

[OviV]

Like has been stated, if you fear that the digital images will not last, have them printed at a lab. This is the same you would do with film. But, as technology progresses, storage will become cheaper and more efficient. By simply copying your files to more modern technology you should be able to keep them indefinitely.

Ovi

[slin100]

soupdragon, your concern is well-founded. Going digital does requires a substantial commitment, especially with regard to image archival, beyond that of film. The suggestions about backing up the images to, at least, a secondary storage medium should be followed by everyone.

I think people also don't fully realize the dangers of obsolescence of file formats. Canon's RAW file format is proprietary. While Photoshop and a great many public-domain programs can decode the important parts of the file, they can't necessarily access every bit of information. As a result, it becomes important to archive the programs necessary to decode RAW files or actively monitor Canon's support of a particular format and take active measures to convert files whenever Canon announces discontinuation of support.

[rdenney]

Is anyone concerned at all about being able to show there kids pictures of themselves as they grow up.
I am, and to this end, do not feel confident in the maturity of the whole digital thing.
I hear stories of, unreadable CD's and CF cards, compatibility of media issues, prints fading overnight and so on.
In short:
Anyone in the UK want to swap there EOS 3 or 1v for a new 350d, lens, 2cf cards and a pixma 5000?

I have prints from 25 years ago that are fading. The negatives are fading. My Ektachrome slides from the 70's are losing a bit of color (though Kodachrome slides are still solid--but Kodachrome isn't available any more).

The point is: If you want true archival photographs, shoot black and white and process it yourself according to rigorous archival techniques. Those will last 100 years or so.

But if you want your kids to be able to see the pictures of themselves when they grow up, just take your memory card down to Costco and have them make a set of prints. Most regular people (i.e., non-photographers) do not keep negatives anyway. Put the prints in an album. That's what your kids will look at.

We have an old family album. Many of the color photos were fading badly (the color prints of the 50's and 60's are all almost gone at this point). I set up the copy stand and photographed all the prints in the album using the 10D, correcting the faded ones best I could. I took those images, burn CD's for everyone in the family, and some of them took those CD's down to their local lab and had prints made. In this case, I'm absolutely sure that the digital medium helped old photos survive rather than waste away.

Data management is indeed a challenge, and something we have to think about. But I know exactly how my data is being managed, even for vacation snaps. I don't, however, have a good system in place for vacation snaps from years ago when I was using slide film. The slides would get organized in projector trays, and are now so mixed up that I have no idea which images belongs to what roll of film and cannot reconstruct anything about the history of the images. The digital medium gives me all that, plus the ability to easily make perfect copies for a projector display.

But I'm trying to figure how scanning slides is going to make this any easier. I scan medium-format film, and I only scan those images that are worth the trouble. And each images takes twice as long, at least, as what I do to an image sourced from a digital camera. I find that managing medium format negative storage and the digital files that are corrected and targeted for printing (which I have to keep in case someone wants another identical print) gives me the job of preserving both film and digital. How is that easier?

Rick "more worried about other people throwing away digital images than about ME losing them" Denney