Film really is superior

[Shootar401]

It's called a film recorder - takes your digital file and laser transfers it onto real film. They've been around quite awhile. Not a cheap service,
however.

I know them well. I used to use one in college. Anyway that's why I said economical. Any film recorder will not be cheap especially ones hat can match the resolution of film.

 

[Peltigera]

And for the 5% of photographers who persist in the effort of moving old data to new media types (to illustrate, we would have moved data from ST-506 MFM drives to RLL drives to ESDI drives to IDE (PATA) drives then to SATA drives just to keep data accessible from 1985 to 2013...<snip>

Or you could have put them on a CD in 1985 and still be able to use the data.

 

[jeffreyg]

Both film and digital can produce excellent results and both have their supporters and detractors. At least my film cameras didn't come with a 400 page manual.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

 

[Sirius Glass]

Or you could have put them on a CD in 1985 and still be able to use the data.

Except that CD often degrade in a few decades and the data will no longer be retrievable.

 

[lxdude]

Except that CD often degrade in a few decades and the data will no longer be retrievable.

I disagree with you, Sirius.

I've found it doesn't take a few decades.

 

[Peltigera]

Except that CD often degrade in a few decades and the data will no longer be retrievable.

Gelatin can degrade in a few hours if conditions are right! Most of the slides I took in the 1980s have at least some mildew on them. My music CDs from the late 80s are still fine.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I disagree with you, Sirius.

I've found it doesn't take a few decades.

Actually I have had Cd go bad in less than two years. I was being polite to avoid a flame war from digi-lovers and Peltigera.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Gelatin can degrade in a few hours if conditions are right! Most of the slides I took in the 1980s have at least some mildew on them. My music CDs from the late 80s are still fine.

Then you made little or no effort to store the slides properly. If you had store the CDs in the same environment the metal foil would have delaminated from the plastic substrait. I am sure that I have much more experience than you with digital media, since I have been programming computers since October 1962.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Gelatin can degrade in a few hours if conditions are right! Most of the slides I took in the 1980s have at least some mildew on them. My music CDs from the late 80s are still fine.

That's your fault for not storing them properly. All the slides I took in the 2000s, 1990s,1980s and 1970s are in pristine condition. The Kodachromes taken of me as a newborn and processed in Jan 1961 are also in excellent condition.

Store your CDs on the floor without protective cases and see how well they last.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Score:

Peltigera 0
APUG film users 2​

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Store your CDs on the floor without protective cases and see how well they last.

I doubt film would survive under such severe condition either.


FWIW, my concern with CD/DVD storage is more with the lifetime of the necessary readers than it is with the media. The first CDs suffered from 'CD rot' as described earlier, but the current Gold media doesn't have those problems.


(BTW, I've been programing computers since 1960 )

 

[Peltigera]

Score:

Peltigera 0
APUG film users 2​

Fine. Understanding can be hard. My point, which clearly escaped you completely, is that storage conditions matter - film will deteriorate and so will CDs (and anything else you can think of). Stored well, CDs can certainly last 30 years - mine have. They have not been around long enough to know beyond that. Stored badly, they will not last.

Was that any clearer for you?

 

[paul ron]

I alwas enjoy threads like this.

Amazing how Civil War photos have survived the test of time. Ken Burns's documentry photos were mostly recovered glass plates from old green houses down south.

Storage can be a problem in any medium but find a CD in the garbage heap say 50 years from now, hold it up to the sun n what do you see?... Try finding a computer to read it?

Whereas find a negative from 200 years ago and you can still make out an image... Maybe your cd is too dependant on today's technology to be of any archival value down the road?

I think many of us filmheads understand how important archival storage is worth... We go to great lengths tp preserve our negatves.... At least i do. I consider my digital work disposable and worthless.

I still rember some fortran, cobal n z80 machine code.

 

[DREW WILEY]

CD's are wonderfully retrievable. Golden retrievers love to play fetch with them. I'd imagine most other retrievers would too. They toss great...
really nice for skeet shooting also.

 

[paul ron]

Nice!

 

[E. von Hoegh]

CD's are wonderfully retrievable. Golden retrievers love to play fetch with them. I'd imagine most other retrievers would too. They toss great...
really nice for skeet shooting also.

I use them for pistol practice at 50 yds. When I get two thirds of a cylinder in the CD I'm happy! And if you're bored (or have some really bad music) you can put the CD in a microwave and watch it zap crackle and melt.

 

[spijker]

Just wondering; who on APUG makes high quality backups/copies on FILM of his/her negatives and slides and stores those at a different location than at home. So that if your house burns down, gets flooded or totally shredded in a storm or tornado, you still have your backups and you haven't lost all those years of your photographic efforts? Easy to do with digital; a 1..3 TB portable hard dive is small and fairly cheap. Do a backup every week and keep it for example at work. And when you buy that new computer anyway, it comes with a much bigger hard drive than the old computer. Enough space to move your old files over and add more. And if you're smart, you put 2 hard drives in a mirror configuration in the new computer. If one drive fails, you still have the other plus the external backup.

You can also print your digital images on photographic paper and store them in a box in the attic.

Come on people, film and digital both have their pros and cons but neither is superior. Just enjoy the pros of both, live with the cons of both and stop comparing the two. In the end it's the image/photograph/print that counts, the medium and process are irrelevant. Is a nice painting superior to a nice photograph?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Just wondering; who on APUG makes high quality backups/copies on FILM of his/her negatives and slides and stores those at a different location than at home. So that if your house burns down, gets flooded or totally shredded in a storm or tornado, you still have your backups and you haven't lost all those years of your photographic efforts? Easy to do with digital; a 1..3 TB portable hard dive is small and fairly cheap. Do a backup every week and keep it for example at work. And when you buy that new computer anyway, it comes with a much bigger hard drive than the old computer. Enough space to move your old files over and add more. And if you're smart, you put 2 hard drives in a mirror configuration in the new computer. If one drive fails, you still have the other plus the external backup.

Not me.

Come on people, film and digital both have their pros and cons but neither is superior. Just enjoy the pros of both, live with the cons of both and stop comparing the two. In the end it's the image/photograph/print that counts, the medium and process are irrelevant. Is a nice painting superior to a nice photograph?

No, Film clearly is archival; digital clearly is not archival.

 

[paul ron]

My negatives are all (50 years worth) in a fireproof rated document safe. No back ups needed.

Now your hard drive backup is only as good as the technology you read the drive with.

My old DOS files on 5 1/4" floppies are history just as all my old tax info on 8" floppies, never to be recovered regardless of how many Chyane taspes it was backed to and my mainframe IBM computer 10" reel tapes will never be seen again... Those were my backups... All out dated technology not worth recovering because it would cost too much to chase so many years, and i really have no idea what is on any of my backups since i have no way to selectively preview the data to be converted.

So even if you backed to a raid server, it will all be worthless in 50 years unless you chase technology n convert every image you own to the most recent technology. How many BETA vcr tapes did you convert to VHS.. then to DVD then to Blue Ray, then n then n then... compounding each time you convert.... Just not worth the head ache.

So my valued work is always done on film, my fun pix are digital but regarded as disposabe n worthless to me.

But i am not making an argument which is better, just which medium has archival value n proven longevity.

I don't make my living from photography but if i did, digital would be my number one choice.... Fast n easy!

 

[KEK]

I read some time ago that Getty Images questioned the longevity of digital files and was having there most important digital files made into negatives and stored in a vault.

 

[Roger Cole]

IF the data is still good - magnetic retention not being all that - I could still read your 5.25" floppies. Some of us keep old computer hardware around.

 

[Sirius Glass]

And I could still read Hollerith cards if I still had a card reader.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

And I could still read Hollerith cards if I still had a card reader.

It would be slow, but if the data was important enough, you could read them by eye.

 

[Prest_400]

I doubt film would survive under such severe condition either.


FWIW, my concern with CD/DVD storage is more with the lifetime of the necessary readers than it is with the media. The first CDs suffered from 'CD rot' as described earlier, but the current Gold media doesn't have those problems.


(BTW, I've been programing computers since 1960 )

And also, IIRC Writable CD's are just 0/1s burned by a laser to a dye layer in the CD. But Audio/Video Discs pressed to Aluminium (such as the original CDs) seem to last much better. First pressings of some interesting albums are still going strong around the bay!
I remember a few years ago I got some CD's and DVD's from Verbatim and they loudly advertised "Azo" on the box.

I think CDs are just a polycarbonate disc with a metal layer and dye, which contains the burned data. Dyes... Same as on colour film.

Digital has the great advangatge of infinite lossless copies... But its intagibility offsets this. As many here I own old photo materials (70s-80s) and most are well. They were left alone on some drawers in our old house.

I think Audio Tape of 40-60 years is still fine, if kept well, that is. They are slowly deteriorating and there is the "baking" issue on the 70s material. I don't know how similar is videotape... With the collection of family memories I've got some Sony Hi8 tapes, that I should rip to the PC soon.

 

[Sirius Glass]

It would be slow, but if the data was important enough, you could read them by eye.

Yes, there are 80 columns per card and 2,000 cards per box each of which has to be transcribed and if the language they were programmed in is no longer used ... that does not make a pretty picture.