How long do negatives last?

[guangong]

I have a very big, thick and heavy book on film preservation that is the result of much research by conservationists (the names of the principal authors escapes me), who concluded that there is very little difference between nitrate and acetate film when both are stored properly. With care, both should last longer than any of us.

 

[removed account4]

i doubt anything will last anywhere near as long as the scientific community
claims things will last .. unless their testing has been in "real life"
situations ... the same radiation, pollution and humidity that most people live
in and their films are subjected to on a daily basis.

its funny ( weird ) ...
people are so protective about cold storing
all their unexposed film in huge freezers to protect them from
cosmic rays, and bad juju, but after the images ( negative and positive )
are made (on this same film and paper)
these things aren't stored with the same amount of care.

me? im no science lab but i am paranoid, like dale gribble.
i recently bought a massive underground bomb shelter that i
am converting to a freezer / lab space. i got it on the web
from someone who knows someone who knows someone
in the iiill luumenn atttii who got it from
someone brainwashed about Y2K.
i've got vats of mountain dew, and i'm breeding hampsters too.
it is, like, going to be great.
if you'll excuse me, i have to go back to
watching poppy tell me everyting is going to be A-OK.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Negatives seem to do quite well left in shoe boxes with no special care taken.

 

[Pioneer]

Negatives seem to do quite well left in shoe boxes with no special care taken.

Note to self: Find some shoeboxes.

 

[skorpiius]

Wow, this is an old thread, but worth reviving because the debate about digital versus film permanence comes up more and more often. My experience is that digital files in theory can last indefinitely as long as someone cares and frequently transfers them to whatever new storage medium is the trendy technology of the day. As long as someone cares!

100%. For cared for archives digital should last forever. For uncared for archives You might be lucky to get 20 years.

Back to the home scenario with digital pictures: do you think most families will be able to retrieve or have any interest in reviving a relative's digital files many decades hence? Some of the "photographers" (I was going to use a much more rude term) on DPReview go apoplectic when someone suggests that film might outlive their digital files. But along with their pathologic hatred of film, they have a naive belief that their cloud storage and multi-terrabyte storage devices will be maintained years or decades in the future. Not very likely......

I don't think it's that naive, if you continue to pay for it. The plus of cloud storage is it's the service operators job to always transfer data to new up to date devices, but that will only happen if you continue to pay for the service.

One thing that is of interest to me is it appears the main issue with digital is the ever-changing technology, however if feels like that has slowed. File formats like jpg have been around for what, 25, 30 years? Even old technology like Parallel ATA drive connectors and floppy drives were essentially discontinued 15 years ago, but you can still buy that equipment new, for example a USB floppy drive. I think the longer a file format, or technology persists, the more likely that there will be aftermarket ways to read them due to the exponentially increasing volume of files stored that way.

 

[paul ron]

So then, I would suppose, that one would clean them on the computer; so no work is saved doing that.

Then, let's think for a moment that one "updates" the digital file every so often. If you are a producing photographer, that means that you can spend the time to scan --not inconsequential-- and you keep adding to the number of files. Then you get to update them as well. At some point you, and perhaps your progeny, keep updating the files, no one will have time to take any more images due to the up keep needed to store and manage the digital files.

Could this mean that at some point we will see no one taking any more digital images?

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EXACTLY!
digital images will deteriorate on electronic storage if unattended, plus you will have to keep updating to newer technology as formats and hardware evolves.

I already have images that for some reason cant be read or have weird things happening to them adn Ive only got about 5 years worth on hard drives, thumb drive, backup external drives. BTW when my external hard drive wasnt supported by the newer windoze, I had to transfer exerything over to a newer drive... took me days to get it all over rocking from one machine to the other.

BUT on the bright side.. not a single digital image is important to me since I do my serious work on film!

The Civil War glass negatives look as good today as they did when taken.

EDIT: the 100 year old hiking Club I belong to lost their entire digitized magazine and member list on the cloud. there is nothing we can do about it, you are at their mercy!

hahahahahaahha the cloud in the sky where we once thought angels lived are now data managers... creating jobs for the dead.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Has anyone gotten the message "this disk format is not supported", or "this disk is not recognized"? And the disk contains many many files of data. I once had to connect an old computer to a new one via a serial to USB converter just to move some files. So, JPG has been around a long time, but formats have not been.

PE

 

[Pioneer]

I really don't think that most digital devices are actually designed to last very long, at least in archival terms. It has always been an impermanent method of working and has historically required ongoing maintenance and updates. Even the more permanent storage methods available today are not really intended to last very long because everyone realizes that the technology will change. So unless you can afford to employ people to ensure your digital files are properly backed up, duplicated, stored, and then updated when the technology changes, I am pretty sure you can plan on losing your photographs at some point.

I suspect that the best way to maintain digital or film images is to print them and then properly store those prints. Probably not easy either, but I suspect it is easier, and more certain, than what it takes to properly archive a digital image file.

 

[trendland]

I really don't think that most digital devices are actually designed to last very long, at least in archival terms. It has always been an impermanent method of working and has historically required ongoing maintenance and updates. Even the more permanent storage methods available today are not really intended to last very long because everyone realizes that the technology will change. So unless you can afford to employ people to ensure your digital files are properly backed up, duplicated, stored, and then updated when the technology changes, I am pretty sure you can plan on losing your photographs at some point.


The danger is not so far a big problem at the beginning.
Digital back up will take sure "everything can't be wrong."
Special the method with multiple back ups will not give the destruction of all data in diferent back ups.(And of biggest interest : multible diferent KIND's of back ups....from hardware : That should be the key.
But over the years the human factor will destroy best methods.
Somethink is forgotten or it is just mixed.
This will probably be no problem during the first years.
But after this in one day you will lost the full data of a decade. ....
And offen a backup is missing then.
Not so with minimal standards of storage films.
As we heard here : more than several decades.So the smartest method (just to me sorry to state)is to look at storage conditions of films a bit more as we all will do.Incluiding the methods of PE. A little bit more respect to negatives over the years will help.Sorry PE I stated this here.Indeed I realy have no idea af your storage conditions.But I have an idea of the possible excellence of it .But as from other issue here on Apug we can learn : A bit more better is always possible. Including myself it is to be optimize a bit.Becaus we are all humans (and nobody is perfect)So again the center from my personaly conclusions : Elarge your best pictures from E6 and C41 every 10 to 15 years in best possible format and auality.Perhaps you will find out every 18 years is correct.So you will longer your photographys to some decades.In addition you have to follow new digital storage hardware every 3 -5 years. That could be more expensive but ( to me ) I WILL NOT TRUST TO THIS DIGITAL STORAGE JUST TO 8 Years.
with regards

 

[Bob Carnie]

I am making digital negatives for photographers who only use digital capture... These negatives are silver and are made to print size for contact purposes....The idea is that with these negatives one can store the negatives and print down the road whenever they want.. Peoples situations change, People in Larger Urban centers where rent is skyrocketing cannot afford to build darkroom-just too expensive..
I am one of these people who make neg's and may not print the image for years to come.. my source information is usually a digital scan of a colour neg or BW neg, where I separate the colours for future printing and make multiple neg's of each image BW for duo tone printing in the future as well.
I feel comfortable with this arrangement, no longer a shoe box but a big archival box holding my film...
As many mentioned here the transfer of digital information can be tricky over time, I have a Drobo loaded with thousands of images that I am slowly going through and making decisions on whether the image is even worthy of saving.. This 10-15 year timeline is comfortable for me as the devices cannot change that fast on me , but I do feel better every time I make a series of film for archiving purposes.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

Has anyone gotten the message "this disk format is not supported", or "this disk is not recognized"? And the disk contains many many files of data. I once had to connect an old computer to a new one via a serial to USB converter just to move some files. So, JPG has been around a long time, but formats have not been.

PE

Hello Photo Engineer and others here, do you remember Kodak Photo CD? It was an early digital technique designed to let you see your slides on a television via a small playback machine (like a VCR). I tried it in the mid-1990s with mixed results. Some of the CDs based on Kodachrome 25 film were fantastic, but others were poor. The quality of the work by the subcontractor or scanner operator must have been quite variable. Regardless, I have several of the CDs from which I want to extract the .PCD files. My older version of ACDSee Pro reads the files, but does not properly interpret the odd dynamic range technique that Kodak used to make the files look correct on the American NTSC televisions of the 1990s. Older version of Photoshop would properly convert the files, but no one at my office could find an old Photoshop, so that was not an option. There is a commercial program for Mac that is supposed to convert properly, so I better buy it before that option disappears forever. So this is an example of a digital format only 20 years old that is only semi-readable. (Note, I have the original slides, but I prefer not to scan them, which would take days.)

 

[Photo Engineer]

I am aware of the system. In fact, I have a lot of those disks and a player from Kodak. My disks were made by Kodak and can be read on my Windows machine, however I have not tried it with the versions of Windows past ME. I do have an ME virtual machine on my current computer. Perhaps I will try reading the disks.

One of those photos is in my gallery.

PE

 

[trendland]

I am aware of the system. In fact, I have a lot of those disks and a player from Kodak. My disks were made by Kodak and can be read on my Windows machine, however I have not tried it with the versions of Windows past ME. I do have an ME virtual machine on my current computer. Perhaps I will try reading the disks.

One of those photos is in my gallery.

PE

There was also a "proffesional" version avaible - during the 90th the best standard to me : Kodak Photo CD Pro ! It was more expensive but much cheaper than a drum scan of negatives/slides.Someone told me : The method of Kodak was with better algorithmics than JPEG to that time.Therefore the best quality.
with regards

 

[trendland]

Hello Photo Engineer and others here, do you remember Kodak Photo CD? It was an early digital technique designed to let you see your slides on a television via a small playback machine (like a VCR). I tried it in the mid-1990s with mixed results. Some of the CDs based on Kodachrome 25 film were fantastic, but others were poor. The quality of the work by the subcontractor or scanner operator must have been quite variable. Regardless, I have several of the CDs from which I want to extract the .PCD files. My older version of ACDSee Pro reads the files, but does not properly interpret the odd dynamic range technique that Kodak used to make the files look correct on the American NTSC televisions of the 1990s. Older version of Photoshop would properly convert the files, but no one at my office could find an old Photoshop, so that was not an option. There is a commercial program for Mac that is supposed to convert properly, so I better buy it before that option disappears forever. So this is an example of a digital format only 20 years old that is only semi-readable. (Note, I have the original slides, but I prefer not to scan them, which would take days.)
Quite good analysis Kodachromeguy. I would agree with. And a good example of being unsafe not only from hardware but also from software and data standards.If the standards will change a decade later the game could be over.Well JPEG will not change so far (JPEG 2000 did not solve it's task) but what about the much different RAW codecs (some camera manufacturers like Nikon for example use different types within the same camera family) I am using no digital camera (one of my Nikon F80 is broken caused from too much plastic - better bougt F3,Fm3, F2)But I realy would not trust the livetime of some often changing RAW formats over a time horizon of more than two decades.(hope this is not too much digital content now

Coming back to the main issue :
How less complicate is it to store negatives and slides with a timeline
of much more than 5 decades.

with regards

 

[jack straw]

I think with cloud storage, a lot of these issues with digital will go away. I think the more likely issue with digital is that pictures will simply be forgotten.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

I think with cloud storage, a lot of these issues with digital will go away. I think the more likely issue with digital is that pictures will simply be forgotten.

Jack, you are right about the forgetting issue. The likely scenario: a gent who was an avid photographer dies. He had his files "in the cloud." His widow or children knew they were there somewhere, but what service? What account? What password? Do they really want to sort through the thousands of files or download them? Did he keyword them or use filenames that describe the content? If it is a fee service, how long will the widow or children continue to pay? And after the account has been dormant for months or years, will the service delete the files or incapacitate the account? If the family later wants to retrieve some of the files, what will it cost to reactivate the account? I am dubious these cloud accounts will last much longer than the lifetime of the original owner unless a family is really intent on preserving his legacy. Another problem is sheer volume. I often read of photographers who are proud of the 10,000 or more pictures that took that year. Yes, sure, he really keyworded them. Okay, will the widow or family spend any effort going through those thousands.? Forget it.

The alternate scenario: negatives are in notebooks or sleeves in boxes. When the family moves, they may throw them out. But the sleeves are easy to quickly review. And they are tangible, "Here are daddy's photos."

 

[Pioneer]

The surviving partner or children will certainly have far more to worry about then where the pictures are. In that case they are likely much safer in the shoebox than in some cloud somewhere. The only way that works is if the surviving partner knows exactly what is there, exactly where it is, and cares to maintain and retrieve the data.

If Vivian Maier's material would have been in the cloud it would have gone "poof" by now.

 

[Photo Engineer]

My family photos from the '20s and later are often annotated on the back regarding who, what, when and where......

I have photos from the Civil War era as well.

It was not often that we lost information.

Just sayin'

PE

 

[Besk]

My family photos from the '20s and later are often annotated on the back regarding who, what, when and where......

I have photos from the Civil War era as well.

It was not often that we lost information.

Just sayin'

PE

Exactly the same here! Photos and also many negatives.

 

[trendland]

I think with cloud storage, a lot of these issues with digital will go away. I think the more likely issue with digital is that pictures will simply be forgotten.

Do you mean cloud storage is a real solution or do you state with cloud storage you will have a lost of pictures? (these issues with digital will go away) ?

with regards

 

[trendland]

My family photos from the '20s and later are often annotated on the back regarding who, what, when and where......

I have photos from the Civil War era as well.

It was not often that we lost information.

Just sayin'

PE[/QUOTE

I guess you mean the American Civil War 1861- 1865 ? Not the Spanish War 1936 - 1939 (where Hemmingway was involved).
Because you also mentioned the 1920th.
Well that's remarcable.So you archivement methods can't be optimized at all.
I mentioned before that everyone should be able to optimize the respect to negatives and slides via archivement without exeption.
(Hope you did'nt read this)


So with around 150years of livetime there should be everything more than correct.


with regards

 

[Bob Carnie]

My family photos from the '20s and later are often annotated on the back regarding who, what, when and where......

I have photos from the Civil War era as well.

It was not often that we lost information.

Just sayin'

PE

Did you take any pictures during the Civil War, Ron??

 

[trendland]

The surviving partner or children will certainly have far more to worry about then where the pictures are. In that case they are likely much safer in the shoebox than in some cloud somewhere. The only way that works is if the surviving partner knows exactly what is there, exactly where it is, and cares to maintain and retrieve the data.

If Vivian Maier's material would have been in the cloud it would have gone "poof" by now.

The only one time I tryed out digital storage in concern of this issue was to back up my cd 's from scanning lab.Well - it was nice - not complicate one may get used to it quickly.THATS INDEED THE DANGER IN MODERN TIMES - to make it more and more confortable.After this allways much more confortable ????A siĺly way sometimes.Well it was the official acount of Photoshop. You should trust these brothers? Buy the way - not for ever.Half a year later I noticed an email they are changing the account to a new product line.There you have to pay for the service. They warned about to change until 31.12.xxxx behind this date all datas would be deleted 3weeks later.And what would happened if you would not have checked the Email account? Because you also would have a new one or a second account? Notice : Every cloud is still fine - theoretically they can store your pictures during a nuke strike - if they have alternate servers in other continents.(what is with your basement storage during nuke temperatures of 8.000 - 1,500.000 C )you shouldn't care about then

So clouds are a safe method to AVOID data lost while Armagetton?
Just in theory because I would like to profecy your personal Armagetton with Photo datas via clouds if
- paseword is forgotten
- adress of acount is forgotten
- datas stolen from robbery so your "hacked" family photos have the best storage all over the www. from that day - special such photos you did not remember to made them

- Server malfunction
- Server destroyed
But most possible : your service partner does not exist any more
(The cloud is closed until furher notice)

with regards

 

[Photo Engineer]

Did you take any pictures during the Civil War, Ron??

Thanks Bob, but no. I had my apprentice, Matt. Brady do it for me.

PE

 

[RalphLambrecht]

This might sound like a rather simpleton type of question, but how long can one reasonably expect a routinely developed, properly washed negative to last? On another forum a poster was asking how to clean some old family negatives, and one reply was to simply digitalize them, and update the digitial file every couple of years, and not bother much with the cleaning and archival storage of them, since they would ultimately crumble to dust.
I took exception to that reply, but am not entirely sure how to refute it, or even if I should. A properly cleaned, archivally stored negative or slide...should we be thinking in terms of centuries, or just several decades?

I appreciate that the dyes in color transparencies would fade quicker, but a B&W negative would have much more staying power, wouldn't it? How long can we expect our negatives to survive?

a properly processed negative, stored in the dark under normal living quarter environment conditions(20C/50-60%RH) will easily last 100 years or longer;I inherited nags from my Dad and they are 60+years old and fine.