Old Negs

[osprey48]

I've been busy these last few days scanning a cache of old B&W negatives which my Dad dug out from a cupboard, about 150 of them. Its very strange, but wonderful at the same time to see old photos of yourself and family that you didn't even know existed.These date from early 50s to the mid 60s, but even after 60 years the negs look as good as the day they were processed, apart from a few scratches. I just wonder, if they had digital photography in those days, would these images have survived on discs and stored in a box in a cupboard for 50-60 years? I very much doubt it. The technology to see them probably wouldn't now exist,even if the discs themselves didn't deteriorate.

 

[cliveh]

Why would a CD with stored digital information not last longer than a negative? I would suggest it would last much longer and not subject to gelatin decay.

 

[bdial]

Recordable CD's use a dye in the data recording layer. That dye is subject to fading rendering the CD non-readable.
Film has a longer proven lifetime.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The recording media on CDs and DVDs are known to degrade with time leaving you with no signal. A scratch ruins an entire digital recording, but only leaves a mark on a negative. The means to read a digital record is evolving with time and now I have digital files that no longer can be read. The list of problems with digital is lengthy and is not a really viable subject for this forum.

PE

 

[snapguy]

Ephemeral

I have been led to believe that digital images are, in fact, ephemeral -- that they do not last. Another problem is the media on which the images are saved. Try to find a way to call up anything you put on a 8.25-inch floppy disk these days. Or a 5.25 floppy. I have a couple of hundred floppies from years ago and it would cost an arm and a leg to go through them and find out what is on them. If I could find disk drives for them that would work today. However, I have thousands of negatives, proof sheets and photo prints from more than 50 years ago that are very accessible. Remember that early nitrate negatives (as in Silent Film days) are very fragile and if not stored right they crumble into dust or catch on fire. Hollywood filmmakers, so to speak, are making movies on digital and making film backup copies. Film does have its uses.

 

[pdeeh]

Managing digital archives so that they remain accessible and readable in the long term is a real difficulty, but not insurmountable. There is plenty of research going on to overcome the difficulties.

Let's not forget that archivally processed photographic print or negative require careful storage to preserve over the long term too.

It would be a shame if this was to become yet another isn't-everything-digital-awful thread, by the by ...

 

[F4user]

Try to read SmartMedia card, a 3.5" floppy disk with your iPad or last Mac, ... not hard enough ? .... a 5" floppy disk or 8" floppy disk -if you seen one in your life.
Finding 50 years old film negatives or dias and the only tool needed to see a image is a even iluminated window. With dias you get instant gratification.

 

[osprey48]

Thanks for the comments. The reason for my original post wasn't to compare digital with film,but to share my joy at finding that these negatives have survived in excellent condition. A real treasure trove of images and family history that could have been lost.Maybe there's some more hidden waiting to be found.

 

[Wallendo]

Thanks for the comments. The reason for my original post wasn't to compare digital with film,but to share my joy at finding that these negatives have survived in excellent condition. A real treasure trove of images and family history that could have been lost.Maybe there's some more hidden waiting to be found.

I have recently had a similar experience scanning old negatives from the late 1950's. These were negatives stored in a cardboard box in a closet and looked brand new.
In fact, probably one of the best ways to preserve digital images is to have them printed on silver-based black and white photo paper.

As far as archival storage, I believe the best way is to save images in different formats and different locations.

 

[summicron1]

Why would a CD with stored digital information not last longer than a negative? I would suggest it would last much longer and not subject to gelatin decay.

tests show that standard CDs only last about 10 years. Even the gold colored ones don't do all that well. The problem is not just dye decay, but decay of electronic media on the molecular level. Even on a flash drive or hard disk, the file information depends on the proper arrangement of the atoms in plus- and minus- positions, and over the months and years those things can shift, causing file corruption and then all is lost.

The Smithsonian and other museums -- including the one i work at -- are very worried about this.

And all this is assuming that the software to recover images from electronic media still exists in 10 or 20 years. Try to open up files on an old 5 inch floppy, you will quickly see the problem.

Meanwhile, my parent's pictures shot in the 40s when they were married, stored in old paper photo albums, still look like the day they came home from the drug store.

Congratulations on your find. Buy yourself some archival negative sleeves and keep them safe.

 

[Bill Burk]

To completely capture my imagination, you need to print that photo - is that you? - of the boy with a trashcan on his head.

Congratulations on your find. It is awesome to have the photos from the past. But in true APUG tradition, they deserve to be printed in ways your dad probably wished he could.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I've been busy these last few days scanning a cache of old B&W negatives which my Dad dug out from a cupboard, about 150 of them. Its very strange, but wonderful at the same time to see old photos of yourself and family that you didn't even know existed.These date from early 50s to the mid 60s, but even after 60 years the negs look as good as the day they were processed, apart from a few scratches.

Which is exactly why you should keep them and continue to shoot film. Your time would be better spent in the darkroom or shooting film.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Why would a CD with stored digital information not last longer than a negative? I would suggest it would last much longer and not subject to gelatin decay.

Because digital information will not out last film. All digital media degrades faster than negatives and prints. Besides all the scanning in the world will not make the images available when the digital world moves on to a new format.

 

[osprey48]

They were in fact stored in 2 Kodak negative booklets, with 100 individual 6x7cm sleeves, although mostly crammed 6 or more to one sleeve.I've now given them all one sleeve each. My Dad did used to process and print his own photos back in the 60s, but if he printed these, they've long since been lost or given away, as I've never seen any prints of these negs before. I intend to print some when I get my darkroom set up again. And yes, that is me with lid on my head!

 

[Photo Engineer]

Recently, when I started to write part 2 of my book on emulsion making, I found that several parts were written under Win 3.1. I loaded them into my new Windows machine only to have them crash or refuse to run. I had to get a virtual copy of Win ME and run it under a VMWare player to get the data. ME was the last version that they could be run under and ME is cranky at the best of times! In any event, after trial and error and the help of Bill Troop, I now have them up under Win 2000 as far as they are able to be run.

And, about 30% of the floppy disk drives are corrupt! Fortunately, I did have copies of the .DLL files that were corrupt as I still use them for other software.

Computers will lead our civilization to an untimely death! At Kodak we kept file on Taylor, Westinghouse, Siemens, DEC, Wang and IBM computers, each for different purposes but they had to exchange data. What a mess that was.

PE

 

[Bill Burk]

Haa PE.

Technology certainly is a tough muse.

osprey48,

That's a great discovery, hope you can get it printed.

 

[Truzi]

I have some family negatives that are probably around 70 or 80 years old. They have been backed up to new shoe-boxes about 3 times total.

I can't wait to start printing them and see my ancestors.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Because digital information will not out last film. All digital media degrades faster than negatives and prints. Besides all the scanning in the world will not make the images available when the digital world moves on to a new format.

Recently, when I started to write part 2 of my book on emulsion making, I found that several parts were written under Win 3.1. I loaded them into my new Windows machine only to have them crash or refuse to run. I had to get a virtual copy of Win ME and run it under a VMWare player to get the data. ME was the last version that they could be run under and ME is cranky at the best of times! In any event, after trial and error and the help of Bill Troop, I now have them up under Win 2000 as far as they are able to be run.

And, about 30% of the floppy disk drives are corrupt! Fortunately, I did have copies of the .DLL files that were corrupt as I still use them for other software.

Computers will lead our civilization to an untimely death! At Kodak we kept file on Taylor, Westinghouse, Siemens, DEC, Wang and IBM computers, each for different purposes but they had to exchange data. What a mess that was.

PE

I have had the same problem recently with a research paper I wrote years ago. I could retrieve the text but not the figures and tables.

 

[hdeyong]

I keep reading over and over about CD's degrading after 10 or so years.
I don't get it, I have music CD's from the 80's by the dozens, and every one of them, over 30 years later, plays as well as the day I bought them.
I have friends who bought some of the earliest ones, which now has to be pushing 40 years, and I have never heard any of them say that one of their CD's didn't work anymore. They will be making CD and DVD readers for a long time to come, because unlike the various floppies, this was the media that came to be sort of a standard, and there are now billions of them out there. If hundreds of millions of people, all around the world need or want to read a CD, somebody will make the equipment to do so.
I think this talk of CD's deteriorating, if stored properly, is questionable.

 

[MattKing]

You may be right, but I think it is telling that for many models, one can no longer purchase a factory supplied CD player in a new car - not even as an extra cost accessory.

 

[hdeyong]

I think it's because a lot of people have their iPods and cell phones which simply plug in and away you go. I often use the stereo in our car to play music on my iPad. It's simply more convenient.

 

[MattKing]

I think it's because a lot of people have their iPods and cell phones which simply plug in and away you go. I often use the stereo in our car to play music on my iPad. It's simply more convenient.

I'd agree, but I'd point out that the actual use of CDs is plummeting, and that does not bode well for future availability of players.

 

[cliveh]

I keep reading over and over about CD's degrading after 10 or so years.
I don't get it, I have music CD's from the 80's by the dozens, and every one of them, over 30 years later, plays as well as the day I bought them.
I have friends who bought some of the earliest ones, which now has to be pushing 40 years, and I have never heard any of them say that one of their CD's didn't work anymore. They will be making CD and DVD readers for a long time to come, because unlike the various floppies, this was the media that came to be sort of a standard, and there are now billions of them out there. If hundreds of millions of people, all around the world need or want to read a CD, somebody will make the equipment to do so.
I think this talk of CD's deteriorating, if stored properly, is questionable.

I also have many CDs dating back this far, as I would imagine many on APUG have and they still work fine.

 

[MartinP]

Note that commercially made CD's are produced with marks in a metallised layer while the home-made ones (made via a pc or Mac with a cd-burner) are produced by heating a temperature sensitive dye. The latter gradually become unreadable due to errors as the dye decays. The commercial produced ones, can become unreadable due to mechanical damage to the surface or due to delamination of the layers or due to deterioration of the plastics used, but this is not so time dependent or inevitable as with the dye of course.

Congratulations to the OP for finding and cherishing his collection of negatives !! A couple of years ago my parents found a folder of negatives at the back of a drawer. It was their wedding photographs from half a century earlier, the prints of which had been lost decades before. I printed them a new album for Christmas that year.

 

[Truzi]

I've had a few 20-year-old store-bought CDs fail. Not many, but it has happened.

Closer to the OP, we have albums of color and B&W family photos. Some have faded, some have been mangled (when they used those adhesive corners for scrap-book style albums, and things fell apart over the years), and some have been ruined by those "magnetic" pages.
However, it is great to have the negatives - I know I can recreate the old photo albums. I think some of the very old photos may originally have been contact printed.