One Reason Why Film Rules

brianmquinn · Nov 8, 2012

Kevs you are Correct.
I said earlier in the post 95% of my film images have been scanned and I do have off site storage. Still I feel that only I know or care about my digital files. When I go nobody will search my old computer for images. However nobody will toss my eye viewable images (prints, negatives and slides) without thinking twice.

That is not to say they will not be tossed in the trash; only that they will think twice before doing so.

Brian C. Miller · Nov 8, 2012

kevs said:
It only takes one match / hard drive crash / electrical fault/ flood / lightning strike / earthquake to wipe out any archive, physical or digital. The only invulnerable data is that of which multiple copies are stored off-site away from the originals. And don't forget the role of the vinegar syndrome, or just plain carelessness. Hmmm, better get scanning then...

Cheers,
kevs

Wired: Dead Link Removed

Photographs etched onto a silicon wafer, which is attached to a satellite. It will be up there until someone comes along and cleans up all of that space junk, at least.

wblynch · Nov 9, 2012

Aliens will find the satellite and scratch their heads upon viewing their discovery.

Then they will eat it.

mark · Nov 9, 2012

Nah, it will be found by some joy riding alien teens who wwill then tag the satellite with cosmic green spray paint thus eliminating us from memory.

wogster · Nov 9, 2012

kevs said:
It only takes one match / hard drive crash / electrical fault/ flood / lightning strike / earthquake to wipe out any archive, physical or digital. The only invulnerable data is that of which multiple copies are stored off-site away from the originals. And don't forget the role of the vinegar syndrome, or just plain carelessness. Hmmm, better get scanning then...

Cheers,
kevs

You know that no matter how many archives you have in how many places, nothing guards against obsolescence. When I moved a few months ago, I tossed the last of my 5¼" floppies. I have not seen a working 5¼" floppy drive in about a decade, no longer had a way to read them, so I tossed them. Even if you find a CD in 100 years that would be still readable, there is no guarantee that you will be able to find a CD drive to read it, and even if you find a drive, there is no guarantee that a computer will still have an IDE interface on it, so you could use that drive. Long term on-line storage, depends on someone paying to maintain the account, my daughter might want to continue my account when I am gone, but will her children, especially if I am gone before they are born. One thing that will still exist is the thousands of B&W negatives that I have carefully stored over the years, I have a negative that was taken of my grandparents when my grandmother was young, sometime in the 1940's according to my mother. You know I can still pull a perfect print off that negative. I have a print of my grandfather on my dad's side, that was taken sometime during WWI it's a little faded, but still perfectly visible. I have a feeling that the current period in time will be considered a lost decade, because there will be so little photographic evidence of it.

brianmquinn · Nov 10, 2012

"I have a feeling that the current period in time will be considered a lost decade, because there will be so little photographic evidence of it."
I totally agree. I know a lot of kids that grew up digital and do not own a single image unless it is posted with their cell phone to facebook.

I have an old “shoe box” of my Grandfathers old medium and large format negative that go back 80 years. I have made hundreds of good prints from these to give to relatives that requested them. I give out a set of prints when cousin or nephew etc has their first child. The parents are usually overjoyed when they receive a nice set of print of the baby’s Great Grand Parents when they were young and just starting a family. Often they say their baby look just like its grandfather when he was a baby. Unlike digital it took no effort for these negatives to pass from one generation to the next.

Brian C. Miller · Nov 10, 2012

wogster said:
I have a feeling that the current period in time will be considered a lost decade, because there will be so little photographic evidence of it.

+1. However, I think that it's going to be more than a single decade. What will happen is that there will be the film archive, and then there will essentially be nothing else. Like that silicone disc sent into space, the image won't exist without actually being an image. The oldest images are made with pigment on a cave wall, down deep, protected from the elements. But with digital, it barely exists, just as much as a spark exists.

The only reliable evidence will come from stuff like Vivian Maier and people like her, wandering out and photographing. But of course the next problem comes with actually storing the negatives. What then? That's always a problem. Such is life.

nworth · Nov 10, 2012

I have a fairly similar history to the OP. My primary camera is a fairly ancient Pentax 645, but I use a lot of other film cameras (mostly MF) too. I also use a Nikon D-200 and a Canon G-12 for a fairly large volume of digital work. I scan my film so that I can index and print the negatives easily. I back up to DVDs. I have had some disasters in the past. I can usually recover (very slowly) from the DVD backups, but not always. Lately I installed a RAID 4 array which gives me some (but not total) peace of mind. One worry is losing my Lightroom index, which is backed up but not on the RAID drive. Another worry is the ever changing digital format fashions - will I be able to read the DVDs or use the RAID drive in the future? It's nice to have negatives.

lxdude · Nov 10, 2012

wogster said:
I have a feeling that the current period in time will be considered a lost decade, because there will be so little photographic evidence of it.

The decayed decade.

wblynch · Nov 10, 2012

I have an old water-proof, air-proof, explosion-proof ammunition box from my military days that will protect anything inside from humidity, flood, hurricane, earthquake and perhaps even fire.

I have stuff that's been in there 35 years that is still like new and unfaded. I should look for more. Don't know if I could find any.

brianmquinn · Nov 10, 2012

Your mention of ammunition boxes made me laugh. Here is a story from the pre-911 days. My friends and I are real outdoors men. We love to hike, canoe and camp everywhere from Alaska to Florida. Decades ago we discovered ammunition boxes at the army surplus stores. They were PERFCECT for camera gear in rough wet spaces; like caves or canoes. One time we were passing the border between Canada and the USA in a beat up old van and we were not looking so great after days in the woods. Well the border patrol agent just happened to see a pile of ammunition boxes in the back of the van. You get the rest of the story. At least back then we did not get searched up the ....

MattKing · Nov 11, 2012

One big advantage of a film archive vs. an electronic archive is that generally you can tell if a film archive is corrupted by just looking at it (or sometimes smelling it).

Diapositivo · Nov 11, 2012

nworth said:
I have a fairly similar history to the OP. My primary camera is a fairly ancient Pentax 645, but I use a lot of other film cameras (mostly MF) too. I also use a Nikon D-200 and a Canon G-12 for a fairly large volume of digital work. I scan my film so that I can index and print the negatives easily. I back up to DVDs. I have had some disasters in the past. I can usually recover (very slowly) from the DVD backups, but not always. Lately I installed a RAID 4 array which gives me some (but not total) peace of mind. One worry is losing my Lightroom index, which is backed up but not on the RAID drive. Another worry is the ever changing digital format fashions - will I be able to read the DVDs or use the RAID drive in the future? It's nice to have negatives.

Your Lightroom index is the least worrying thing as it can be recreated by the archived information. Actually if you lose your index you will be forced to get all your archives and that will be a healthy check of the availability of all the information.

I certainly agree with the OP that film is much easier to archive than digital images. We should not forget, though, how many films have been lost in the past due to poor quality PVC film sleeves, or bad processing (bad washing for instance), or lost in the mail while shipped. The few rolls of Kodachrome I shot were a torture as I had to wait weeks to have them back. Never more.

Films still are at risk if people keeps them in the basement, or doesn't check health from time to time. Keep them high and dry!

Regarding backups, like athiril I do mistrust RAID solutions. There is an entire additional level of failure (RAID controller, that's supposing it is a hardware RAID solution) and when it fails it brings down the entire barn. I personally have a simple backup strategy: One relatively new disk inside the PC; one relatively new external disk as backup; most of what I do I send to stock agencies so I consider them by "external" backup.

Hard drives with important information are to be treated like the "distribution belt" of your engine (what's in English? The things that brings motion from the piston shaft to the cam shaft). It will fail and it will be tragic. Substitution must be planned before failure. The "old" disks can be used for less important information (such as the operating system. When the disk fails you know it immediately and you restore your system backup to a new disk without crying).

lxdude · Nov 11, 2012

"distribution belt"

In the US that's usually called the timing belt. Timing because it maintains the timing of the camshaft to the crankshaft, though naturally its primary purpose is to drive the camshaft. It is sometimes called the camshaft drive belt.

Bill Burk · Nov 11, 2012

lxdude said:
"distribution belt"

In the US that's usually called the timing belt. Timing because it maintains the timing of the camshaft to the crankshaft, though naturally its primary purpose is to drive the camshaft. It is sometimes called the camshaft drive belt.

Or maybe it's because it's used to drive the distributor... and when we adjust the points, it is called adjusting the timing.

lxdude · Nov 11, 2012

I see your point, but distributors are driven off the camshaft, so the camshaft has to be timed correctly first. And these days there is no distributor. But, who knows, maybe that is its origin.

wogster · Nov 11, 2012

Brian C. Miller said:
+1. However, I think that it's going to be more than a single decade. What will happen is that there will be the film archive, and then there will essentially be nothing else. Like that silicone disc sent into space, the image won't exist without actually being an image. The oldest images are made with pigment on a cave wall, down deep, protected from the elements. But with digital, it barely exists, just as much as a spark exists.

The only reliable evidence will come from stuff like Vivian Maier and people like her, wandering out and photographing. But of course the next problem comes with actually storing the negatives. What then? That's always a problem. Such is life.

I think that what is most likely to happen is this. In 2112 your great grand children will find a bunch of 10cm shiny discs, the printing on it long faded away, and nobody having used a CD medium in over 50 years they will toss it away. Another box will have some B&W negatives in it maybe a few slides, they will see that it looks something like a picture, they will not throw it away, but be interested in seeing if there is a way to retrieve it. Funny thing about current technology, the Wally World prints made using a machine like a Fuji Fronteer may long outlast the data itself.....

Pioneer · Nov 11, 2012

Bill Burk said:
Or maybe it's because it's used to drive the distributor... and when we adjust the points, it is called adjusting the timing.

Wow, that steps back a day or two. I haven't had to adjust points in over two decades. :confused:

lxdude · Nov 11, 2012

Pioneer said:
Wow, that steps back a day or two. I haven't had to adjust points in over two decades. :confused:

You could attempt it, but it would be a pointless exercise.

Bill Burk · Nov 12, 2012

Pioneer said:
Wow, that steps back a day or two. I haven't had to adjust points in over two decades. :confused:

Oh shoot, now I get it...

The last car I had with points and distributor... was British.

Bill Burk · Nov 12, 2012

kevs said:
It only takes one match

I was counting the frames that could be destroyed in one mistake: 4x5 - maybe 6... 120 - maybe 12... 35mm maybe 36. Digital... several years.

Then I realized a match... could take out any archive.

Dennis S · Nov 12, 2012

In my mechanical days it was called a metal timing "chain" not a rubber belt as the newer ones have

lxdude · Nov 12, 2012

And some cars had timing gears instead. I've always disliked timing belts. Anything that can cause so much damage after so few miles-yuck. Talk about pointless.
When GM came out with the Northstar V8, which they said would need only oil changes for 100,000 miles, I noticed they used timing chains.

Diapositivo · Nov 12, 2012

dances_w_clouds said:
In my mechanical days it was called a metal timing "chain" not a rubber belt as the newer ones have

Chain is "sporty".
Belts are quieter and are normally installed in normal cars as far as I know.
Chains are far more common in motorbike engines and probably in "sporty" engines.
Gear train is another "sporty" option. It would be too expensive and too noisy for a normal city car as far as I can remember.

lxdude · Nov 12, 2012

Diapositivo said:
Chain is "sporty".
Belts are quieter and are normally installed in normal cars as far as I know.
Chains are far more common in motorbike engines and probably in "sporty" engines.
Gear train is another "sporty" option. It would be too expensive and too noisy for a normal city car as far as I can remember.

The gear train is noisy in high revving engines. Low revving isn't bad, like in old Volvos.
I know they say belts are quieter, but I hear belts when I don't hear chains, especially the Hy-Vo or "silent" type chains. Belts are usually under a thin plastic cover, and I can usually hear their high-pitched whine. Not really loud, but definitely there. Standard type chains are lower pitched, more of a buzzing sound.
Another advantage of chains is they are narrower, allowing the engine to be a little shorter. But I like them mainly because they are reliable and long-lasting.

One Reason Why Film Rules

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