Yes, I kept certain keepsake type 35mm slide shots of family and such that I particularly like. But the majority were thrown out after making slide shows. I have kept all my medium formats. But thirty years ago I made 16x20 framed pictures of thirty of them, now only three left. If I decide to make any future prints then I rescan the one or two or send out for a pro scan.OK, but some exceptions can be made... Probably you have (say) a dozen shots you love specially, or they have some special qualities...
In such cases it can be funny to re-scan the film and making a different edition, or aesthetic interpretation.
Sometimes getting rid of the old lets you move on to the new. Otherwise you stay stuck in past performance rather than striking out to fresh discoveries.I can understand not planning to re-scan.
But a a box similar to the size that holds a dozen wine bottles is capable of holding for storage, in a very small volume, a massive amount of original, unmodified data in the form of negatives or slides.
That is pretty cheap insurance against all sorts of potential calamities.
Unless you’re a hoarder of useless stuff like old newspapers or nail clippings, that’s one of the greatest fallacies doing the rounds currently.Sometimes getting rid of the old lets you move on to the new. Otherwise you stay stuck in past performance rather than striking out to fresh discoveries.
I don't know about "getting stuck in the past". As we age and see things in a new way, what opinion we had about an image years back can potentially change, quite often in a far more positive direction. This is not about memories being reevaluated, but a style of how an image was composed. At least I see that looking at quite old photographs and now with a lot more positive visual value, from composition to message etc. And unless one really doubles down on his digital storage, triple copied (with one buried under the house in a gamma ray proof box of course), there is no way to ensure such copies will hold their complete data indefinitely.Sometimes getting rid of the old lets you move on to the new. Otherwise you stay stuck in past performance rather than striking out to fresh discoveries.
I agree. And we have to remember that with regards to scanned photos, not only electronic devices holding the scanned files will eventually break, but also that their cloud backup may not survive an operations disaster, business failure and file format may become obsolete.I can understand not planning to re-scan.
But a a box similar to the size that holds a dozen wine bottles is capable of holding for storage, in a very small volume, a massive amount of original, unmodified data in the form of negatives or slides.
That is pretty cheap insurance against all sorts of potential calamities.
I agree. And we have to remember that with regards to scanned photos, not only electronic devices holding the scanned files will eventually break, but also that their cloud backup may not survive an operations disaster, business failure and file format may become obsolete.
You got me wrong. I am not saying that film only is the way to go, it is obvious that storing film for long term is not trivial.No. An image is in great danger while it exists on film. By scanning and adding it to a proper data management routine you are rescuing it. Your house burning down with your negatives is orders of magnitude more likely scenario that an electronic data loss, if done properly.
I can go in great detail into every possible concern you listed, but I will lazily fall back to "this is what I do for a living, take my word for it" instead.
When I was in business, I use to install and maintain fire alarm systems in NYC's high rise buildings. One of them was the American Bible Society on Broadway, a 12 story owner occupied building. On the second floor, they had a library of old and rare bibles and parts of the original Gutenberg printing press. The room had glass walls but was protected by about thirty large CO2 filled cylinders that would fill the room with gas if the alarm station was pulled in the room. You had about twenty seconds to get out of there before the gas would be released. After that you'd probably died from asphyxiation. But your body would be surrounded by the stored bibles that would be saved.No. An image is in great danger while it exists on film. By scanning and adding it to a proper data management routine you are rescuing it. Your house burning down with your negatives is orders of magnitude more likely scenario that an electronic data loss, if done properly.
I can go in great detail into every possible concern you listed, but I will lazily fall back to "this is what I do for a living, take my word for it" instead.
I talked to Plustek support. To their credit, they were fantastic.
I like your suggestion of trying an Epson V850. I hope it's a lot better than the V600 (which I've had for about 5 years).
Now they use Halon that's supposedly safer or some other chemical gas that would let you live, maybe.
Thanks for the update. I was in business twenty plus years ago. So I'm not up to date with the recent suppression materials. At one time there was Halon II because of the problems with the original. Most places use water sprinkler systems. But you don't want to use those in electronic areas or if you have materials like old bibles you don't want ruined. The Carbon Dioxide system in the Bible Society was actually illegal at the time by NYC Building Codes. But it had been installed years earlier when it was legal So it was grandfathered and allowed to remain without updating it. I wonder what they're doing now?I doubt it's Halon. That's some nasty stuff. Yes, you'll live, but it's a known carcinogen, and the oxidized material from after the dump is mildly corrosive.
I work in IT, and Halon was popular for years in datacenters, because it does a very good job of binding to oxygen. We had some flunky who was supposed to test fire-station pulls in our building walk into the data center, march up to the "pull in case of fire" handle (with a huge red sign saying "WARNING: HALON DUMP" over it), and pulled it anyway. 30 seconds later (When your entire datacenter goes off-line, you respond quickly), he was still standing there, hand on handle, looking terrified, standing in a 3 foot cloud bank with strobes going off.
Unless the room is totally air-tight, it's only going to temporarily remove the oxygen, even for the CO2 systems. The last I heard, nitrogen is popular-- it's inert, common, and is usually enough to squash out the oxygen that's feeding the fire-- and doesn't leave a nasty, slightly greasy residue on everything. It's not quite as good, as it has to displace the oxygen, rather than consume it, but it still works.
No. An image is in great danger while it exists on film. By scanning and adding it to a proper data management routine you are rescuing it. Your house burning down with your negatives is orders of magnitude more likely scenario than an electronic data loss, if done properly.
I can go in great detail into every possible concern you listed, but I will lazily fall back to "this is what I do for a living, take my word for it" instead.
I assume the idea of "superior" digital data security over physical negatives is one with cloud storage, not in the drawer that used to hold those negatives, which would have burned down irrespective of content.Amen to that... yep, your house burning down will do your negatives in. I still like having the negatives, but also like having a good digital copy of the keepers. Since I also shoot digitally for paid work, having a very good backup strategy is key. Remember, something isn’t truly backed up unless you have at least 3 copies in 3 physically different places. I keep one copy on my file server at home, a copy on an external hard drive at home and at my work office just so I have it if I need relatively fast access if the file server goes down, and multiple copies in multiple cloud services that I can access relatively easily, though much slower, as those are encrypted and not accessible until I get tool sets in place to decrypt the files.. For the data I really, really don’t want to lose, in addition to to the cloud storage, I have a pair of external SSDs that I cycle between my house and a secure lock box that I pay for. Once a month or so, I swap the drives so that the stored drive is mover more than 30 days out of sync, which is fine as this sort of data doesn’t change super frequently, and really just there for that last little bit of peace of mind.
the key is simplicity. You want to make it very simple to keep everything in sync. For that I designate a folder on the drive that is the “permanent archive” and if I don’t want to lose something, it goes into that folder structure. From there, I have a fair amount of code that replicates it to the various cloud services and makes copies to the various drives.
Amen to that... yep, your house burning down will do your negatives in. I still like having the negatives, but also like having a good digital copy of the keepers. Since I also shoot digitally for paid work, having a very good backup strategy is key. Remember, something isn’t truly backed up unless you have at least 3 copies in 3 physically different places. I keep one copy on my file server at home, a copy on an external hard drive at home and at my work office just so I have it if I need relatively fast access if the file server goes down, and multiple copies in multiple cloud services that I can access relatively easily, though much slower, as those are encrypted and not accessible until I get tool sets in place to decrypt the files.. For the data I really, really don’t want to lose, in addition to to the cloud storage, I have a pair of external SSDs that I cycle between my house and a secure lock box that I pay for. Once a month or so, I swap the drives so that the stored drive is mover more than 30 days out of sync, which is fine as this sort of data doesn’t change super frequently, and really just there for that last little bit of peace of mind.
the key is simplicity. You want to make it very simple to keep everything in sync. For that I designate a folder on the drive that is the “permanent archive” and if I don’t want to lose something, it goes into that folder structure. From there, I have a fair amount of code that replicates it to the various cloud services and makes copies to the various drives.
A negative, stored with minimal care, can last for decades barring disasters.
An electronic file, stored with the same level of care, will be difficult to read 5 years later, almost impossible 10 years later, and a random pile of inaccessible bits in 20 years.
An electronic file, stored properly, maintained and managed-- will be available decades from now, and look exactly as good as it did the day it was created.
Where do you have those files?I don't do anything special and have 20 year old files that open fine.
I don't do anything special and have 20 year old files that open fine.
Where do you have those files?
If it's a recordable DVD or CD, congratulations-- your media has lasted beyond it's expected lifespan.
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