Why did you move from film to digital?

[slackercrurster]

I don't know. Nearly ALL the US State Historic Preservation Offices only collect DVD and Pigment Prints for State Level HABS/HAER Recordations. The Federal Program has moved closer to Digital ever since Jack Boucher passed away. When I spoke with him on the phone many years ago he was adamant not to use any digital ( files or pigment images ) but I am not sure what has happened in the last few years. From what I understand while they still require FILM negatives they are also accepting Pigment on Card prints for HABS Submissions. I did my first digital submission to a State Habs Collection in 2007, and nearly every one since then has been a digital submission ( submitting another one soon ). Many years ago the US Federal Government has has a massive PUSH with Digital Initiatives and a lot of states did not have the room to archive negatives and prints so they joined in. I have no clue what will happen down the road and chances are I will be dead by the time they need my files. I guess, maybe as long as something is backed up and there is something that is able to open the file it can be considered archival? I just hope Bob Denver from Far Out Space Nuts doesn't corrupt my files cause I won't have any files to re-submit.

Archival pigment prints are very archival. They are top notch, only surpassed by color separations or silver gelatin prints. (Of course you got the exotics, platinum, etc, but keeping the conversation to most common means.)

 

[slackercrurster]

Yes, the 'no one would be interested in my photos' is a common sentiment. Yet one needs to keep in mind that historians and anthropogists find that photos from 'everyman' can be quite informative about how people lived at a certain point in history. If you were taking photos of NYC protests over TRump's most recent statement on Twitter, that is history being captured, and even though you are a nobody in sense of photographic notoriety, your digital photos do capture a way of life for folks in the early 21st century.

Sure, Vivian Maier is an example. Everyday snapshots and suddenly they are masterpieces.

People are crazy for old photos...CRAZY

Hand-tinted masterpiece

Some sellers specialize in all your old wedding photos. They will clean out your house (estate) full of photos and put them all up on eBay. The common snapshots or school portraits. (do they still take school portraits?) are sold by the pound sometimes.

 

[slackercrurster]

DVD's are excellent for preservation, but as discussed have their limits. They wont lose data from magnetism like a HD or thumb drive would. But with digital, you got to have lots of backups in all sorts of media. Nothing is perfect. Same with DVDs use silver, gold, different makers, M disks, bluray, whatever. Go crazy with it.

But if you want to mimic film, make 8 x 10 master prints. That is as close as you will get to film with digital. You can scan the print to recover something if the digital is lost. That is the curse of digital. Also you got the cloud if you want to spend $ on it. But if you are 30 days in arrears paying...you know the deal...they start to go poof!

 

[wiltw]

Dunno. Still got some reel to reel from the 50's that is Ok. It is about 64 yo, so it may be headed off the deep end if 50 is the magic number.

I want to work on these M discs. they last for 1000 years. But M disk drives are not that popular, so who knows if they would be able to be read?

Best bet it to make master 8 x 10 prints. You can scan the print and recover 90% or so.

Yeah, analog music encoded on mag tape is very different than 1's no longer reading as a 1, so your digital number (btw 0 and 32767) is suddently a very different number than it was originally encoded. And while the computer checksum might point out the fact the number is a bogus value, you will never know the real value it should be.

In analog, a 200Hz sine wave will still be a sine wave of 200Hz...it might not be as loud as originally recorded, but the musical note will be correct frequency. And the violin might become a bit scratchy, but it is still fundamentally recognizable for what kind of instrument.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

You guys do know that a CDR (and DVD+R/DVD-R) had a lifespan of 100-200 years. That's right up there with film. And unlike film, it can be perfectly copied every 100 years or so to preserve it for eons. That's hardly what I would call ephemeral.

Most issues with CD longevity circle around overuse and abuse. But with a CD, you can keep the photos on multiple discs and store them at multiple locations. And if the formats change, just burn a new disc in the new format. Just like film, the secret to longevity is in the storage methods and curation. Its a lot easier to keep 100 photos preserved than 100,000.

sounds like a full-time job just for archiving.

 

[jtk]

Sure, Vivian Maier is an example. Everyday snapshots and suddenly they are masterpieces.

People are crazy for old photos...CRAZY

Hand-tinted masterpiece

View attachment 217905

Some sellers specialize in all your old wedding photos. They will clean out your house (estate) full of photos and put them all up on eBay. The common snapshots or school portraits. (do they still take school portraits?) are sold by the pound sometimes.

In the 50s and 60s dye transfer was still the standard for inexpensive color portraits...and even the cheapest school photos. Retouching for acne was cheap and near universal. Ansco and Ektacolor looked bad. Both the tech and the aesthetics of those dyes are usually inferior to today's routine professional portraits...which are mostly digital and inkjet, of course. Nostalgia is marketable but it's not "good."

Cheap 1954 school portraits of me and my sister and everybody else in our mid-sized town were dye transfer. Kodachromes from that era scan and inkjet-print more beautifully. The scans can be shared with family, can be backed up however you want.

Distribution of files is FAR more likely to make "archival" a reality than any of one's own prints or backups.

 

[jtk]

Neither of those actions in any way contributes meaningfully to the long term archivability of digital images: trusting a third party to preserve your work is a fools errand (none of them promises to safeguard your stuff indefinitely!). And as I said, ALL hard drives fail eventually. Even a faithful, diligent backing up of data on multiple drives is no guarantee that the work will live beyond the life of any individual drive.

There is NO LONG TERM SOLUTION to the problem of archiving digital data.

Your religious beliefs are your business, but your digital data in this era is archived best by distribution online. Cloud etc.

If one doesn't rely on cloud storage (I don't, yet, but I'm an old guy), one ALSO relies on DISTRIBUTION to multiple addresses. I do that digitally and, when relevant, by sending prints to friends (print album or exchange-style) and family.

Obviously, if one imagines one's prints and negatives are "archival," one has to have a lot of faith in whoever gets em' when they're daid.

Death happens.

 

[removedacct1]

Your religious beliefs are your business, but your digital data in this era is archived best by distribution online. Cloud etc.

If one doesn't rely on cloud storage (I don't, yet, but I'm an old guy), one ALSO relies on DISTRIBUTION to multiple addresses. I do that digitally and, when relevant, by sending prints to friends (print album or exchange-style) and family.

Obviously, if one imagines one's prints and negatives are "archival," one has to have a lot of faith in whoever gets em' when they're daid.

Death happens.

ALL of this is - for me - secondary to the fact that I have chosen in recent years to abandon the digital camera as an "art-making tool" in favor of my film and wet plate equipment, simply because they do not require any technology other than eyesight to interpret and display them for viewing. In the past 20 years, I have been let down repeatedly by various developers (Adobe included) who have either sold, abandoned, or retired various image making/viewing technologies and left me looking for an alternative. These days, the only truly viable alternative is non-electronic/digital - for me, that is.

 

[jamesaz]

Why? Production schedules demanded it.
I worked in commercial, corporate, industrial photography and as the reproduction process went digital and the camera products got better it had to happen, it was casual though, spread out over a few years. (I didn't find acceptable quality until the canon 10d, but that's just opinion.) It was all work for hire so storage was done at a corporate level.
Some short time after I retired from production photography, before I could get my personal storage issues sorted out, my back up drive died. Discouraged by the estimated recovery cost, I started shooting film again. It's working for me right now. I use digital for exploring concepts, for the instant feedback, but all my current projects are chemical based. This is not to say I will never have an idea that would be better presented in digital. When (if) that happens, great.
I put the dead drive in the shop last week in hopes of file recovery though. There are some images I'd like to revisit with alt process treatments.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I actually started taking digital photographs and movies in 1977 at JPL on Voyager I and Voyager II.

that one is hard to beat!

 

[jtk]

If relying only on hd backups it's cheap and zero hassle to double up and keep the twin isolated and unplugged. Thumb drives are also great for the purpose.

 

[removed account4]

Archival pigment prints are very archival. They are top notch, only surpassed by color separations or silver gelatin prints. (Of course you got the exotics, platinum, etc, but keeping the conversation to most common means.)

Hard to know seeing they are just being made the last handful of years in the grand scheme of things. I'm old enough to remember way way back in 2005 when labs were telling portrait photographers that the xyz paper they were using for their light jet had a 800 year lifespan ( some labs still say this with crystal archive ) ... and within a few months photographers by the arm load were knocking at the door of the photo labs because, well, the image colors shifted under UV &c glass. So as far as I am concerned Pigment Prints might be archival but they are not archival in other words, to quote a real estate guru who was trying to flip a white elephant that for 5 years had been through EVERY real estate agent in the region "you know, there are realtors, and then there are realtors" ...

In the 50s and 60s dye transfer was still the standard for inexpensive color portraits...

Not sure how inexpensive something would be when just getting to the place where you might start to make the print took 6 or 8 hours. I was just talking to my uncle who used to make dye transfers and making them was/is extremely labor intensive. I'm not sure how labor intensive becomes inexpensive, when each print's dye set is unique.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Archival pigment prints are very archival. They are top notch, only surpassed by color separations or silver gelatin prints. (Of course you got the exotics, platinum, etc, but keeping the conversation to most common means.)

and silver gelatine is only archival if processed properly, archival pigment prints are les error prone.

 

[Vilk]

... tyranny of film and the darkroom. At 71, I have less time left in life and I prefer to make the best of my days by seeing friends, being outdoors and travel - my nearly six decades of agitating Nikkor tanks...

replace 71 with 51, six decades with four, and i couldn't possibly say it better

 

[jtk]

Hard to know seeing they are just being made the last handful of years in the grand scheme of things. I'm old enough to remember way way back in 2005 when labs were telling portrait photographers that the xyz paper they were using for their light jet had a 800 year lifespan ( some labs still say this with crystal archive ) ... and within a few months photographers by the arm load were knocking at the door of the photo labs because, well, the image colors shifted under UV &c glass. So as far as I am concerned Pigment Prints might be archival but they are not archival in other words, to quote a real estate guru who was trying to flip a white elephant that for 5 years had been through EVERY real estate agent in the region "you know, there are realtors, and then there are realtors" ...


Not sure how inexpensive something would be when just getting to the place where you might start to make the print took 6 or 8 hours. I was just talking to my uncle who used to make dye transfers and making them was/is extremely labor intensive. I'm not sure how labor intensive becomes inexpensive, when each print's dye set is unique.

 

[jtk]

Back in the day (as they say today) the pros printed some dye work at top level...except when they were paying the rent with dye transfer mass production studio portraits and school photos. Dye transfer was almost totally killed off in the 70s by the excellence readily expected from Ektacolor as well as Kodaks C41 internegs.

 

[jvo]

what's a scanner?

 

[removed account4]

Back in the day (as they say today) the pros printed some dye work at top level...except when they were paying the rent with dye transfer mass production studio portraits and school photos. Dye transfer was almost totally killed off in the 70s by the excellence readily expected from Ektacolor as well as Kodaks C41 internegs.

weird..
i'll be seeing my uncle in a couple of days and i'll ask him about this. being someone who actually did this process ( I'll be looking at them when I see him ) he told me the opposite last week. For people reading this thread who might wonder what a dye transfer print might be .. >>> http://ctein.com/dyetrans.htm <<< explains it, and talks about how time consuming and expensive it is to do them well. he says a 16x20 cost about 100$ in materials and would take more than a day to make 1 print. I can't imagine how a print mill / school photo mill would just churn these out for not much money in return, maybe they didn't do them "well" ?. It makes me wonder how much william eggelston spent on his prints seeing they were being churned out like machine prints in 1999. I hope my uncle says " of course they took no time at all to make and they were pumping out school portraits with this process" I love learning new things and being wrong.

 

[NedL]

... For people reading this thread who might wonder what a dye transfer print might be ...

and then read: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/making-a-dye-transfer-matrix-film.29949/

and then this incredible site: http://www.dyetransfer.org/Site/Dye_Transfer_Resources.html

 

[removed account4]

and then read: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/making-a-dye-transfer-matrix-film.29949/

and then this incredible site: http://www.dyetransfer.org/Site/Dye_Transfer_Resources.html

Jeez, I forgot about that thread and site; thanks NedL !
Definately 1910 all over again

 

[naaldvoerder]

Oh and other than scanning old color slides, I don't scan much.

I understand film, but I don't understand why someone would shoot 35mm film over full frame digital. Of course you can buy an amazing used film camera for peanuts so that's a darn good reason. And if you didn't grow up with film, I can understand the need to experience all manner of film. Even if that means scanning to see your results.

I do understand. For the grain!

 

[mshchem]

When you grow up with the "old Tri-X" you've had plenty of grain. Modern film is so radically different than what was made pre-80's, there's no comparison. I have given up trying to use a grain focuser strictly on "grain" when printing. I don't scan, if I did I would probably shoot color negative film. For me the utility of film is for PRINTING . If all I did was inkjet, and computer display, I probably would use digital exclusively. (Oh except for color slides ) You can add grain with software. I'm not saying to stop buying film, it's so much fun.
One other thing about film that's amazing. Right now you can find used film cameras and lenses for almost nothing. No barrier to starting to get amazing results.
I hope that I can keep going in my darkroom for a long time. I love it all.
Best Regards Mike

 

[mooseontheloose]

Over the years I've flirted with the idea of digital cameras, having several times nearly purchased one - thinking it was time to catch up with what everyone else was doing, or because I wanted to break into the business (wedding photography), or whatever. But for various reasons, I never did - often it was a cost issue - not only getting the camera, but replacing my lenses, getting a better computer to handle the digital files, printer, inks, software, etc. - all things I didn't need with film. However back around 2014 things had changed - Provia 400x had been discontinued, and with it, the last chance to shoot colour slide film at higher ISOs (I find it pushes really nicely too). I travel a lot and there are a lot of places where you can't use flash or a tripod, and I wanted something that could handle lower light situations for times when film could not do that for me. I looked at the Nikon D800, but the weight of just of the body alone quickly eliminated that (and other DSLRs) as a choice. I wanted a camera to supplement film, not replace it. So I ended up with a Fuji X100s - small, no extra lenses to tempt me, and good low-light capabilities. I did bring it on trips initially, but I have to admit that I don't bother with it anymore - it just adds more weight to my camera bag, and my iPhone camera is what I use now in those situations. The phone images are really for my blog, and occasionally sharing with friends. Most of my photography is still with film, and I like it that way. I'm not a professional, I don't care about sharing on social media, and I like the process from start to finish, none of which requires a computer (other than to check development times for new combinations).

 

[C Henry]

I use my phone to photograph prints, or if I have more time, I scan them.
Have nothing against digital capture, just not for me.

 

[slackercrurster]

Now, if you are going digital, then make a library of letter size pigment prints of what you want to archive. That will be your backup to fall back on. I need to get going on that myself. Use letter size Hollinger archival boxes and stack em up with master prints. I had some scan comparisons but can't find em. You can recover +/- 90% or so from a master print.