Why you should be shooting film

[blockend]

All smartphones these days have automatic cloud storage of all photos taken with the phone.

Are you saying your great grand daughter will be able to access your cloud in 2067? I assume every current technological interface will be dead and gone ten times over by then, as will all the companies that control them. The idea the digital storage picture in 2017 will last ten years, let alone 50, is not born out by anything we know about the technology or the commerce behind the technology.

 

[Luckless]

Yes then the photographs will degrade over time unless you regularly refresh every file. Of course when the OS changes or gets replaced or when the storage format changes or you just replace your computer, there is a risk that the images will be lost. NASA almost lost all the pre Apollo landing surveys, but did lose many other photographs. But that is not important because you are so confident that you know more about digital storage than the industry experts and researchers. Good luck to you.

It is almost as if the industry as a whole has learned a thing or two over the years and have established standards because of mistakes from the past... Welcome to the modern world of computing, whether options such as error correcting exists, and keeping multiply redundant copies are a trivial thing. Not to mention a very ingrained concept of legacy support.

It isn't the early years with dozens of competing companies all trying to push their brand and their way of doing things, and all the risk of them likely going out of business and the rest of the world moving on with completely different technologies and formats. We're not going to wake up tomorrow and see headlines of Microsoft having gone bankrupt, and everyone shrug their shoulders to say "Well, guess that's that. Lets toss what's probably a Zettabyte or so of data by now and move on to the 'next big thing'. I didn't want those photos anyway..."

When the user base for a technology could be numbered in the thousands, then yes technology eclipsing was a risk. However most of what we all use day to day is being used by billions now.

As for the doomsday "Technology will eventually move on and you won't be able to read the files!!!" - This is why the majority of the computing world runs on fairly open specifications. Did you know that kids with their fancy 3D printers can build a 5.25 floppy drive and read data from them?

We are no more likely to lose the ability to read and translate any file format in wide spread usage now than we are to lose the ability to translate Latin. There is too much of it and it is too important to the world.

 

[blockend]

It is almost as if the industry as a whole has learned a thing or two over the years and have established standards because of mistakes from the past... Welcome to the modern world of computing, whether options such as error correcting exists, and keeping multiply redundant copies are a trivial thing. Not to mention a very ingrained concept of legacy support.

It isn't the early years with dozens of competing companies all trying to push their brand and their way of doing things, and all the risk of them likely going out of business and the rest of the world moving on with completely different technologies and formats. We're not going to wake up tomorrow and see headlines of Microsoft having gone bankrupt, and everyone shrug their shoulders to say "Well, guess that's that. Lets toss what's probably a Zettabyte or so of data by now and move on to the 'next big thing'. I didn't want those photos anyway..."

When the user base for a technology could be numbered in the thousands, then yes technology eclipsing was a risk. However most of what we all use day to day is being used by billions now.

As for the doomsday "Technology will eventually move on and you won't be able to read the files!!!" - This is why the majority of the computing world runs on fairly open specifications. Did you know that kids with their fancy 3D printers can build a 5.25 floppy drive and read data from them?

We are no more likely to lose the ability to read and translate any file format in wide spread usage now than we are to lose the ability to translate Latin. There is too much of it and it is too important to the world.

Too big to fail is a mantra repeated throughout history.

 

[Saganich]

It reminded me of a concept I ran across last month in a book about economic/technical/environmental sustainability in systems, namely RIQ (Relative Intelligence Quotient), which suggests the more technical, complex, or rapidly changing a system becomes, the lower our relative intelligence becomes and therefore the less able we are to cope with problems that arise in the system. In the 1980's I started writing digital images to film for archiving and then as now it never made much sense to consider a digital image archived. The best you can do is bring it all up to date as tech changes, but that assumes A) you will have the resources to do it, B) you will have access to the technology necessary, and C) someone will continue after you die (and have to manage A and B throughout their lives). It all seems like low probability anything digital will survive 100 years. None of this considers the growing amount of finite energy resources these systems depend upon. There is real possibility that in order to keep this technology (like any complex infrastructure we rely upon) maintained will begin competing with other necessities like food production. Who wins who looses? Whose infrastructure gets maintained? Can't maintain it indefinitely with the depleting energy resources? I know it sounds like a straw man argument but it is also fallacy or wishful thinking to be sure these technical problems will be solved through continued growth and technical advancement. Isn't that like a snake swallowing it's own tail?

 

[faberryman]

It all seems like low probability anything digital will survive 100 years.

Anything digital? All digital still images will not survive? All digital video will not survive? All digital music will not survive? All computer files will not survive? Really? That is your prediction?

 

[Saganich]

Anything digital? All digital still images will not survive? All digital video will not survive? All digital music will not survive? All computer files will not survive? Really? That is your prediction?

Sorry I made an edit to the original post, but yes the nature of these systems will not accommodate long term archiving. The technology will exist likely but for how long can we maintain a growing energy hungry infrastructure? Any decline in its support will have consequences, any decline in support for any other complex necessary infrastructure will also have effects, any decline in our bottom lines will have an effect. I see these systems as fragile and having poor resilience on the individual level. Have middle class refugees manages to archive their files before fleeing their city? Will those files be recoverable? The systems may be available into the future but only under the most stable of conditions.

 

[LAG]

Too big to fail is a mantra repeated throughout history.

Ignorance is repeated more often, almost as much as the denial of reality.

It reminded me of a concept I ran across last month in a book about economic/technical/environmental sustainability in systems, namely RIQ (Relative Intelligence Quotient), which suggests the more technical, complex, or rapidly changing a system becomes, the lower our relative intelligence becomes and therefore the less able we are to cope with problems that arise in the system.

That theory works very well with people not with machines

In the 1980's I started writing digital images to film for archiving and then as now it never made much sense to consider a digital image archived. The best you can do is bring it all up to date as tech changes, but that assumes A) you will have the resources to do it, B) you will have access to the technology necessary, and C) someone will continue after you die (and have to manage A and B throughout their lives). It all seems like low probability anything digital will survive 100 years.

Again, due to a human decision to stop the process at a given time, not because the storage factor fails (Same thing could happen if my ... daughter decides to burn all my negatives and prints in the future ... or burn the hard drives)

None of this considers the growing amount of finite energy resources these systems depend upon. There is real possibility that in order to keep this technology (like any complex infrastructure we rely upon) maintained will begin competing with other necessities like food production. Who wins who looses? Whose infrastructure gets maintained? Can't maintain it indefinitely with the depleting energy resources? I know it sounds like a straw man argument but it is also fallacy or wishful thinking to be sure these technical problems will be solved through continued growth and technical advancement. Isn't that like a snake swallowing it's own tail?

And when the sun goes down, it will not matter if you have a negative or a JPG. Game Over.

 

[Helios 1984]

Anything digital? All digital still images will not survive? All digital video will not survive? All digital music will not survive? All computer files will not survive? Really? That is your prediction?

The Internet will not survive, it's not like it brings hundred of billion dollars...

 

[blockend]

And when the sun goes down, it will not matter if you have a negative or a JPG. Game Over.

Digital media is vulnerable to technological, commercial, political and environmental change. People don't want to believe it, they think volume alone will carry it through. I disagree. Time will tell who is correct.

 

[LAG]

Digital media is vulnerable to technological, commercial, political and environmental change. People don't want to believe it, they think volume alone will carry it through. I disagree. Time will tell who is correct.

That technology changes is a fact, but believe it or not what it leaves behind is not a trace of a "falling" star

p.s. you should edit your "quote" (it was me)

 

[blockend]

That technology changes is a fact, but believe it or not what it leaves behind is not a trace of a "falling" star

I don't know what that means. I'm extrapolating what I know of technology and business into the future, and saying what now seems permanent won't be, and that's true of the near future as well as the distant. If you enjoy updating your systems you might keep up in your own lifetime - so long as the political, social and commercial picture doesn't change - but its accessibility to people you'd like to see your pictures beyond that (family, friends, admirers) is not something I'd trust to the barons of cyberspace. It's clear I don't share the optimism of some here about the stability of any of the platforms or access to whatever replaces them. I doubt most people have even thought about the issue seriously, and few of them care either way.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

... We're not going to wake up tomorrow and see headlines of Microsoft having gone bankrupt...

Hey, don't dash my dreams, man...


(I'm an old Unix --Bell Labs, Digital Equipment Corporation -- guy)

...
Did you know that kids with their fancy 3D printers can build a 5.25 floppy drive and read data from them?
...

They could, but they don't and they won't. Why? Because they perceive there's nothing important on that media (like my 1974 Lunar Lander game).

Saving digital images isn't a technological problem - it's a problem of the will of our heirs to value an ancestor's images and continue to preserve them. That's true of negatives or prints as well. However, as with the example of Vivian Maier, having the images immediately viewable by a mere stranger is an advantage.

 

[Saganich]

I don't know what that means. I'm extrapolating what I know of technology and business into the future, and saying what now seems permanent won't be, and that's true of the near future as well as the distant. If you enjoy updating your systems you might keep up in your own lifetime - so long as the political, social and commercial picture doesn't change - but its accessibility to people you'd like to see your pictures beyond that (family, friends, admirers) is not something I'd trust to the barons of cyberspace. It's clear I don't share the optimism of some here about the stability of any of the platforms or access to whatever replaces them. I doubt most people have even thought about the issue seriously, and few of them care either way.

Ignorance is repeated more often, almost as much as the denial of reality.



That theory works very well with people not with machines



Again, due to a human decision to stop the process at a given time, not because the storage factor fails (Same thing could happen if my ... daughter decides to burn all my negatives and prints in the future ... or burn the hard drives)



And when the sun goes down, it will not matter if you have a negative or a JPG. Game Over.

Machines don't have human intelligence so I'm not sure about that but I think I get where your coming from. The human choice example is difficult because if your daughter burns your stuff it wasn't your choice, just like if my hard drive fails it wasn't my choice for that to happen. I understand what your saying, keeping up with tech CAN BE my choice but the technology has to be available, which may not be the case for many reasons, maybe I became demented, maybe prices went too high. This argument also assumes equality between making images and preserving them, which isn't the case. It takes way less resources to make an image then to archive, so the "time bomb" like the housing collapse when it was way easier to get a house compared to maintaining one, is possible since the same failure to account for resource use over time is apparent. Much personal digital information will be lost BUT we also make so much more than the past so perhaps by percentage the loss won't be more than whats expected...How many shoe boxes of negs were lost to time? And finally, YES, when the sun goes down...agreed I just hope it is along way off.

 

[Sirius Glass]

It is almost as if the industry as a whole has learned a thing or two over the years and have established standards because of mistakes from the past... Welcome to the modern world of computing, whether options such as error correcting exists, and keeping multiply redundant copies are a trivial thing. Not to mention a very ingrained concept of legacy support.

It isn't the early years with dozens of competing companies all trying to push their brand and their way of doing things, and all the risk of them likely going out of business and the rest of the world moving on with completely different technologies and formats. We're not going to wake up tomorrow and see headlines of Microsoft having gone bankrupt, and everyone shrug their shoulders to say "Well, guess that's that. Lets toss what's probably a Zettabyte or so of data by now and move on to the 'next big thing'. I didn't want those photos anyway..."

When the user base for a technology could be numbered in the thousands, then yes technology eclipsing was a risk. However most of what we all use day to day is being used by billions now.

As for the doomsday "Technology will eventually move on and you won't be able to read the files!!!" - This is why the majority of the computing world runs on fairly open specifications. Did you know that kids with their fancy 3D printers can build a 5.25 floppy drive and read data from them?

We are no more likely to lose the ability to read and translate any file format in wide spread usage now than we are to lose the ability to translate Latin. There is too much of it and it is too important to the world.

Nature is a bitch. The laws of physic have your whistling in the wind, unless there are several really great break troughs in memory storage. When you loose your photographs please contact me so I can say, "Told you so."

 

[LAG]

That technology changes is a fact, but believe it or not what it leaves behind is not a trace of a "falling" star

I don't know what that means. I'm extrapolating what I know of technology and business into the future, and saying what now seems permanent won't be, and that's true of the near future as well as the distant.

What it means is that Technological advances (hardware & software) do not leave behind any previous document that may have been created, even if that document does not correspond with the new software and its new native management.

Just as I can have a 27-year-old computer (1990) in my home warehouse (discontinued in 1994) working as the first day - slowly - and with no problems to be repaired in case of error, since its internal structure (electronically speaking) it is more simple than today's - whose software or hardware then, without being prepared with the advances of today, allows me to turn on and see on the screen any photos that I've recorded on a 3.5 floppy disk that has come out of a Sony Mavica camera. Documents - and this is the most important - that are saved on the new one and I can read today with any current (and future) computer.

If you enjoy updating your systems you might keep up in your own lifetime - so long as the political, social and commercial picture doesn't change - but its accessibility to people you'd like to see your pictures beyond that (family, friends, admirers) is not something I'd trust to the barons of cyberspace.

Updating: My current computer is from 04/2007 (BIOS date) and I haven't hardly updated anything. So, looking to the future with my d-g-t-l photographic needs (which are of a very very low interest by the way) I have computer for the rest of my days.

Cyberspace: No connection to any network is required for any computer to work, nor for any computer to read a d-g-t-l photos.

It's clear I don't share the optimism of some here about the stability of any of the platforms or access to whatever replaces them. I doubt most people have even thought about the issue seriously, and few of them care either way.

Optimism, Thoughts & Care are each individual's business.

Best

 

[blockend]

​

What it means is that Technological advances (hardware & software) do not leave behind any previous document that may have been created, even if that document does not correspond with the new software and its new native management.

Your comments suggest you have an above average knowledge of computing systems. I don't believe photographers as a whole do have that knowledge. Popular photography developed to require less knowledge to achieve a successful print.

 

[LAG]

I don't believe photographers as a whole do have that knowledge

Then you should consider that as the real problem, and not the storage system, nor the durability over time or the rest of short vision ideas announced in the OP video, as the definitives arguments for shooting film.

 

[blockend]

Then you should consider that as the real problem, and not the storage system, nor the durability over time or the rest of short vision ideas announced in the OP video, as the definitives arguments for shooting film.

Photography is making pictures with a camera. It's completely democratic, your grandma can do it, George Eastman made it so. Why introduce a lot of transient hands-on technology when you have a stable, mature, hands-off one open to everyone? The only advantage digital has is the number of shutter clicks it allows you to make, and how quickly you can allow the image to be seen electronically. It's the perfect eBay and Facebook medium, but people have different outcome needs.

The Instant film market is absolutely booming because people still want to hold a print.

 

[twelvetone12]

Popular photography developed to require less knowledge to achieve a successful print.

Dunno. Yesterday I went to my supermarket, stepped to a photo kiosk, plugged in my smartphone and printed a couple images from it. Didn't seem that difficult.

 

[Arctic amateur]

Are you saying your great grand daughter will be able to access your cloud in 2067? I assume every current technological interface will be dead and gone ten times over by then, as will all the companies that control them. The idea the digital storage picture in 2017 will last ten years, let alone 50, is not born out by anything we know about the technology or the commerce behind the technology.

You said "I don't know anyone, personally, who backs up images from their phone to a computer." That was what I replied to.

Dropbox, possibly also other cloud storage services, will copy your phone's pictures both to the cloud and your desktop computer automatically, if you enable that feature.

But your comment about access for future generations should include an important point: Computer and phone manufacturers are encouraging us to lock down our devices with passwords and disk encryption, to protect us from identity theft and abuse of our personal data. A phone password can't easily be bypassed. Disk/device encryption, if properly implemented with a good password/other authentication, can't be bypassed. My digital photos are currently in one cloud sync service, two cloud backup services and an encrypted hard drive in my laptop. My negatives are in a clamshell binder on my bookshelf, or in a box containing developed uncut film.

Computer stolen? My data are safely locked down, no risk of identity theft, and I can restore from the cloud backups. Major inconvenience, but nothing that can't be undone with a handsome chunk of money and patience.

House burns down? Roof springs a leak? Computer destroyed, negatives destroyed. Computer can be replaced and data restored, negatives can't (except for those few I have scanned).

I die? Negatives are safe and accessible, digital photos are safely stored and inaccessible on the encrypted disk and in the cloud (until payment is overdue, at which point the for-pay cloud services will delete my accounts).

What I should do, if I have time: Write down disk/backup passwords and store in a "safe" place, if one exists. Scan all negatives. Make photos available on a non-encrypted backup disk. When will I have time? Probably never.

 

[klownshed]

Write down disk/backup passwords and store in a "safe" place, if one exists

You should write down all your passwords on a notepad, take a photo of the note and store that negative in your binder (which will last forever). Easy

 

[Arctic amateur]

Your comments suggest you have an above average knowledge of computing systems. I don't believe photographers as a whole do have that knowledge. Popular photography developed to require less knowledge to achieve a successful print.

By "photographers", do you mean people who have photography as a serious hobby or as a living, or anybody who uses a camera?

 

[blockend]

By "photographers", do you mean people who have photography as a serious hobby or as a living, or anybody who uses a camera?

Professionals account for less than 1% of photos taken, so aren't relevant to the discussion. I mean photography for pleasure and self expression, the content of most APUG threads.

 

[LAG]

Photography is making pictures with a camera. It's completely democratic, your grandma can do it, George Eastman made it so.

That includes a d-g-t-l democratic camera

The only advantage digital has is the number of shutter clicks it allows you to make, and how quickly you can allow the image to be seen electronically. It's the perfect eBay and Facebook medium, but people have different outcome needs.

D-g-t-l Photography has advantages and disadvantages (not only one or two) as well as any other means of photographic expression - with or without film - has.

You should write down all your passwords on a notepad, take a photo of the note and store that negative in your binder (which will last forever). Easy

Thanks for your sense of humor

 

[blockend]

Dunno. Yesterday I went to my supermarket, stepped to a photo kiosk, plugged in my smartphone and printed a couple images from it. Didn't seem that difficult.

Do you have any figures for the amount of prints made per shutter press, re. film vs digital? Or the amounts of prints made in total compared to film days? I suspect your print making habits are the exception.