Digital Storage a Problem

[lifeboat1721]

I was sent this link and it makes me think ??

http://www.photostuff.co.uk/rr3.htm

Ian

[miketoll]

Skimmed through it and wonder when it was written as many of his points seem very out of date such is the speed of development and price changes.

[gordon g]

I agree, sounds very dated. I understand his enjoyment of the darkroom, but digital imaging has matured a lot, producing high quality prints is easy and cheap, especially enlargements if done at home (getting a 18" by 12" print done in a shop would be a bit pricey, even now, but at home it is much more affordable). Memory has never been so cheap. Yes - archival quality digital storage doesnt really exist, but given the ease of backing up image files, I think it is probably more secure than keeping negatives. I do still have several shoeboxes of negatives, but worry about light damage, dust/scratches, things getting spilt on them etc. I have made good quality scans of some of the more important ones, and these are on 3 separate hard drives, which gives a bit of redundancy as well as ease of reproduction.
In summary - digital storage shouldnt be an issue, just as digital capture isnt for most of us. The limitations of the technology are easy enough to work around, and the advantages outway them.

[Joe]

It's the old chestnut of film vs digital. Unfortunately, it does seem out of date. The points raised do have merit, but does it make the author sound as though he's pursued all options with an open mind? I'm not so sure.
It's true that digital technology is beginning to reach a plateau where new models arent such a giant leap from last years model (d1 vs d2, then d2 vs d3. or 10D verses 30D, then 30D verses 50D for examples)....similar is happening in the computing world.
Even a this evening I was talking to the in-law about my F5 and should I keep the film stock etc. For now I want to hang on to it. Unfortunately for me, justifying this becomes becomes less straight forward as my digital kit gets better. I've been thoroughly impressed by my D2, with picture taking speed matching the F5, but post process out striping the F5 by miles.
The question is a matter of how you use your pictures too, not just storage.

I love film, and hope to continue using some, but it is because i enjoy it. I don't 'poo poo' either medium, because both have there strenghts and weaknesses.

Embrace technology or be buried underneath it. Move with the times and form educated balanced opinions. In my view, outdated and narrow minded views really don't help encourage people to take photographs.

[nirofo]

I agree that film, for me at any rate is still desirable when it comes to long term storage and I still use it for landscapes and closeups by preference. I have a personal 35mm slide library of more than 75000, some of these are over 40 years old and are still quite useable. I wonder just what the long term storage prospects are for the serious amateur digital photographer? I have PC's dating back to the old 286 with 640K memory, a seperate 51/4" floppy drive and a huge 10Mb (yes Mb) separate hard drive that cost me £350. I could plug in a SCSI card and use my old Nikon film scanner on this at a pinch, (I would need to write a small DOS program to run it), it would be desperately slow but would work. Try plugging your digital 8.0Gb memory card or your 1.0Tb hard drive into this. What I'm trying to get at is that as technology moves on do we keep all our old computers just so we can retrieve our photo's in 40 years time, what will the computers of 2050 look like, maybe you'll wear it on your wrist and use it's built in camera with no lens to store your 1.0Tb image file onto it's built in 10Pb solid state storage system! But where do you plug in your old CD, DVD or hard drives where all your carefully backed up photo's were stored all those years ago, and wait a minute, how do you run that old Windows XP/Vista software ?

nirofo.

[robski]

If you nose around the site it was last updated in 2001.

Life of media is always going to be a problem. Look at what happened to wax cylinders, 78s, 45s, 33s , 8 track tape in the music recording industry. Some may say that sheet music will never go out of date. You know the old saying never say never

We don't even know for sure if we would have the technology to process a film neg or a slide to produce prints in 20 years time.

[andy153]

Storage will always be a problem, I think the key lies in regular checks and weeding. Having just moved house I came across years and years of slides, prints and negatives - what to do with them? Scan them to disc? When did I last look at them? If I am honest, some have not seen the light of day for over twenty years. I take pictures for me and Lindsay so I think they may well be consigned to the bin of History.

[wolfie]

Andy, I had exactly the same problem when I moved house and as you are considering, they where consigned to the bin of history or to be more accurate the local tip.