Vintage photography...curious about other people's views

[Buckster]

Most of our digital stuff won't be around in 5 years.

I don't see that at all. I agree with Jerry.

I still have the very first scans I ever did, made some 25 years ago. They are scans of physical photos of my daughter, and some other select photos I'd shot.

I just always made sure I had redundant copies on multiple backups, and updated any file formats or media types as needed. They were scanned to my new (huge at the time) 20MB hard drive, and backed up to 5.25", then eventually copied to to 1.44", then zip, then CD, then DVD.

My hard drive array has grown over that period of time from that whopping 20MB drive to 16 drives that total over 30TB of space to work with, and further backup to 2 separate cloud services. The first thing I do when I bring photos into my computer from my camera's card is run a backup of them to a redundant drive.

Unless electronics stop working forever, our digital stuff will be around for as long as anyone cares enough to take the minimal step needed in order to preserve it. The minimal step is: Backup, backup, backup, backup - to new media as available, converting to new formats if warranted.

 

[480sparky]

Most of our digital stuff won't be around in 5 years.

I don't see that at all. ........

I'm talking digital files in general.... not just images.

You're not taking into account that 99% of people don't take the time to preserve what they have. I, too, have files on my computer dating back to the early 90's. But most people just let their stuff go. Either their hard drive crashes and they never pony up for a recovery, or they accidently delete files and never know it. Whatever reason, the fact you YOU have a rigorous back-up routine doesn't mean everyone else does. And sadly, most don't.

 

[Buckster]

I'm talking digital files in general.... not just images.

You're not taking into account that 99% of people don't take the time to preserve what they have. I, too, have files on my computer dating back to the early 90's. But most people just let their stuff go. Either their hard drive crashes and they never pony up for a recovery, or they accidently delete files and never know it. Whatever reason, the fact you YOU have a rigorous back-up routine doesn't mean everyone else does. And sadly, most don't.

Quite right.

I took "our digital stuff" literally.

 

[desertrattm2r12]

Yeah, well Kodak bet a few billion dollars that their technology would be on top forever.
And Packard was on the top of the heap once. When's the last time you saw that brand rolling down the pike? Detroit auto workers wanted their unions to negotiate a "f*c* off" day, a day off with pay for any trivial reason they wanted. Those workers have a lot free days now.
In the MS-DOS days I had an off-brand word processor software that automatically changed Macintosh (the computer) to McIntosh (the fruit) and you could not change it back. I guess the propeller heads that wrote the software thought that was very funny. Imagine writing a resume and not noticing their vandalism, presenting yourself as a computer guru and can't even spell one of the major brands right. I dumped that garbage and I think it would be hard to find it today.
Any film negatives from 50 years and more previous to that software still works perfectly fine.
I just bought a Nikon DSLR for 50 bucks. Hummmm...
I think a French guy wrote about the dangers of thinking ours is a perfect world today.

 

[Ysarex]

Any film negatives from 50 years and more previous to that software still works perfectly fine.

Not if they're color or rather not if they were color. My earliest digital photos have now outlasted the color negatives I shot at the same time. The only way to preserve those color film images is to digitize them.

Joe

 

[desertrattm2r12]

Yes, I was speaking of b&w. But you can pull a Technicolor and make 3 or 4 b&w images that ca be made back into color, and save them that way, or make copy negatives.

 

[desertrattm2r12]

Did I mention I have color slides from the big press party (1800 members of the press) at the original Disneyland the evening before it opened the middle 1950s? They are just fine. I keep them cool and out of the humidity.
I have color negatives of Jayne Mansfield in her fabulous Pink Palace mansion that I shot in the early 1960s (along with b&w and color slides) and they are all just fine.

 

[Gary A.]

Film negatives and wet-based printed photographs are not inert. Over time photographs will fade into plain paper and negatives will entropy into something else. It is easier to keep digital alive and well than film. With digital, even though the storage has become completely obsolete, at least there is an outside chance of restoration. When a printed photo fades to white or the emulsion cakes off a negative ... There is no chance of restoration.

 

[JerryPH]

We are living in the Digital Dark Ages. Most of our digital stuff won't be around in 5 years.

As someone who has been in the IT industry since many years before the internet even existed, I find that hard to believe. I have one of the first production CDs that I burned back in the 80's and it reads just fine as of this morning. The day CD burners/readers become defunct, I will move that data to whatever that new medium is. There is NO generational loss in copying digital data.

In the 70's people were saying that by the year 2000, we'd all be travelling in flying cars, indeed, there is nothing even close to that happening. As fast as we evolve technologically, a great many things don't change all that fast. Data storage mediums and JPG formats, as examples, change VERY slowly.

In 5 years, we will be EXACTLY where we are today, advancements aside. Your example is not globally accurate. Just because NASA has data they don't understand, does not mean that there is no one globally able to access that data, nor that there isn't anyone willing to invest time, money, etc... to relearn how to access it. The real secret is... how important is this data? If it's not important or inaccurate, why waste the time on it?

In the world of photography, photos have particular importance to their owners or the family of the owners. If they don't take the time to make sure their memories are safe, then they are saying that it is just not all that important to them... not that it is lost.

 

[limr]

Nothing is invulnerable. Everything can perish. And any method of storage/preservation is only as good as the people who know how to store the information properly and the ones who know how to retrieve the information properly. There are advantages and disadvantages to preserving film just as there are advantages and disadvantages to preserving digital. When the tech developing Robert Capa's film accidentally melted the emulsion off the bulk of that film, a huge number of images from the D-Day invasion in Normandy were gone forever. At the same time, a box of exposed but undeveloped negatives that were frozen in ice in Antarctica for 100 years still yielded images: 100-Year-Old Negatives Found in Antarctica: Photos : DNews. Digital files can be stored and retrieved for just as long, providing there is technology available that can read the storage medium. The state of those images will be better, I'm sure. But that data can also just as easily be compromised both physically if the card is damaged, or functionally if no one knows how to get to the data.

Frankly, I have a hard time understanding why anyone can be so sure of the benefits/drawbacks of one or the other until enough time passes to provide a more equal comparison. Maybe when we're looking at 100-year-old digital files found on a floppy disk or hard drive in someone's attic or frozen in ice, we can know better what the real advantages or disadvantages are. At this point, it's purely speculative.

 

[480sparky]

We are living in the Digital Dark Ages. Most of our digital stuff won't be around in 5 years.

As someone who has been in the IT industry since many years before the internet even existed, I find that hard to believe. I have one of the first production CDs that I burned back in the 80's and it reads just fine as of this morning. The day CD burners/readers become defunct, I will move that data to whatever that new medium is. There is NO generational loss in copying digital data.

In the 70's people were saying that by the year 2000, we'd all be travelling in flying cars, indeed, there is nothing even close to that happening. As fast as we evolve technologically, a great many things don't change all that fast. Data storage mediums and JPG formats, as examples, change VERY slowly.

In 5 years, we will be EXACTLY where we are today, advancements aside. Your example is not globally accurate. Just because NASA has data they don't understand, does not mean that there is no one globally able to access that data, nor that there isn't anyone willing to invest time, money, etc... to relearn how to access it. The real secret is... how important is this data? If it's not important or inaccurate, why waste the time on it?

In the world of photography, photos have particular importance to their owners or the family of the owners. If they don't take the time to make sure their memories are safe, then they are saying that it is just not all that important to them... not that it is lost.

You miss the point. Lots of files every day are lost. Hard drives crash. People have fires in their homes. They accidentally delete stuff and are never even aware of it. Computers are stolen. Hackers wipe drives clean.

You need to look past your own nose. Just because YOU are digital-savvy doesn't mean everyone is. I'll bet most people don't have more than one copy of any digital file. And you of all people should know what that means.

How often does someone sign up here, pleading for help recovering images from a corrupt SD card?

Once again... I'm not speaking specifically about any one person. Overall, a lot of files will disappear. You can't just claim "I still have files from 1978.....!" and convice yourself that files (all files, everywhere, whomsoever has them) don't vanish.

 

[Ysarex]

Did I mention I have color slides from the big press party (1800 members of the press) at the original Disneyland the evening before it opened the middle 1950s? They are just fine. I keep them cool and out of the humidity.
I have color negatives of Jayne Mansfield in her fabulous Pink Palace mansion that I shot in the early 1960s (along with b&w and color slides) and they are all just fine.

They are not in their original condition. They have faded. Even if you had freeze-dried them they would still have changed. The basic laws of physics and chemistry do apply.

A digital photo taken at the same time and preserved till today would be in it's original condition.

Joe

 

[Ysarex]

Yes, I was speaking of b&w. But you can pull a Technicolor and make 3 or 4 b&w images that ca be made back into color, and save them that way, or make copy negatives.

Not without loss. All forms of analog duplication represent a degradation of the original including digitization. All analog data is degrading and unless digitized will eventually turn to dust albeit in some cases over a very long time. No form of analog duplication can prevent that. Digitization arrests that process and renders the data permanent since no amount of duplication will degrade digital data.

The principles are basic and simple:

All analog data is actively degrading.
No form of analog duplication can arrest or prevent analog degradation.
Digital data does not degrade and can be duplicated an infinite number of times without loss. That is a fundamental difference between the two.
To preserve analog data for as long as possible: digitize it.

There are lots of qualifications to the above that involve conservation and usage practices but those are just that -- practices.

Joe

edit: Thinking about practice here and the critique that digital is vulnerable to evolving practice it's worth noting that the method identified above to preserve a color image by creating b&w separations would require a new analog print be made using a dye-transfer process. When in the 1990s did Kodak discontinue supplying dye-transfer materials?

 

[JerryPH]

You need to look past your own nose. Just because YOU are digital-savvy doesn't mean everyone is. I'll bet most people don't have more than one copy of any digital file. And you of all people should know what that means.

How often does someone sign up here, pleading for help recovering images from a corrupt SD card?

Once again... I'm not speaking specifically about any one person. Overall, a lot of files will disappear. You can't just claim "I still have files from 1978.....!" and convice yourself that files (all files, everywhere, whomsoever has them) don't vanish.

In the past people had to LEARN that if they wanted to keep the colours from their glass plated photos, they had to be stored in dry DARK locations. Later people had to learn to keep their negatives in dark locations.

Today people need to LEARN how to protect their digital data, either by uploading to cloud locations, doubling up on file copies or trusting professional backup services.

Key word here... LEARN. If you didn't learn, you lost photos in the past, and will continue to lose photos in the future. For everyone that you say loses photos, there are 10 people that took the time to do something to protect theirs, so, I am not needing to look past my nose, thanks. My nose, as a professional wedding photographer, includes me being knowledgeable enough to protect my clients via tens of 0f thousands of dollars in automated redundant hardware that stores copies in multiple physical locations (minimum of 5 copies in 3 locations exist for any of my paid work, and as many as 9 copies exist for personal works that I consider important and irreplaceable).

I will say it again... If you don't care to learn how to protect yourself... you don't care. The only option after that is to learn to live with the consequences.

In the case of dying storage medium... simple answer. Buy garbage storage medium with the intent of saving $20, you will lose more than you may be ready to lose. Strange coincidence... yet another small thing to learn.

This stuff is far from rocket science in today's well advanced technological world. If me as a 55 year old man can learn it the more advanced technologies, surely most other average people can (and indeed many do) learn how to make any of dozens of different ways to make a simple copy or backup of their digital data.

The question again is... how important is that data to you and what will you do to protect it?

My dad taught me early on that each person should take responsibility for their own actions. Maybe that's why I depend on myself to be as knowledgeable as I need to be, irrespective of if that is how to safely drive a vehicle, how to tie a tie, tie my shoes or how to protect my data from loss. I suppose everyone cannot be that way... but maybe those that need to... should be.

 

[480sparky]

You need to look past your own nose. Just because YOU are digital-savvy doesn't mean everyone is. I'll bet most people don't have more than one copy of any digital file. And you of all people should know what that means.

How often does someone sign up here, pleading for help recovering images from a corrupt SD card?

Once again... I'm not speaking specifically about any one person. Overall, a lot of files will disappear. You can't just claim "I still have files from 1978.....!" and convice yourself that files (all files, everywhere, whomsoever has them) don't vanish.

In the past people had to LEARN that if they wanted to keep the colours from their glass plated photos, they had to be stored in dry DARK locations. Later people had to learn to keep their negatives in dark locations.

Today people need to LEARN how to protect their digital data, either by uploading to cloud locations, doubling up on file copies or trusting professional backup services............

And, unfortunately, many people still have not learned this.