lost photos :(

mentos_007 · Jul 12, 2004

Oh gosh! I forget to copy my photos on the cd and I lost them :'(
I lost 2 or 3 of my best photos! agrhhhh :evil:
Have you ever lost your pictures in such a stupid way? How did you behave then? I tried to take another one quite similar but it never will be the same

|DeZaStR| · Jul 12, 2004

mentos_007 said:
Oh gosh! I forget to copy my photos on the cd and I lost them :'(
I lost 2 or 3 of my best photos! agrhhhh :evil:
Have you ever lost your pictures in such a stupid way? How did you behave then? I tried to take another one quite similar but it never will be the same

Well, about 5 months ago, my hard drive decided it couldn't take it any more and decided to takes its own life. It shorted out completely unexpectedly. Wires were burnt, smoke was coming off of it....it was quite a nasty little mess. Sadly, I had not made a back-up since 3 months prior to the incident, so I lost 3 months worth of photos. There are still sitting there on the drive I'm sure...as it was the hard drive's circuit board that fried, not the spindles themselves. However, I have no means of retrieving them unless I decide to shell out big bucks to have the drive repaired.

Many great photos lost during this event...

BernieSC · Jul 12, 2004

But I guess thats a good argument that film cameras still have an advantage over digital cameras. You don't have to worry about negatives crashing

voodoocat · Jul 12, 2004

BernieSC said:
But I guess thats a good argument that film cameras still have an advantage over digital cameras. You don't have to worry about negatives crashing

No, but you have to worry about the lab screwing up the processing.

Annette · Jul 12, 2004

I've been taking pictures with various cameras for 28 years and I've never had a lab screw up the processing. I don't think I've ever even known anyone who has had a lab screw up the processing.

My own computer has crashed on a couple different occassions between backups (thus losing data) and it seems a good percentage of the people I know have experienced computer crashes and other problems that required a total reinstall of all software. You have to back up data all the time or you do risk losing it - and I don't know anyone that is that consistent with their backups.

To the original poster - sucks about losing the photos. I thought I had lost a roll of film the other day and just about went nuts trying to find it. ugh!! In that moment I was feeling the same pain.

Face · Jul 12, 2004

i've had the processor lose photos the day before my photo show was supposed to be hung up
that sucked. and i had a huge deadline for the local paper today and they almost made me miss it... jerkks.

Walt · Jul 12, 2004

An interesting point someone raised awhile ago, (getting old has restricted me from remembering who) in 20 years will someone behold a CD of images like we currently do for negatives?

Annette · Jul 12, 2004

Walt said:
An interesting point someone raised awhile ago, (getting old has restricted me from remembering who) in 20 years will someone behold a CD of images like we currently do for negatives?

For some people - I suppose so. According to some digital users film users scan and store all their images on CDs (which is obviously an assumption and a wrong one at that). I have negatives dating back to 1986 all stored nice and neat. I only scan what I want to use on my website or for critiques.

airgunr · Jul 13, 2004

Annette said:
I've been taking pictures with various cameras for 28 years and I've never had a lab screw up the processing. I don't think I've ever even known anyone who has had a lab screw up the processing.<snip>

Unfortunately I have had them screw up some photos. The local grocery stores developing has ruined 2 rolls over the last 5 or 6 years. One had all sorts of weird streaks on it. I dropped off 3 rolls and one was trashed. Another time they did one with splotches like it wasn't rinsed properly. Oh, and the wife dropped off a roll of APS film at the local Walgreens for 1 hour developing and they ruined it too.

I also sent in some negatives from a trip to Austrailia for reprints and enlargements. The idiots cut the negative diagonally across the negative I wanted enlarged! Ruined it completely.

I now send most of mine off to professional processers. I get much better quality of prints. Colors are better and the prints are sharper.

Annette · Jul 13, 2004

airgunr said:
Unfortunately I have had them screw up some photos. The local grocery stores developing has ruined 2 rolls over the last 5 or 6 years. One had all sorts of weird streaks on it. I dropped off 3 rolls and one was trashed. Another time they did one with splotches like it wasn't rinsed properly. Oh, and the wife dropped off a roll of APS film at the local Walgreens for 1 hour developing and they ruined it too.

I also sent in some negatives from a trip to Austrailia for reprints and enlargements. The idiots cut the negative diagonally across the negative I wanted enlarged! Ruined it completely.

All the bad processing happened in the same two places? Why did you keep going back? Personally, if a processer ruined a roll of my film I wouldn't give them opportunity to ruin another.

hobbes28 · Jul 13, 2004

I had a lab lose a roll of film. I have the tracking numbers and they still can't find it. Another lab destroyed some of my pics.

Walt · Jul 13, 2004

A trick I heard to prevent a lab from losing your pictures is to take one frame of a card with your name, address and phone number. If someone else ends up with your pictures they know who they belong to.

mentos_007 · Jul 13, 2004

I have never lost my negatives, and my lab always return the correct photos. Although the prints were not nice. Colors were awfull so I decided to skip on the digital. And I work with it and don't want to change.

But I miss my photos

ksmattfish · Jul 13, 2004

Eventually the lab is going to screw up sometime, and you'll lose a roll, or two, or three. Eventually you're going to misplace a roll or envelope of negs. But losing a roll here and there is nothing like the amount of images you'll lose in a hard drive crash (if that's where you are storing your images).

I thought about buying a DSLR just for wedding biz, but after seeing the weekly posts on photo.net about memory failing, I just got freaked out. I can imaging dealing with accidentally losing a roll, or even the lab frying one or two rolls, but the whole day of photography vanishing into silicon limbo is terrifying. The film equivalent is having your house burn down.

Just as the computer is an important part of digital photography, proper back up is also just as important. It does no good to burn all your kids' pics on a CD if 20 years from now the CD is no good or can't be opened (the film equivalent to leaving your negs in shoeboxes in the damp basement). When I get my first DSLR I'll be budgeting in professional storage services as part of the cost, just like I may need more RAM and hard drive space.

No doubt that this problem will be thoroughly taken care of in the future. As everything we do becomes digital, affordable, reliable digital back-up services will be included in your internet service, or something.

voodoocat · Jul 13, 2004

I've been taking pictures with various cameras for 28 years and I've never had a lab screw up the processing. I don't think I've ever even known anyone who has had a lab screw up the processing.

You are lucky. The two rolls I've had misprocessed were done at real labs (not wal-mart)