tecumseh Posted August 6, 2010 Share #1 Posted August 6, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) Will your full frame 18mp jpgs exist and/or look this good in 70 years? Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 – Plog Photo Blog Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted August 6, 2010 Posted August 6, 2010 Hi tecumseh, Take a look here Film Vs Digital. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted August 6, 2010 Share #2 Posted August 6, 2010 If they are kept as carefully as these slides - yes. great stuff. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_livsey Posted August 6, 2010 Share #3 Posted August 6, 2010 Never mind the boring longevity argument take in the bigger picture (no pun intended). A long read, relatively, in these tweeting times but that is for another day, but excellent stuff for those who actually think about photography. A Photo Student Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zoz Posted August 6, 2010 Share #4 Posted August 6, 2010 What number of analogue photographs have not survived the last century? No one will ever know... I don´t think that many (if any) of my digital photos will survive for a long time, but my analogue ones won´t either... After printing the digital pictures are analogue anyway... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolo Posted August 6, 2010 Share #5 Posted August 6, 2010 Thanks for a link to an interesting set of images, but what are you suggesting with the title ? Digital files won't last ? Prints made from digital files won't last. Can I suggest that my important digital files will survive as long as my negatives. i.e. as long as I'm around and no longer. OK, the wedding albums I make and the framed portraits of family members will live on, but landscapes, street photos, portraits of people that my family don't know ? Don't think so. Ten years ago, a friend of mine passed away leaving thousands of B&W negatives. What were his family to do with those ? Set up a darkroom and print them; pass them to a local archive to sort through and store ? His few digital images never made it out of his 1998 computer before it was dumped. This activity is a profession, or a hobby. If you want your images to survive, make prints, store in a portfolio for easy viewing and give them out in the hope that somebody else will value them. Other than that, just enjoy the activity for what it is. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartie Posted August 6, 2010 Share #6 Posted August 6, 2010 Do we have to go through the Film Vs Digital argument again.......I agree with Rolo...just enjoy photography,and use whatever you need to use to enjoy it. Andy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndjambrose Posted August 6, 2010 Share #7 Posted August 6, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) Have to agree with Gary. Not sure either media is likely to be permanent without someone there to care about it. In fairness I think it might be easier to keep negatives longer, but only because the technology bar is lower and it depends on nothing other than routine care. It's relatively easy to keep a box of film safe and dry -- but it needs someone to think about storing it well and checking and reboxing the contents every year or two. I dread to think how much digital data I've lost over the years - probably a couple of terabytes quite easily. But the digital stuff was lost through lack of care, not through intrinsic qualities. As long as someone remembers to take back-ups (and check they can be restored), burn old disks onto new every couple of years, and migrate media from obsolote drives to current ones then there's no problem. Digital just takes longer.... which is why it's often not done. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecumseh Posted August 6, 2010 Author Share #8 Posted August 6, 2010 The title was facetious more than anything else. What impressed me most is the colour rendition (which probably has more to do with modern digital printing/processing techniques). The photos could have been taken yesterday. Certainly don't want to further exhaust the film v digital debate. Great photos are great photos regardless. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted August 6, 2010 Share #9 Posted August 6, 2010 Will your full frame 18mp jpgs exist and/or look this good in 70 years? Some years ago I went through an archive of images which had been taken and retained as a scientific record. Despite reasonably careful storage many of the older images (including Kodachromes dating back to the 1950s) had faded so badly that they were useless and decidedly 'not fit for purpose'. I suspect that a very minute proportion of images taken ever actually survive for many decades unless extremely carefully stored or fortunate in being kept in a place and/or climate which is kind to them. The same will, I believe, be true of digital images - those retained, maintained and converted to whatever new media becomes available will survive, but they will be a very small minority of the images taken. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted August 6, 2010 Share #10 Posted August 6, 2010 I don't know. There are millions upon millions of terabytes stored in formats like jpg, txt, bmp, doc, etc. It is very likely that future programs will retain the possibility to read them. Just look at Photoshop and the list of obsolete formats it supports. The fact that something new appears does not imply that the present and past simply vanish. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdb Posted August 6, 2010 Share #11 Posted August 6, 2010 Thanks for a link to an interesting set of images, but what are you suggesting with the title ? Digital files won't last ? Prints made from digital files won't last. Can I suggest that my important digital files will survive as long as my negatives. i.e. as long as I'm around and no longer. OK, the wedding albums I make and the framed portraits of family members will live on, but landscapes, street photos, portraits of people that my family don't know ? Don't think so. Ten years ago, a friend of mine passed away leaving thousands of B&W negatives. What were his family to do with those ? Set up a darkroom and print them; pass them to a local archive to sort through and store ? His few digital images never made it out of his 1998 computer before it was dumped. This activity is a profession, or a hobby. If you want your images to survive, make prints, store in a portfolio for easy viewing and give them out in the hope that somebody else will value them. Other than that, just enjoy the activity for what it is. So well said. This idea of permanence...it's just a delusion, isn't it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dareios Posted August 6, 2010 Share #12 Posted August 6, 2010 great & wonderful series nothing can top KODACHROME Film is special Digital = electronic-graphy with endless computer/photoshop fabrication-manipulation! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zoz Posted August 6, 2010 Share #13 Posted August 6, 2010 Film is special Digital = electronic-graphy with endless computer/photoshop fabrication-manipulation! Analogue = chemic-graphy with endless darkroom/retouching fabrication-manipulation? I would agree that film is special, but if someone is manipulating his images is no question of analogue or digital. No doubt it is much easier to do this digital, but no one is forced by the medium itself to do so... If someone has found his preferences in photography this is fine. But why bashing those who found different ones? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonycamco Posted August 6, 2010 Share #14 Posted August 6, 2010 thanks for sharing!!! long live film!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted August 6, 2010 Share #15 Posted August 6, 2010 great & wonderful series nothing can top KODACHROME Film is special Digital = electronic-graphy with endless computer/photoshop fabrication-manipulation! Ummm.. Kodachrome is discontinued.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted August 6, 2010 Share #16 Posted August 6, 2010 great & wonderful series nothing can top KODACHROME Film is special Digital = electronic-graphy with endless computer/photoshop fabrication-manipulation! Is this the 5 minute argument or the full half hour;)? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted August 6, 2010 Share #17 Posted August 6, 2010 Is this the 5 minute argument or the full half hour;)? If it involves Kodachrome it'll be 5 week argument won't it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NZDavid Posted August 7, 2010 Share #18 Posted August 7, 2010 What amazes me here is the window these pictures open up to the past, a real voyage into recent history. It really doesn't matter whether they are film or digital (although they speak volumes for the longevity of Kodachrome; the jury is still out on the longevity of digital images). What is also fascinating is that these are some of the earliest examples of photojournalism in color. Yes, there are earlier examples, but one is used to seeing by far the majority of photos from this period in B+W (for example, Dorothea Lange's landmark Farm Commission photographs of the '30s). Yes, B+W has graphic power, but somehow color always seems more immediate. We recently watched "The Color of War", a documentary on WWII, and some of the footage looks uncannily contemporary. My other reaction was how good these pictures are! OK, the colors are not always bang on, resolution may not always be 100%, but they are pretty damn good. They prove that so many of the features deemed necessary for modern photography -- autofocus, auto-bracketing, a zillion "scene modes" -- are totally unnecessary when it comes to framing a memorable image. The photographers may well have appreciated some of that modern technology -- but what counts is an observant eye and fast reflexes (no pun intended)! No doubt most were taken using 35mm cameras (Leica IIIc, Contax?) and a 50mm lens and slow-speed Kodachrome (25ASA or even slower). It's a combination that has clearly stood the test of time. Thanks again for posting. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zoz Posted August 7, 2010 Share #19 Posted August 7, 2010 No doubt most were taken using 35mm cameras (Leica IIIc, Contax?) and a 50mm lens and slow-speed Kodachrome (25ASA or even slower). It's a combination that has clearly stood the test of time. Most (if not all) of this images where taken with Large Format (4x5" or larger). You can see the the edges of the sheet film. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamey Posted August 7, 2010 Share #20 Posted August 7, 2010 SIMPLY WONDERFUL IMAGES. I was next to a person buying a Photo print, price for a 6x4 digital print = 2 dollars please, (probably cost him 15 cents to print) The slide of the same print was 100 dollars. So I play dumb, how come the big price difference, his answer was Digital is cheap and only for the masses. The Slide (Transparencies) cannot be manipulated it's the original and only for the purest who demand the best. Say no more.......Lol. Long live Slide Film. Ken. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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