Do you keep your negatives after scanning?

[satijntje]

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I will be receiving my first analogue Leica (M3) this week.

So shooting might start next weekend and development will make place the week after.

So I'm wondering if all of you are keeping the negatives after they have been scanned?

I'm a total starter in this field, so if I 'm asking a stupid question, sorry for this.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

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[a.noctilux]

Of course NO .

 

I can not imagine throwing away my thousands slides after scanning them.

The benefit of film photography is one keep developped films for later (better ?) use.

 

Regards,

 

Arnaud

[Matlock]

I have all my negatives (and slides) dating back to the early 1950's. Far too precious to discard. Digital is fleeting, film is to stay. Think of all the film archives that have been lost when converted to digital, the risk is just too great. 

[spydrxx]

Unqualified YES. Sadly I lost about 10 years worth in a flood years ago, but I have everything else - for all the reasons cited above.

[Martin B]

You don't lose anything by keeping them - get some plastic archival storage sheets and a folder to keep them. Big advantage of having negatives are: 

 

a) You can use them directly to make darkroom silver gelatin prints (if you don't have a darkroom yet, interest to have one might pick up later or when an opportunity comes up)

 

b ) You can always go back and rescan existing negatives or take another photo to digitize.

 

c) Best proof how you exposed and developed the film for your own reference. You might need the negatives in the future to compare with.

[Fotoklaus]

Your negatives are your originals. On big reason to shoot analog.You could "read" them in 20, 30, maybe in 50 years. When nobody knows what "jpeg" means or no one has a device to read a native raw- file. I would never throw them away. Never!

[madNbad]

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With the right access and a good comprehension of Latin, a person can still read a Gutenberg Bible.  Now, dig out a floppy disc and try and use it for anything other than a coaster.  A 3 ring binder and archival sleeves don't take up much space and the negatives are always available.

[lm_user]

As a child I threw my first roll of film in the garbage after exposing the frames. I had no understanding of how the pictures were created from developed negatives. Embarassing story - but I was only 6 or 7 years old

 

I keep all my negatives....

[cobbu2]

Negatives = photographic truth.

[amosk]

I will be receiving my first analogue Leica (M3) this week.

So shooting might start next weekend and development will make place the week after.

So I'm wondering if all of you are keeping the negatives after they have been scanned?

I'm a total starter in this field, so if I 'm asking a stupid question, sorry for this.

 

Cheers

 

John

I keep all my negatives after scanning them. They don't take up lots of room. I just keep them in sleeves and stored in folders.

[250swb]

Throw them away, but just hope a better way to scan them doesn't come along, or hope your scanning technique doesn't get better with experience, because then you'd look a complete idiot for binning your negatives.

 

 

Steve

[sblitz]

I think you have your answer. Keep em forever. I keep mine.

[Peter H]

Of course NO .

 

.................

 

 

 

I think you mean Yes don't you?

[jaapv]

Your negatives are your originals. On big reason to shoot analog.You could "read" them in 20, 30, maybe in 50 years. When nobody knows what "jpeg" means or no one has a device to read a native raw- file. I would never throw them away. Never!

With many millions of terabytes stored in archives? Do you really think the world can afford to lose the JPG format?

[honcho]

I will be receiving my first analogue Leica (M3) this week.

So shooting might start next weekend and development will make place the week after.

So I'm wondering if all of you are keeping the negatives after they have been scanned?

I'm a total starter in this field, so if I 'm asking a stupid question, sorry for this.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

There is no such thing as a stupid question if you're a beginner, John.

 

Keep your negatives.  They're priceless.

[Martin B]

With many millions of terabytes stored in archives? Do you really think the world can afford to lose the JPG format?

 

And why are National Archives still using microfilm? Because digital standards change all the time. JPG has become one of the most common digital standards - but the JPG format has evolved quite a bit in the last 10-15 years, too. I have a hard time believing that in 50 years from now people would be even easily able to read most common RAW standards from today. I also doubt that JPG will still be a standard at this point.

[rpavich]

I will be receiving my first analogue Leica (M3) this week.

So shooting might start next weekend and development will make place the week after.

So I'm wondering if all of you are keeping the negatives after they have been scanned?

I'm a total starter in this field, so if I 'm asking a stupid question, sorry for this.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

I'm a noob, recently into film like yourself.

 

I started out by throwing away the negs but now I don't because I realized that I'd also like to finish the process by darkroom printing and the negative is the equivalent of the digital raw file!

 

I've found that I get more enjoyment from handing a print to someone than just showing them a file from flickr on my phone or emailing it to them.

 

It's not a stupid question

[sblitz]

Keeping the negative is also an answer to those who might decry the mixed analog/digital process of working from scanned negatives. I have no issue with it for 99% of my shots. BUT for the 1% you might decide to make a large wet print, old school, either by yourself or a using a lab, and have that photo to hang or to give. And there is no time limit on when to make that print (even your heirs or great-grand-heirs will have that option -- assuming they don't throw it all out! :-) )

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[indergaard]

And why are National Archives still using microfilm? Because digital standards change all the time. JPG has become one of the most common digital standards - but the JPG format has evolved quite a bit in the last 10-15 years, too. I have a hard time believing that in 50 years from now people would be even easily able to read most common RAW standards from today. I also doubt that JPG will still be a standard at this point.

 

The GIF standard is still around - it was introduced in 1987. The jpeg standard (the format as we know and use it today) has not been modified in a long time, with the exception of jpeg 2000 (which isn't very widely used). The jpeg standard is not patended any more, so anyone are free to develop a encoder and decoder. There are many open source jpeg encoders and decoders available out there, source files included. I doubt it'll just vanish...

The fileformats that have become unsupported over time are usually closed-source and patended formats that belonged to companies that either went bankrupt, or shut down a piece of software permanently.

 

Good scanners on the other hand are becoming more and more difficult to find, much more so than just 10 years ago. Bulbs for projectors are not easy to find, and they cost a lot. Chemicals for development might not stay around forever.

 

I mean, I'm all for film, I use it frequently myself. But I would never think that digital files are just going away. Digital images requires proper storage and archiving, just like analog film. If you use several backup mediums (unencrypted mind you!), use cloud services for backup, and so on, your data will most probably stay very intact. If you worry about DNG/RAW incompatibilities - export the files to uncompressed 16-bit tiff files. This is yet another open standard that is easy for anyone to write a decoder for.

 

The main contribution to "digital rot" is the complete lack of storage and archiving skills for the digital medium by it's users.

You wouldn't just toss your negatives around either and hope they would stay intact.

 

I guess the best backup is to print a couple of examles of the pictures that are valuable to you, and give them to friends and family, and put them in photo albums.

There are so many fantastic printing products available nowadays. Even a Canon Selphy print is great for archiving. It's a thermo print with a special film coating (overcoating) that's repelles moisture and avoids fading, for at least up to 100 years (according to the manufacturor).

[Martin B]

The GIF standard is still around - it was introduced in 1987. The jpeg standard (the format as we know and use it today) has not been modified in a long time, with the exception of jpeg 2000 (which isn't very widely used). The jpeg standard is not patended any more, so anyone are free to develop a encoder and decoder. There are many open source jpeg encoders and decoders available out there, source files included. I doubt it'll just vanish...

The fileformats that have become unsupported over time are usually closed-source and patended formats that belonged to companies that either went bankrupt, or shut down a piece of software permanently.

 

Good scanners on the other hand are becoming more and more difficult to find, much more so than just 10 years ago. Bulbs for projectors are not easy to find, and they cost a lot. Chemicals for development might not stay around forever.

 

I mean, I'm all for film, I use it frequently myself. But I would never think that digital files are just going away. Digital images requires proper storage and archiving, just like analog film. If you use several backup mediums (unencrypted mind you!), use cloud services for backup, and so on, your data will most probably stay very intact. If you worry about DNG/RAW incompatibilities - export the files to uncompressed 16-bit tiff files. This is yet another open standard that is easy for anyone to write a decoder for.

 

The main contribution to "digital rot" is the complete lack of storage and archiving skills for the digital medium by it's users.

You wouldn't just toss your negatives around either and hope they would stay intact.

 

I guess the best backup is to print a couple of examles of the pictures that are valuable to you, and give them to friends and family, and put them in photo albums.

There are so many fantastic printing products available nowadays. Even a Canon Selphy print is great for archiving. It's a thermo print with a special film coating (overcoating) that's repelles moisture and avoids fading, for at least up to 100 years (according to the manufacturor).

 

Good examples - but who still uses the GIF format? The JPG 2000 standard is the one I referred in my post above - demonstrates nicely how quickly digital standards come out and disappear even after a short time. Talking about hard drive storage, SATA standard to connect devices already changed, too. In 50 years from now? Best of luck finding a hardware connection - think about how hard it is now to load saved data from 5.25" floppy discs or from formerly very often used Zip-drives! My point is just that what we perceive as common and standard now does not mean that the same holds true in decades after. This includes TIFF and DNG.

 

I believe one of the safest ways to store photo data is microfilm. Devices to read microfilm are very simple - even if outdated. The film lasts in controlled climate chambers in archives and only needs simple equipment to read it - simple and efficient.

 

Chemicals for film development are basically fairly simple ones, too (and I am a chemist, so I know well about this stuff). Developers are formulations with several ingredients, but those organic components and salts wouldn't be hard to find or to synthesize. Looks like that the film development comes back quite a bit because many younger photographers want to differentiate from the digital mainstream - it still will remain a niche though.

 

You touch another point at the end - printing. Prints are not indestructible either but they guarantee better long-term livability. Silver gelatin is still the best since it won't fade as long as the paper support is not decomposing. How long inkjet will last - this still remains to be seen no matter what any manufacturer promises.