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The integrity of Film


plasticman

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mani, I have seen quite a bit of the type of work on photo.net...uber digital type stuff. Of course, people were doing that stuff in the darkroom in other ways back in the day...never cared for overt manipulation myself.

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I stumbled across this collection of digital images today, and they reminded me of this thread again - simple as that! ;)

 

I was particularly engaged by the gushing comments of this photographer's admirers - they really, really love this stuff.

 

Mani, that was a wonder link to some impecable canvas work.

Is it oil or water color?

 

On weekends I also do some painting myself aside from snaping pics.

But I use Latex and a Roller. :D

 

I wonder how much he paid those people to give him praise on his painting...

When all the praise I get from my painting is... "you miss that spot". :(

 

Everybody has it's own taste... I guess.

 

-Ron

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that's true if those negatives were b/w. however, the vast majority of images have been on color negative, These either are, or will be, lost. Those dyes fade very quickly, and most family memories of the 60's 70's and 80's will be disappear.

 

As far as file formats.. most are known, and though the original program may not exist, writing a program to read those files and parse/convert the data is a pretty trivial task for a software engineer. I started programming in the late 70's, and i can still easily find working models of all of the data storage devices i had used on the used market. while not something that the average family will/can do.. professtional archivists should have very little problem in retrieving and converting any file format

 

I don't think that's true. I have plenty of colour negs(1970s) and slides from the 1950's that are fine, prints too.

It depended a lot on storage, and manufacturer but I have hundreds of Koadacolor II negs that are fine.

 

As for file formats most of what you say is true it is trivial to retrieve the information, but some Raw formats will be problematic especially from less well know makes as they differ quite a bit from camera to camera so if you find a Raw file in 2070 how do you know what de-mosaic ring to use?

OpenRAW | Digital Image Preservation Through Open Documentation

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I actually have tears in my eyes from laughing so much this morning - thanks guys, I'm glad you shared my errrm... aesthetic 'appreciation' of those amazing images on photo.net.

 

Think I'll have to bookmark them and go back every now and again, just in case I'm ever tempted to use a tobacco filter myself... :rolleyes:

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Mark, have you tried scanning or printting from them? I only ask because earlier this year I was scanning fome negatives from the early 80s, and while the negatives looked ok to my eyes, the scanned images had faded quite a bit. I've also had problems with slide film from the early 70s, they had faded a lot and this was clearly visible to the naked eye.

 

If your slides from the 1950s were Kodachrome then you'll be ok. Kodachrome has a similar resistance to fading as b&w negatives - i.e. they won't fade.

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Yes I've scanned a few and even had some printed they look fine to me.

I have looked at my family print and slide collection recently and was surprise how well they've aged, true some Perutz slides were yellowed but most of the Ektachomes are fine Kodachromes too.

Hang on a sec and I'll go and scan my first slide (from 1979)

back soon....

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I am with you. I like digital when I have to shoot color (mainly because I can't develop color in-house), but I prefer to take out my old M3 and Tri-X. There is a quality, an essence that digi-convert-to-B&W will never have. I have converted some digi images to B&W (rarely), but I never try to make it "look" like film.

 

I think those who shoot digital and convert to B&W and THEN try to make it look like film by adding noise or grain filters... well, I think it's more than ridiculous. It is asinine.

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Mark, can't grumble with that, it looks fine.

 

Anthony, just as digital sound engineers found that adding low level noise to a digital signal improved the sound, so I happen to think that sometimes adding grain to a digital image can make it look better. Not always, but sometimes - it depends on the image. That makes me an ass according to you previous post, but it's what I happen to prefer and the proof is in the print and I'm not going to change <grin>

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