[pure-silver] Re: Film vs Digital- was: Amusing Kodak commercial

Speedy . wrote:
> Dana Wrote: (snip)
> 
> "My kids prefer online viewable albums - remember, we're talking about
> snapshots here - so they don't order prints for every single digital
> capture.
> 
> Dana"
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> The problem of the longivity of the image has not been solved in the
> digital imaging realm.

I completely disagree.  You need to think like a data archivist and
not a photographer to understand.

Photographers are totally concerned with preserving the one initial
capture of an image - the negative or chrome.  This inherently limits
the discussion to the physical longevity of a single piece of film.
The same concern also applies to prints, but it all starts with the
initial piece of film.

Data archivists are concerned with preserving the correct data,
and are much less concerned with the longevity of any single of data
storage media.  Since data can be copied infinitely without any
degradation, it doesn't matter how long a single instance of data
storage lasts.  The archivist periodically transfers data to new
storage as necessary.

> Hard drives crash, CD-r's go bad or get scratched, and file formats
> change.  Even if you have a
> readable disk ten years from now there is no guarantee that you will
> have hardware that can read the disk or software that is backwards
> compatable enough to interpret and display it...

This is a straw-man.  As long as there's interest in a form of storage,
the media and means to access it remains available.  My first CD player
is 21 years old, and the friend I gave it to several years ago is still
using it today.  I do not play vinyl myself, but I have friends that
still maintain and use a collection of phonograph records, some of them
more than 50 years old.

Hard drives crash, sure.  That's why people interested in reliable
data storage don't rely on a single disk, they use redundant configurations
like RAID 1 (mirroring) or more sophisticated schemes.

It's not like long-term data archiving is a particularly new science,
but there's a lot of interest in it now due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
It is really possible to indefinitely maintain an archive of data,
but it takes a little work and planning.  It's not just a matter of
burning a CD-R and tossing it into a drawer.

> OK you will say "Yeah, but "remember we are only talking about shapshots
> here...""
> 
> I've seen it happen where what was a snapshot at the time becomes a
> treasured image at a later time.  If that image were not on a medium
> that is accessable and useable at that point in the future it is -
> LOST!  Given that the cost is not that much diffrent between film and
> digital especially when you throw in the cost of computers, printers,
> ink and paper; I can't come up with a good reason to NOT shoot even
> snapshots on film.

If you want images to last indefinitely without degrading, your only
choice is to maintain a digital archive and become independent of the
physical limitations of a single piece of film.

> Cost savings on digital items is mostly an illusion (or delusion).  An
> expensive camera becomes completely obsolete in three years - if it even
> functions at that point.

I still have a Kodak DCS260 in use today (though it's a back-up) that was
new in 1999.  That's almost 8 years.  It works great.

Dana
=============================================================================================================
To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your 
account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) 
and unsubscribe from there.

Other related posts: