rbiemer
Unabashed Amateur
Here on RFF there have been several discussions about film vs digital longevity.
They get a bit heated sometimes regarding which is better.
I'm here to say: Neither.
What is better: have back ups of which ever you use.
I am primarily a film shooter but I get my film scanned when processed. So I have for the last ten years or so gotten my negs and a CD.
I thought I was pretty well covered; I had my physical objects--the negs--that, if stored right, will last a long time. And I had the scans on CD--that since they are not a physical object I can just migrate them to new media and keep on my PC or else where and they will last for a long time.
The digital scans I have are mostly smallish--4 to 6 mb-- and I used them as a sort of contact sheet: an easy way to view my shots and a way to catalog them. Any of the few I really liked I would and did get rescanned at more serious sizes.
And I have all those basic scans on my computer's hard drive.
So, a very lazy way to keep my photos. I work away from my home 10 months of the year but I still have all my photos with me(at that small size) and if I lose my computer, the negs are "safe" at home and I can just reload the CDs and/or rescan the negs.
Yeah, that was a good plan.
Right up until about 3:30 this afternoon when I got a phone call from my brother to tell me that our f**khead neighbors had set the building on fire.
My brother is OK, our cat is, well not fine but alive and pissed off, and everything else is gone.
Right now all the photos I have taken since 2000 or so are only on my notebook. and I no longer have the negs. So, if my computer fails, my work from the last ten years will be...just gone. Yes, I do have a few photos here in the RFF gallery and I have a few others in various on line sites but I had 2 or 3000 frames of 35mm film that are now, at least, smoke and water logged. Assuming that we can even get access to look for the charred box they were in.
Folks, whether you shoot film or digital: back 'em up.
Rob
They get a bit heated sometimes regarding which is better.
I'm here to say: Neither.
What is better: have back ups of which ever you use.
I am primarily a film shooter but I get my film scanned when processed. So I have for the last ten years or so gotten my negs and a CD.
I thought I was pretty well covered; I had my physical objects--the negs--that, if stored right, will last a long time. And I had the scans on CD--that since they are not a physical object I can just migrate them to new media and keep on my PC or else where and they will last for a long time.
The digital scans I have are mostly smallish--4 to 6 mb-- and I used them as a sort of contact sheet: an easy way to view my shots and a way to catalog them. Any of the few I really liked I would and did get rescanned at more serious sizes.
And I have all those basic scans on my computer's hard drive.
So, a very lazy way to keep my photos. I work away from my home 10 months of the year but I still have all my photos with me(at that small size) and if I lose my computer, the negs are "safe" at home and I can just reload the CDs and/or rescan the negs.
Yeah, that was a good plan.
Right up until about 3:30 this afternoon when I got a phone call from my brother to tell me that our f**khead neighbors had set the building on fire.
My brother is OK, our cat is, well not fine but alive and pissed off, and everything else is gone.
Right now all the photos I have taken since 2000 or so are only on my notebook. and I no longer have the negs. So, if my computer fails, my work from the last ten years will be...just gone. Yes, I do have a few photos here in the RFF gallery and I have a few others in various on line sites but I had 2 or 3000 frames of 35mm film that are now, at least, smoke and water logged. Assuming that we can even get access to look for the charred box they were in.
Folks, whether you shoot film or digital: back 'em up.
Rob