Digital Dark Ages have Arrived

antiquark

Derek Ross
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http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2009/02/15/8398306-sun.html

A devastated Winnipeg family is pleading for the return of a digital camera lost recently at West Edmonton Mall.

It contained photos documenting the medical struggles of four-month-old Jayden Strattner-Brown, undergoing life-saving treatment at the Stollery Children's Hospital.
...
It's become a harrowing journey that Brown documented with about 1,200 pictures, starting with the day Jayden was born.

"The pictures on that camera, they're throughout the whole process - everything," she said.
Blame who you want, but I don't recall stories like this from the film era.
 
That would have been 50 rolls of film. It is unlikely that they individual would have shot more than a few rolls had they been shooting film. Perhaps not even a single roll. I feel sad for the family, but shooting 1,200 photos (undoubtedly low res photos to get that many on a card) on a single card was just a bad decision.
 
This very sad but I don't see the connection with digital photography. There are lots of stories of rolls of film being lost or damaged and important family memories being lost.

What i find more interesting is that the family took over 1200 images of their child. Would they have been able to do that with film? What would the cost of that had been?


I wish them well and my prayers go out for their child. And I do hope they find their camera, but digital dark ages? Hardly.

Hawkeye
 
At least with film they wouldn't have lost more than 24 or 36 of those images. Why didn't they download the camera every few days?
 
At least with film they wouldn't have lost more than 24 or 36 of those images. Why didn't they download the camera every few days?

That is true, Al...just wait until their hard drive crashes.:eek:

Oh, well...Bob Capa had a rough time with his D-Day pictures too.

The previous point about shooting all of those images with film...well, HCB himself did not believe in shooting shot after shot, angle after angle, time after time, so the cost of 1200 images is moot if someone doesn't need to spray and pray. I don't with my film bodies, just no need to. Now with the D2x or the D40...it's like Machine Gun Kelly and I have no idea why I shoot so much with it.

Its not like I am ever going to look at it on my hard drive, much less print all of them!
 
My wife woke me up this morning with "do you know how many pictures you developed last week? how much does that cost!?"

I showed her this story a little later, and made the point that I don't accumulate 100's of valuable pictures on an easy to lose camera, and she actually said "well, I guess its good you use film so they don't stay on the camera forever".
 
When our first was born the local processor had failed to clean their kit and put 3 deep scratches along the negs of all three rolls of film I shot in the first fwe days of her life. Thay later blamed my camera (clearly not trus as a couple of rolls developed else where were fine.

I have never been back and suspect they have snce gone bust.

Mike
 
Can we just stop? Huh? I've been reading news stories about 'digital camera found in lake, missing two years, photos retrieved' for awhile now, and I've refrained from posting because it's just another 'film versus digital' crapwar - and despite the blame I often take, I'm not interested in 'which is better' because I use both.

But if you want to play games, fine. Here you go. Tell me how many film cameras are found 'smashed beyond repair' and the photos are fine. Tell me how many rolls of film are found 'buried in sand under a tree' after several years and the photos are fine.

Puh-leeze. Can we drop this crap?

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/17/submerged-camera-holds-functional-memory-card-two-years-after-ac/

http://ifoundyourcamera.blogspot.com/2008/07/sony-memory-card-found-guam.html

http://ifoundyourcamera.blogspot.com/
 
So many people are leaving their photos on their camera, it's a little scary.

Obviously, people who consider themselves "Photographers" aren't likely to do that, but quite a few very nice, reasonable people are doing it.

Film is less likely to cause a loss of 1200 photos so easily.

I wonder how many of those 1200 are pictures they would have printed? Well, none, I guess, but still.
 
she actually said "well, I guess its good you use film so they don't stay on the camera forever".

That's something I've noticed with my non-computer-literate relatives: the camera is the album. They leave the pictures on the card, they never print the pictures, they never back up the pictures.
 
But if you want to play games, fine. Here you go. Tell me how many film cameras are found 'smashed beyond repair' and the photos are fine. Tell me how many rolls of film are found 'buried in sand under a tree' after several years and the photos are fine.

If a film camera is lost/destroyed, only 24 pictures (or less) are gone, not the entire family album.
 
If a film camera is lost/destroyed, only 24 pictures (or less) are gone, not the entire family album.

If a car is driven off a cliff instead of a bus, fewer people get pancaked. So cars are better than buses. That's your logic.

People who do not take their photos off their cameras are making a mistake. That's not the fault of digital technology.
 
It is a fault of the seductive allure of digital technology. People just trust it too much. That's people failure. Sure, a fire or tonado could wipe out my negative and contact sheet files. Nothing is forever. Still, they produce a nice income stream. The photos from the 1960's and 1970's produce the most income because fewer and fewer images from that era still exist.
 
All that history lost when Katrina flooded Louisiana and thousands of negatives and prints were destroyed. Would probably have been fine on a CF card. You makes your choices and you pays your price.
 
If a car is driven off a cliff instead of a bus, fewer people get pancaked. So cars are better than buses. That's your logic.

No, I'm just saying that losing 1200 images is worse than losing 24 images.

People who do not take their photos off their cameras are making a mistake. That's not the fault of digital technology.

The world would be a nice place if nobody ever made mistakes.
 
The world would be a nice place if nobody ever made mistakes.

That's true. Maybe they'll learn from it though. I do hope they find their pictures...

I have piles of CDs and prints with my digi pics on them, just don't want to take that chance i guess.
 
No, I'm just saying that losing 1200 images is worse than losing 24 images.

If you look down, I think your pants are actually on fire:

"Blame who you want, but I don't recall stories like this from the film era."

The world would be a nice place if nobody ever made mistakes.

The world would also be nicer if people put the blame where it belonged, instead of constantly grasping for reasons to rationalize their personal dislikes.
 
it's a pointless battle bill. film will remain the only choice just like the tilly endurable will remain the only hat, lanier the only fountain pen and robert capa the only photographer.
 
The world would also be nicer if people put the blame where it belonged, instead of constantly grasping for reasons to rationalize their personal dislikes.

I actually like, and use, digital far more than film. My original post was more of a response to the people who claim that the idea of a "digital dark age" is basically impossible, because CF cards are tough, it's effortless to back up digital, digital files will never degrade, etc.
 
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