Negatives Often Not Picked Up after Scanning as discussed in the New York Times

[Prest_400]

In defense of chromes... Beautiful in medium format! Color positives are a factor that drew me towards 6x9 and not just 6x7; not that I am taking that many nowadays. I see the thread includes them now, and of course as they are directly accessible their value is up front.

Agree that negatives are almost holy, and one must archive. However:
I have been one of those that has let negatives get lost. Some years ago back in college I was penny pinching a bit and 10€ were 10€. Forgot to ask/got no reminder for a couple rolls (one was a test), which still... years after I see there are nice shots and the basic 2400px high scans do enough justice. I do find I am not getting back so much to some negs.
Once lost 3x36exp rolls to the mail, before even making it to the lab. Proportionally at the time, that is a big loss of images. Nowadays I would consider it unacceptable given the cost of film and effort taken.

Also had digital loss, mostly due to stupidity and forgiveness, but not recently since being a grown up so far.

I don't recall now if it was in this thread, or another forum with the same NYT article discussion, but someone mentions a certain disappointment with labs. I do manage to get different sort of F'ups even from some of the best. When it comes to Color I do trust labs more than myself, but it's the logistics that make it a pain.
Honestly the Scanning part of many of these labs has become a whole edited workflow product, not just a glorified contact print. I go to and fro between DIY and Send out for color depending on the volumes, and also labs changing in some cases. B&W I am much more DIY.

Planning a trip to Asia in autumn and found out that local development at a layover is feasible, with enough fast turnaround to get develop and scans -- even for E6. Partly it's securing the film from the return Xrays and that the turnaroung and cost of having it there is quite good. Postiive to not need some weeks of turn around and scanning myself when back. Ironically, I am planning the return leg around droping and picking up C41 and E6! Let's see how that pans out when it happens.

 

[Out to Lunch]

cost of having it there is quite good.

True, at least in Saigon: film development is fine but mixed scanning results.

 

[boojum]

In defense of chromes... Beautiful in medium format! Color positives are a factor that drew me towards 6x9 and not just 6x7; not that I am taking that many nowadays. I see the thread includes them now, and of course as they are directly accessible their value is up front.

Agree that negatives are almost holy, and one must archive. However:
I have been one of those that has let negatives get lost. Some years ago back in college I was penny pinching a bit and 10€ were 10€. Forgot to ask/got no reminder for a couple rolls (one was a test), which still... years after I see there are nice shots and the basic 2400px high scans do enough justice. I do find I am not getting back so much to some negs.
Once lost 3x36exp rolls to the mail, before even making it to the lab. Proportionally at the time, that is a big loss of images. Nowadays I would consider it unacceptable given the cost of film and effort taken.

Also had digital loss, mostly due to stupidity and forgiveness, but not recently since being a grown up so far.

I don't recall now if it was in this thread, or another forum with the same NYT article discussion, but someone mentions a certain disappointment with labs. I do manage to get different sort of F'ups even from some of the best. When it comes to Color I do trust labs more than myself, but it's the logistics that make it a pain.
Honestly the Scanning part of many of these labs has become a whole edited workflow product, not just a glorified contact print. I go to and fro between DIY and Send out for color depending on the volumes, and also labs changing in some cases. B&W I am much more DIY.

Planning a trip to Asia in autumn and found out that local development at a layover is feasible, with enough fast turnaround to get develop and scans -- even for E6. Partly it's securing the film from the return Xrays and that the turnaroung and cost of having it there is quite good. Postiive to not need some weeks of turn around and scanning myself when back. Ironically, I am planning the return leg around droping and picking up C41 and E6! Let's see how that pans out when it happens.

The slide processor has a lot do with the end result. I took a couple of rolls to a shop that processed film for chip plants. This was back when I lived in Silicon Valley. Wow! Were they ever better. How long the chemicals have been in use and closeness of temp and time monitoring are critical. The best colors and IQ I had ever seen in a slide. The processor does make a difference, a big difference.

 

[JohnGellings]

Fred Herzog shot chromes as he had a busy day job. Rewinds the film, puts it in the mailer. And a couple of weeks later the best photographic medium ever, mounted, arrives in the mail. But it took years for these to become pages in the wonderful books of his photographs. How he shot from the hip with the camera level beats me. Genius.

Where did you hear he shot from the hip?

 

[Prest_400]

True, at least in Saigon: film development is fine but mixed scanning results.

My stop over will be in Hong Kong which seems to have quite a lively film scene. As of the scans, in which way? I always count that labs do their own interpretation and even custom scan oriented labs have not been what I expected - but then it's also a lot about communicating the adjustments.
Fuji Frontiers do have a wonderful "memory color" pallette compared to the Noritsus.

The slide processor has a lot do with the end result. I took a couple of rolls to a shop that processed film for chip plants. This was back when I lived in Silicon Valley. Wow! Were they ever better. How long the chemicals have been in use and closeness of temp and time monitoring are critical. The best colors and IQ I had ever seen in a slide. The processor does make a difference, a big difference.

I do see that a lot of places resort to a smaller operation based on Jobo nowadays. At least that will be as good as "home".
As of C41, there are many running minilabs. I am not seeing so much the virtues of Dip and Dunk; For E6 I did send out to a lab that had it and the results were wonderful. A few weeks ago I developed a bunch of E6 with some other camera club members, but something went wrong and the slides weren't quite as good as they should. The processor does indeed as well have to do.

Circa 2010 I did have issues with photo stores / chains returning negatives with scratches, due to the roller transport. Seemingly nowadays who is left processing film is doing so rather well.

Back to the topic of negative returns, it is indeed quite some logistics. Not much more to say, than a lot of people are happy with the scans and then negatives are sadly forgotten.

 

[CanonCollector]

Newbie to the forum here and this is only my second post, but find this thread very interesting.

I remember in the early ‘80s when Brett Weston burned all his negatives. I had just started college and was dedicated to making photography my profession. That night I had a nightmare that Brett was in my living room throwing all my negatives into the fireplace. I call that a nightmare…

My teachers back then professed the negative was the music score and the print was the performance. While a good scan can record all the tonality and nuance of a negative with plenty of room for interpretation, I could never imagine discarding an original negative.

 

[CanonCollector]

The slide processor has a lot do with the end result. I took a couple of rolls to a shop that processed film for chip plants. This was back when I lived in Silicon Valley. Wow! Were they ever better. How long the chemicals have been in use and closeness of temp and time monitoring are critical. The best colors and IQ I had ever seen in a slide. The processor does make a difference, a big difference.

Agree 100%. I used to run an E-6 line back in the day, and there’s lots that can go wrong, starting with mixing the chemistry. Ph, specific gravity, along with water quality and temperature are very critical if you want good consistent results.

 

[Bob Michaels]

For about 18 years, I shot film, developed it, edited from negs, scanned 2-4 images per roll, worked with the digital files and filed the negs away. I carefully saved those negs believing they were the critical original and that my grandchildren would cherish those 87,000 negs that I left them.

Then I realized that I never accessed that large group of negs that I had accumulated over those years. I began reviewing, then disposing of those old negs. The reviews got quicker and quicker. I am shooting mostly digital now but finding no need for negs over a year old.

 

[Godfrey]

My scanning skills and setup are as good as I'll ever need them to be. Once I scan a set of negatives, I never look at them again ... I mean *never*. The scans are my 'originals'. My digital image storage system is extremely well worked out, reliable, and consistent... has been for fifteen years at least. I can find every negative image by date, by subject, by occasion, and by location that I've made and scanned since 1995. It's a lot more difficult to find what's what in the unscanned film archives...

So what's the point of saving the negatives? Do you really think anyone else is going to want them in the future? To me, it's all just more stuff to file and store, deal with... dross. If I've finished rendering a photo from a negative or transparency, THAT'S what I want future generations to see, not the (often crappy) originals that I had to work with. And if I didn't finish render a particular set of negatives, for some reason, well, whatever that reason was, they were not finished or done so they're not part of any supposed legacy I'm leaving behind. They're just the raw material, the grist, that my eyes and mind had to deal with. No other person can imbue whatever it is that makes a piece of art or a photograph mine other than me.

So I say: do what you wish with your work, your originals, and your finished photographs. Do what satisfies your personal desires and needs, and philosophical notions. Dump whatever doesn't make muster for you, and save yourself the PITA of managing dross.

G

... Oh yeah ... And if Luck and Happenstance wipe out all the digital archives, and the copies of the digital archives, and everything I've done is lost to bit-heaven forever, well, shed a tear for a moment, and then just go forward and make new work. Such is Life: we don't get to live forever, and that's likely not a bad thing.