The downside of digital

[Doug Lutke]

Here is a picture of my Grandfather, and myself taken in September 1954. My Grandfather died of a heart attack shortly after this picture, I was 11 months old, so I never really knew him. He lived in the Chicago Suburbs, I lived in Michigan so this may have been the only time we were ever together. I don't know who took the picture, it really is only a snapshot. Who knew at the time, that almost 60 years later someone would cherish it.

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It makes me wonder if any of my digital pictures will be around in 60 years. Instead of putting pictures in a shoebox, they are stored on a hard drive or cd which will likely not be usable a half century from now.
How are you preserving your digital pictures?

 

[AggieCJ]

I still print. Send several snapshots similar to this everday to Walmart or shutterbug. Somethign about holding a picture in your hand and not having to hit the power button to share it. I also think the wear and tear along with fingerprints adds to the mystique. I don't think that the digital pictures will become obsolete or lost. We will just keep transferring them to the media of tomorrow.

 

[vinman]

I should really get in the habit of printing some shots every few weeks or so. Even if the formats we shoot, work, and store in are still usable, our media may be beyond use. Archival prints are the ones that'll be easy to look at by our grandkids...

 

[Prettym1k3]

I have a collection of some of my favorite shots from over the past few months on my desk. Every 3-4 months I order about $20-30 worth of prints. It's a business expense (marketing material) and I like to keep hard copies of some of my favorite prints.

 

[AggieCJ]

I will also take several and just throw a book together. As inexpensive as it is to make a quick book it really is a great way to preserve some memories.

Now thinking about it I may start that as my January project and start making a Year in Review book.

 

[Joves]

Well I will just keep transfering them to the newer media types. Which I think will be solidstate next in the 1Tb range in the next couple of years. I was hoping we would be using crystal drives and lasers but that never materialized.

 

[DonSchaeffer]

I store a lot on the internet. I tend not to take photos of family though.

 

[TomP]

I create picture albums of HDs :smile:

I use 3 Ext Hds for back up, so there is a HD for each child, and one to spare. Guess it's their problem to update the "albums" but I also figure solid state will be affordable in the near future.

But I really should print, or have printed, more small pics. That would make the wife happy, she does like snapfish.

 

[IAMAMRA]

Check out ARtscow.com they have some great deals on books and othere neat keepsakes...

 

[cwilt]

After having a RAID system crash and loosing 1 full year of images I have started printing books.

 

[camerapapi]

I can only speak on my behalf. Only God knows what others have thought when I have expressed my feelings about digital in these forums. Digital has become so popular and I know it is the media of the future.
I have always said that I can see tonalities with film that I cannot see with digital. Nothing like a b&w image printed on fiber based paper. Nothing comes close to the details, colors and beauty of slide film, especially large format.
We often see images that were made close to 100 years ago, among them those made by Ansel Adams just to mention someone. They are still there. It is still too early to predict what will the future of digital will be, I am sure it will be brilliant and hopefully the pictures we store today in electronic media like CD, will be shared in the future.
Steve McCurry, a great photojournalist that became so famous with his "The Afghan Girl" had last year the privilege of shooting the last roll of Kodachrome and that was highly publicized in the photo world. He stated that "film is real. It can be touched. It exists as an object." Digital is all electronics and only exists in an electronic card (CF, SD) or when we transfer the images to a CD or DVD. We cannot hold it in our hands like an object, that is, like we actually hold film in our hands. How well that type of storage is going to hold those images in the future I do not believe anybody really knows.
I print many of my digital images optically and preserve them that way with originals stored in a CD or DVD. I will not be around in another 50 years to know the outcome of stored images.
I like film. I was educated as a photographer when film was the media. Everything I know about photography I learned using film cameras and I still use them often. I find colors with film very beautiful and the dynamic range, especially negative film, is awesome. It is a totally different feeling than using digital and I know old timers will understand me better. I hope film will not find its demise.
Digital is very convenient and I know it is the future. It is still too young and it will continue to improve in quality. As it continuous to improve it will keep on pounding our wallets.
Film cameras are so cheap these days! Get one, buy a roll of film and you are ready to go, that simple. The rest is pure photography and you.

William Rodriguez
Miami, Florida.

 

[gchappel]

My wife "makes" me print images after every event. Yup, we have shoe boxes full of them. Doubt if the next generation will do this.
gary

 

[TomP]

After having a RAID system crash and loosing 1 full year of images I have started printing books.

Hoh did a raid system crash and take out ALL the hard drives Charles

 

[TOLady]

I think that is the upside of digital. With digital, instead of one photo, people take ten. They exchange them, show them online, store them for use later. If I can 'read' doc files created over 20 years ago, the JPG format will easily be read decades from now. Software has always had the ability to convert older files to new formats. With such proliferation of JPG files around the world, the format won't become obsolete.

Another use for digital: I'm digitizing all my extended family's photos to share amongst the 47 cousins and their children and grandchildren. They are starting to see themselves and older relatives in images they didn't even know existed. This just didn't happen with film.

I, for one, am very grateful for living in the digital age. I was never very interested in photography until the instant gratification of the digital world. Works for me! :smile:

 

[TommyO]

+1; I just got 215 images from Smugmug, and I asked myself: why am I not doing this more often? Even if they just go to a box for storage, they are pictures to see and feel - they are so much more real.

I should really get in the habit of printing some shots every few weeks or so. Even if the formats we shoot, work, and store in are still usable, our media may be beyond use. Archival prints are the ones that'll be easy to look at by our grandkids...

 

[Bikinchris]

Here is a picture of my Grandfather, and myself taken in September 1954. It makes me wonder if any of my digital pictures will be around in 60 years. Instead of putting pictures in a shoebox, they are stored on a hard drive or cd which will likely not be usable a half century from now.
How are you preserving your digital pictures?

Who has the original negative? Has it been thrown in a shoebox? Is it in an archival sleeve? Is is scratched and bent?

You do know that there are gold plated CD and DVD's that are rated for 500 years? If your shots are good and worthy, then someone will make sure they are translated into newer media over the years. If they are not, then they will be surely treated as badly as if they were ugly prints.

One advantage of digital is that once you have taken the shot, in 20 minutes every single relative can have their own copy. If backed up properly, they will last. If not, they will have the same fate as a box inder the bed, which is attacked by silver fish, mold, misuse or fire.

I am not against film. I spent years of my life in a darkroom. But I don't want to do it again. I am in control of my printing now, just like I was then, too.

 

[cwilt]

Hoh did a raid system crash and take out ALL the hard drives Charles

Replicated the failed drive on to all others. Data corruption like I have never seen before. A 1 in a million chance in my opinion. I have been building PC's from the time of soldering the chips and transistors on the boards myself and never thought something like that would happen. Over the last year digital media has failed me many times. To many!

My father in laws slides and negatives that were not properly stored still scan just fine.

 

[Kisatchie]

My Nikon F3Hp and F2A bodies each have an instruction manual with around 45 pages - and half of that is photos.

How many pages in a digital camera manual? 300? 400? Sucks all the fun out of photography, just trying to learn how the camera works LOL.

 

[Kisatchie]

My Nikon F3Hp and F2A bodies each have an instruction manual with around 45 pages - and half of that is photos.

How many pages in a digital camera manual? 300? 400? Sucks all the fun out of photography, just trying to learn how the camera works LOL.

 

[AlJohnston]

My Nikon F3Hp and F2A bodies each have an instruction manual with around 45 pages - and half of that is photos.

How many pages in a digital camera manual? 300? 400? Sucks all the fun out of photography, just trying to learn how the camera works LOL.

That's because of the myriad settings on your digital camera that determine how the picture looks and used to be made by chemical engineers at Fuji, Kodak, Agfa, Ilford et al...