Digpics, can they last?

[Guest]

I have the thought that Digital Photograghs will not be the bees knees that most people think they are. Looking at how far back and how well film photograghs have lasted in a form we all can see. I have the feeling that we and the generations to come will miss out on a lot of nostalgia. I do not think printing on very degradable paper will help either.

One thing seems to emphasize this and that is the loss of equiment to view recordings of the large project the BBC did of a modern Domesday project. I think it was recorded on Phillips equipment which no longer exists.

Another loss was of a record of events which one of my friends, sadly no longer wiith us, recorded onto a video format with equipment known as "Technicolour". This was a small cassette medium, which gave excelent quality playback. The format fell by the wayside, his equipment then failled, so after searching very hard for a means to transfer this format to a better known one he accepted his loss and disposed of the tapes.

How long I wonder will it be before new formats superceed the current form of digital, then most people dumping their saved media as new types of equipment appear and their old gadgets fail. Like my Sinclair and Amiga computers did. Currenty VHS is fast dissapearing and I have hundreds of hous of family and other materiel on tape. Transfer to digital? go back to start of thread:emo10:

[Guest]

I know what you mean but it happens throughout many things we deal with nowadays. All we can do is try to maintain our media in a current format and back up or transfer as new things become available and not leave it until it is too late and the machinery is no longer available.

On the other side of the coin you could say that film photography was totally dependant on the one negative created by the camera. It was not impossible but very difficult and with a lot of degredation to make a copy. Nowadays you can make as may copies of a digital picture as you want, each one a pixel perfect replica of the original. That surely has to be a safer system?

I think we have to be more aware of changing technologies and transfer media when the equipment is available to keep our memories safe.

I used to back up to Zip drives but they are all but obsolete so all my files were transferred to CD's. Now I have a DVD burner so I am in the process of transferring the same files to DVD's. Each file still remains a perfect copy so I think my current system is relatively safe. I also keep files on my desktop, my laptop, an external drive and on CD's so the chances of loosing the lot are hopefully very remote.

I also have rather a lot of old film negatives which I am scanning as I believe the scanned file is more likely to last than the negative. I can also keep thousands of them on a DVD which is a heck of a lot more convenient than about 30 photo albums!

Interesting food for thought though.

[Guest]

I have been taking 35mm slide and print for over 20 years and have amassed a huge collection of images. The cost of film and processing was becoming very expensive (Witness an average Fairford airshow, 250-350 photos.) Last year i got my first Digital camera , a Minolta Dimage with an 8 times optical zoom. The images are easy to store on cd-rom and on the pc in files .With the advent of cheaper DVD recorders the transfer of Video to DVD is becoming easier to do. I have hundreds of hours of documentries and films that have never been repeated that i want to transfer but havent the time or money to do it .Another thing that holds me back is that the formats may change as technology is changing so fast. As far as printing the digital images i havent done that yet so i can't comment on how long they will last before they degrade. I have prints from the 70s that have no sign of fading but slides can degrade over time. it does take time..

[Guest]

i have been printing digital pictures for a couple of years onto photo paper using a normal inkjet printer.to be honest the only fade if left in sunlight, others i have in draws, folders...etc are still in perfect condition. then again i have "real" photos on my wall that have been exposed to sunlight for over 5 years and have no sign of fading!!

my parents have a heck of alot of family videos on VHS, about a year ago they baught a DVD recorder so they are in the process of recording them all on to dvd, you can get 50 dvdr's for about £20-£30, and 50 VHS would cost you alot more than that!!!

[wonwinglo]

Richard the standard ink jet cartirdges are not archival quality,you need to go for the lot more expensive photographic ink quality cartridges for longer lasting colours,like yourself I have prints done in colour that are now 35 years old and still good,however these have been stored in folders away from sunlight.

If you want to see how colours fade then try this experiment-Print out a standard picture with ordinary inks onto photo quality paper,next get some paper stripsd and space them out onto the paper,secure them with tape on the back,now place the print into any spot where the picture is exposed to daylight such as a window,after week one tear off the first strip,week two etc and you willl soon see the effects of ordinary daylight on the print over a period of weeks.

The secret as always is to keep your negatives,in the case of digital this means carefully storing your images onto discs,always make at least two back up copies of your precious digital images for the future,this way the original colours will be stored always ready if you need to make further prints from them and to assist future historians.

Very few printers inks are colour fast and will quickly degrade if exposed to daylight,some colours in particular are very fugative such as yellows and alizarin red,so yes everything does fade,you need to protect those prints properly.