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Interesting article:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0...729a28,00.html

"Fuzzy Logic" <> wrote in message
news:Xns94D9963EB37C7bobarcabca@198.161.157.145...
> Interesting article:
>
> http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0...729a28,00.html


Certainly interesting but the impression I came away with was of a
comparison between a Linhof and mobile 'phone snapping.

Okay, there was more, but a fairer comparison would have been the millions
(billions?) of film prints that have been lost or were taken with poor
equipment and the equally high number of digital images already lost. And on
the other hand the collections of film prints - good, bad, idifferent
compared to the equally good, bad, indifferent digital pictures stored on
CDs, DVDs, hard drives websites, ... archives various.

Also, I think that there are (and will be) many prints taken off digital
'negatives' for inclusion in 'photo albums.

--
Regards:

Anthony Ralph
Buckingham UK
------------------------------------------
** Pull the CORK to reply**
------------------------------------------

This is more of the same about technical limitations of one particular
digital technology as if any of the sensors out there were actually usable
if not for the extensive in-camera processing required to simulate/fake a
usable image. Just an image and nothing more.

Time was when there were technical papers proving that the casette tape
moving at 1 7/8 inches/second could not possibly rival then reel to reel
tapes for sound quality. Have you checked the densities of recorded material
in the average computer hard drive sold at Best Buy? According to some
papers published 15 years ago that kind of density in magnetic recording was
not physically possible. The real unsolvable problem with small imaging
sensors is that they require short focal length lenses which will have
physically small diaphragms that cause distortion of the passing light wave:
this problem is truly a brick wall of physics.

As computer processing power becomes cheaper many of the physcial
limitations of sensor technology will be camouflaged by even more in-camera
processing than occurs now. Olympus is claiming they will be able to match
lenses with cameras such that barrel and pincushion distortion will be
eliminated in the final image.

"Fuzzy Logic" <> wrote in message
news:Xns94D9963EB37C7bobarcabca@198.161.157.145...
> Interesting article:
>
> http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0...729a28,00.html

The main consideration is backing up images stored electronically, and
updating the media they are stored on as technology improves.
Imagine if you only had all your images stored on the old floppy disks that
were actually floppy (i.e the old 5 and a quarter or whatever they were)
there wouldn't be too many people around who even still have those drives to
get your images off the disk for you. Even the "hard" floppies are becoming
rarer on new computers, now they're all CD, which is slowly changing to DVD,
which will eventually change to x? Copying images stored on an older media
over to the newer media and backing them up is the main problem.

Their comment in the above article that people in an emergency grab their
photo album and their pets, not their hard-drives may not be correct for
all.
During the January 18th fires that hit Canberra last year and took out over
500 houses, some of us grabbed hard-drives as well as photo-albums. In fact
I packed my entire computer. But for convenience during my next emergency,
I've arranged to convert all my hard-drives to removeable. So all I have to
grab is the drive/s.

Trentus

I still wonder what percentage of old snapshots were truly saved. I am
sure it is a small percentage. I think the time is near at hand when
the 'net itself will be an archival facility that will preserve today's
current as tomorrows history better than anything yet seen.

Fuzzy Logic wrote:
>
> Interesting article:
>
> http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0...729a28,00.html

--
Don Stauffer in Minnesota

webpage- http://www.usfamily.net/web/stauffer

I've got a collection of family photos that dates back to the 19th century.
I think the point of the article is that we really don't know what the
future will bring for digital file formats, and that digital media is,
except for lab tests, somewhat of an unknown. Whether or not our digital
archiving methods will stand the test of time as well as black and white
film remains to be seen.

"Don Stauffer" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I still wonder what percentage of old snapshots were truly saved. I am
> sure it is a small percentage. I think the time is near at hand when
> the 'net itself will be an archival facility that will preserve today's
> current as tomorrows history better than anything yet seen.
>
> Fuzzy Logic wrote:
> >
> > Interesting article:
> >
> > http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0...729a28,00.html
>
> --
> Don Stauffer in Minnesota
>
> webpage- http://www.usfamily.net/web/stauffer

Bowzer responds:

>I've got a collection of family photos that dates back to the 19th century.
>I think the point of the article is that we really don't know what the
>future will bring for digital file formats, and that digital media is,
>except for lab tests, somewhat of an unknown. Whether or not our digital
>archiving methods will stand the test of time as well as black and white
>film remains to be seen.
>

Actually, whether film will stand any real test of time remains to be seen.
About the oldest photos around would be 150-175 years or so. Will they stand
the test of time as well as the hand illustrated manuscripts from the early
Middle Ages.

Charlie Self
"I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat
Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle

"Bowzer" <> wrote in message
news:rd9kc.67$...
> I've got a collection of family photos that dates back to the 19th
century.
> I think the point of the article is that we really don't know what the
> future will bring for digital file formats, and that digital media is,
> except for lab tests, somewhat of an unknown. Whether or not our digital
> archiving methods will stand the test of time as well as black and white
> film remains to be seen.

It doesn't really matter. Once your photos are digitised, you can always
change the file format at a later date if neccesary. What's more even if
file formats change radically, almost every graphics package will offer
backwards compatibility.

Also - whether digital archiving methods stand the test of time is also
irrelevant. Again - once your pictures are in the digital domain, you can
archive them in multiple physical location, on to different media types
etc....at the click of a mouse.

"Fuzzy Logic" <> wrote in message
news:Xns94D9963EB37C7bobarcabca@198.161.157.145...
> Interesting article:
>
> http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0...729a28,00.html

I bet the same complaints were made when papyrus replaced clay tablets.
There are always folks who cling to the old ways. There will be film
available as long as there are enough people buying it. When there is no
film on the market, silver-emulsion buffs can return to the practice of
coating their home-made emulsions on glass plates. They made great photos
that way back in the good old 19th century.

"Don Stauffer" <> a écrit dans le message de
news:...
> I still wonder what percentage of old snapshots were truly saved. I am
> sure it is a small percentage. I think the time is near at hand when

And that is precisely why really old pictures are worth something. If Van
Gogh had painted tens of thousands of paintings, they would be too common to
be worth anything.

A picture taken by a telephone will be as much a heirloom as a chest of
drawers bought at Wal-Mart.

I have been videotaping stuff for about 20 years and taking digital pictures
for about 5 years, so far the tapes can still be read and I have only munged
pictures when I didn't know what I was doing 5 years ago.

Jean


> the 'net itself will be an archival facility that will preserve today's
> current as tomorrows history better than anything yet seen.
>
> Fuzzy Logic wrote:
> >
> > Interesting article:
> >
> > http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0...729a28,00.html
>
> --
> Don Stauffer in Minnesota
>
> webpage- http://www.usfamily.net/web/stauffer