Do you keep ALL your negatives?

FujiLove said:
I wouldn't be so sure about that:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081027174646.htm

"According to the National Archives Web site by the mid-1970s, only two machines could read the data from the 1960 U.S. Census: One was in Japan, the other in the Smithsonian Institution. Some of the data collected from NASA’s 1976 Viking landing on Mars is unreadable and lost forever."

I'll stick with my negatives and silver gelatin prints.
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H'mm wonder if they still have the hasselblad negs from the moon landing....... earth rise etc
 
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FujiLove said:
I wouldn't be so sure about that:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081027174646.htm

"According to the National Archives Web site by the mid-1970s, only two machines could read the data from the 1960 U.S. Census: One was in Japan, the other in the Smithsonian Institution. Some of the data collected from NASA’s 1976 Viking landing on Mars is unreadable and lost forever."

I'll stick with my negatives and silver gelatin prints.
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I'm fairly sure that the US Census did not use Jpegs to store their information. I did not say or imply that every data format ever devised would remain usable. Compare the total size of the US Census in 1960 with the total size of the Jpeg photographs uploaded to the Interweb TODAY for a sensible comparison. Jpegs are globally important, the US Census for any year is not.
 
Why are jpegs important?

Genuine question because it seems to me that the overwhelming majority of jpegs are pointless diarrhoea.

Surely, it's the subject that is or isn't important, not the format.

And I was only half joking earlier. A lot of technological stuff needs to stay secure for jpegs to survive. Time is notorious for challenging security.
 
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simon ess said:
Why are jpegs important?
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Because it is a standard usable format that is used a very great deal. Printing on paper is important for the same reason - most of what is printed is dross, but also most writing that is worth preserving is printed on paper. The British library is not going to have a bonfire any time soon and we should be the same with Jpegs.
 
I guess that I'm in a better position than most of you lot in so far as should the planet explode / inplode or simply melt then I have (next to) nothing to lose as far as photo negs / files are concerned, not that I suspect that the mutants left behind in the aftermath will give a damn anyway:LOL:
 
Asha said:
I have to ask ( the question refers to everyone who holds onto all their negs), how often do you actually dig any of those negatives out to "re use" / re process them?

Or do they simply lie around boxed up waiting for that day when you might be happy to still have hold of them?
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Since the launch of the New Old Film Challenge I’ve been through quite a lot of my old negs.
john.margetts said:
Yes, they will - well, not all of them. When I die, Bestbeloved is very likely to delete all my photo files but Jpeg format files will be around for centuries. Even if Jpegs come to be no longer used, archivists will need to maintain computers and software that can use Jpeg files for the simple reason that they are currently ubiquitous. For that same reason, the BBC archivists can read virtually all recording formats that have been in use over the last 100+ years even if a particular format has not been used for recording for a century or so.
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They can read the formats but a lot of stuff they could have read has been junked.
 
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I have almost all of mine from the start with my first "serious" camera, the Werra 1 in 1967. Negatives up until about 3 years ago are in their original envelopes in shoe boxes; more recent ones are filed in negative sheets. I regret not having the shots from a previous low quality 120 camera I had.

Almost all the negatives have been scanned. I didn't know why I was keeping them, but now I do. There's so much about my past I'd forgotten, but re-discovered when scanning the old negatives.
 
ChrisR said:
..... I didn't know why I was keeping them, but now I do. There's so much about my past I'd forgotten, but re-discovered when scanning the old negatives.
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^^^THIS^^^ is the reason I keep all mine, even the rubbish shots remind me of a time, a place, a person...
 
RaglanSurf said:
^^^THIS^^^ is the reason I keep all mine, even the rubbish shots remind me of a time, a place, a person...
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Only last year I had the unwanted task of digging out old photos and negs of a friend who had died. These were pretty much before he met his wife and had a family, so they appreciated how well and happy he had looked in his younger days. Have to say that it brought back great memories for me as well, since I had known him from day 1 at primary school.
 
ChrisR said:
I didn't know why I was keeping them, but now I do. There's so much about my past I'd forgotten, but re-discovered when scanning the old negatives.
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RaglanSurf said:
^^^THIS^^^ is the reason I keep all mine, even the rubbish shots remind me of a time, a place, a person...
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Peter B said:
Only last year I had the unwanted task of digging out old photos and negs of a friend who had died. These were pretty much before he met his wife and had a family, so they appreciated how well and happy he had looked in his younger days. Have to say that it brought back great memories for me as well, since I had known him from day 1 at primary school.
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All very valid and I confess that I was keeping all mine for pretty much these reasons.

I have of course retained a certain amount that relate to friends, memorable personal events and my younger days, BUT not all of them.
For me personally, there has to be a limit between sentiment and reality.

I've dealt with clearing out personal belongings following deaths, including that of my father 30 years ago. I have a few photos and a couple of personal objects relating to him but the rest of his possessions were moved on elsewhere and I have no regret at dealing with that situation in the way that I did.

I always believed that my mother was perhaps a bit OTT in her behaviour of hoarding "everything" like a hamster ( and I dread the day when I have to go through her affairs!), but reading back through this thread, perhaps she is what could be classed as nearer to "normal" normal than I am:thinking:

It doesn't change my minimalistic outlook ( not just with negs), nor do I criticise others preferences.

Looking on it more positively, as I have no offspring, nor siblings, when a time comes when I am no longer around, it will take next to no time for whoever it is who deals with my affairs, to sift through and clear them out.

I may even list my M4 and LF outfits to be handed onto certain folk on here …….....There again! :LOL:
 
I keep all my negatives.

I keep all my high res scans.

I have a copy of these scans that I work on in LR, culling and editing to suit.

I keep a full res copy of these edited images.

So, from negatives, to scans, to edited images - I have a copy at each step along the process.
 
Asha said:
I always believed that my mother was perhaps a bit OTT in her behaviour of hoarding "everything" like a hamster ( and I dread the day when I have to go through her affairs!), but reading back through this thread, perhaps she is what could be classed as nearer to "normal" normal than I am:thinking:
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Fortunately or not, I also have bags of photos left by my mother, but at least they never kept negatives! ;)
 
SlimShaney said:
I keep all my negatives.

I keep all my high res scans.

I have a copy of these scans that I work on in LR, culling and editing to suit.

I keep a full res copy of these edited images.

So, from negatives, to scans, to edited images - I have a copy at each step along the process.
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Impressionate!
If it works for you then that's all that matters.

I doubt that I would be able to find the patience to occupy myself in a similar manner tbh.
 
I keep all my negs
Its not easy to put my finger on why, if there's one decent one on a roll I've been lucky.
For reasons already mentioned but with sentiment aside, I could make a case for keeping them all, based on lessons learned from the frames leading up to that one decent one, and the frames after it.
In all honesty though, I just like real things you can touch, scans I couldn't care less, they're just files to me and hold no value until they exist physically, and even then they are a bit of a cop out.
Negs are like, I dunno, its like comparing a sculpture you actually made, with a photo of the sculpture you made, it just ain't the same thing, the photo is disposable, the sculpture is not.
Unless of course you shoot your sculpture on filum......:hungover:

I think there is a case to be made against keeping negs in the interest of personal development.
The not resting on ones laurels approach, moving forward and pushing yourself without the safety net of previous victory's.
Sometimes I think they can hold you back.

:)
 
I keep all of mine, with a single exception.

I will only bin a frame or cut up roll strip if it's either blank or completely unusable in it's entirety. Otherwise it's kept.
 
Woodsy said:
I keep all of mine, with a single exception.

I will only bin a frame or cut up roll strip if it's either blank or completely unusable in it's entirety. Otherwise it's kept.
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I do exactly the same
 
Not only do I have all my negatives, I have a large wooden box crammed with thousands of my father's negs too. These are single cut 6*9 black and white from some time in the 30s to... not sure when, but post war. This box is where the 6*9 Dufaycolor slides came from that I wrote a thread about a few years ago (here). I have a vague plan to scan them, but I don't really know where to start; it's a huge job. Even getting the negs aligned in the V500 120 holder is hard!
 
Who was it who said that 12 excellent photos a year is something to be proud of (or words to that effect)?

400 is just over 33 years worth, so not bad really!
 
Woodsy said:
Who was it who said that 12 excellent photos a year is something to be proud of (or words to that effect)?

400 is just over 33 years worth, so not bad really!
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was that a very optimistic mr snap ?
 
Mintchocs said:
I don’t shoot that much film now so I keep all. I do tend to use film more for friends and family so even bad ones are good ones. With digital I do delete as it gets to much to store and backup.
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this is how I feel about it too,,,,,,,

after the London meet I had about a dozen or so 35mm cans in the freezer from up to a couple of years ago ,,so I developed them all the next day,,,,this was on one of them ,its my daughter and granddaughter ,,,id actually forgotten what I had on most of them .img228.jpg


and then the sad reality that this would be the last roll of film I developed that would contain pictures of my daughter .
it dosent take a lot of working out why ill never be able to take pictures of her again. ABBIE ,,,XXXXXX
 
That is a good memory to have and keep, @donut... It does underline why it's so important to to take pics of family and friends, Though for some reason I find I'm much less often taking those on film, use my little digital instead (sorry).
 
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