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clark kent

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whilst out shopping recently, I called into Max Spielmann with a friend who wanted a quick print of something in her 'phone and whilst we were waiting for a console to come free, I was talking to the assistant; asking her about the machine.
I was surprised when she told me it was a laser printer and that got me to thinking: In former times, we used our negs and developed, fixed and printed them and we had them for a lifetime.
I don't think that folks nowadays realise how short the life of a print will be. The woman in the shop said that she hadn't realised it and nobody had ever mentioned it before.
Digital cameras and modern equipment is a wonderful advancement and has brought photography into the hands of the man in the street but is the cost in the long run too great? Future generations, I suspect, will suffer a great lack because of it . . . . .
 
Not sure I understand what you mean? Surely it's better now in that our "negatives" are stored on memory (hard disks etc) and many copies can be save on many disks as back up. We have these forever as well. I think people are getting snapshots printed less and less these days as its easier to show them digitally on phones, tablets, pc's, digital frames and also cuts down on the expense of printing. And if something happens to the print, it's cheap as chips to replace (pennies for a 4x6 or 7x5). Hope I understood your point correctly and haven't waffles nonsense! :)
 
If you look through most family albums, or look on the walls at what's been framed, it's the prints that have survived and are cherished. There's often little thought to the negative. The good news is that good quality prints survive hundreds of years, but cheap prints from film will fade just like cheap digital prints.

The digital age hasn't been around long enough to know whether or not digital is a good
long-term storage medium. It has many weaknesses, but these are largely understood and being worked on by the industry. But the average user may be missing some of these. At least one image library has been backing up digital images onto film.
 
Even Max Spielmann wouldn't use a laser printer for photos. Chances are it's actually a dye sub.

According to the Wilhelm Institute the very best inkjet prints now last longer than the very best chemical prints (which are of course better than they ever were).
 
clark kent said:
whilst out shopping recently, I called into Max Spielmann with a friend who wanted a quick print of something in her 'phone and whilst we were waiting for a console to come free, I was talking to the assistant; asking her about the machine.
I was surprised when she told me it was a laser printer and that got me to thinking: In former times, we used our negs and developed, fixed and printed them and we had them for a lifetime.
I don't think that folks nowadays realise how short the life of a print will be. The woman in the shop said that she hadn't realised it and nobody had ever mentioned it before.
Digital cameras and modern equipment is a wonderful advancement and has brought photography into the hands of the man in the street but is the cost in the long run too great? Future generations, I suspect, will suffer a great lack because of it . . . . .
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If its a Fuji frontier unit then it is a laser printer.
 
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indiabravo said:
Not sure I understand what you mean? Surely it's better now in that our "negatives" are stored on memory (hard disks etc) and many copies can be save on many disks as back up. We have these forever as well. I think people are getting snapshots printed less and less these days as its easier to show them digitally on phones, tablets, pc's, digital frames and also cuts down on the expense of printing. And if something happens to the print, it's cheap as chips to replace (pennies for a 4x6 or 7x5). Hope I understood your point correctly and haven't waffles nonsense! :)
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I think the perception is that because images are backed up and only really shared on line, they don't get printed.
Film images by nature can't help but exist as a physical thing, whether they are printed or not.
Digital files are a bunch of 1's and 0's that don't exist in a physical sense unless they are printed.
I guess peeps have more confidence in something tangible they can touch than something they are told exists on a disk.
 
joxby said:
I guess peeps have more confidence in something tangible they can touch than something they are told exists on a disk.
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surely that is like saying that a person keeps all there money in a suitcase under the bed rather than trust a bank. Almost everyone has a bank account nowadays yet our money is really 1's and 0's as well. My hard disk gets corrupted then I lose my image. The bank server gets corrupted then I lose my money
 
indiabravo said:
surely that is like saying that a person keeps all there money in a suitcase under the bed rather than trust a bank. Almost everyone has a bank account nowadays yet our money is really 1's and 0's as well. My hard disk gets corrupted then I lose my image. The bank server gets corrupted then I lose my money
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I hope I don't use the same bank as you!

As recently proven when Natwest had corrupted data, nobody lost any money except in the short term, and backups returned account balances and transactions to normal, just as backed-up images would.

It still comes back to a printed film image having one negative to reprint from, which if lost or damaged is lost for ever.
The digital image, however, can be stored in as many places as we like and can then be reprinted at will and displayed on as many different media as we like.
 
david357 said:
As recently proven when Natwest had corrupted data, nobody lost any money except in the short term, and backups returned account balances and transactions to normal, just as backed-up images would.
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Exactly, this is my point. Back ups!
 
indiabravo said:
Exactly, this is my point. Back ups!
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+1!!!

I wonder how many people have lost all of their printed photos and negatives due to a house fire/flooding etc.

OK, digital files on a disc/PC are just as vulnerable but you have the option to backup online or on an offsite disc.
 
Since the thread is about storage longevity of digital files, there doesn't seem much point in arguing the toss about which storage medium is best because we have no time tested data for digital storage.
TBF it hardly seems to matter whether digital storage lasts the distance or not, they don't get printed so there is no alternative anyway.
Prints aren't no good for faceache or flikspace either...eh..;)
 
The point I was making originally was that when we had a neg and a print, it lasted a lifetime - barring accidents. We've got plenty of prints from Victorian times etc.
No hard drive that's here now will be around in fifty years time. Indeed, methods of storage will evolve and will be something entirely different by then so unless you keep changing your backups from one type to another (and that's unlikely to happen) they probably won't exist.
Everything nowadays is so throwaway and fleeting that people don't seem to be able to think beyond next week.
Photographs don't only belong to us. They belong to future generations.
 
clark kent said:
The point I was making originally was that when we had a neg and a print, it lasted a lifetime - barring accidents. We've got plenty of prints from Victorian times etc.
No hard drive that's here now will be around in fifty years time. Indeed, methods of storage will evolve and will be something entirely different by then so unless you keep changing your backups from one type to another (and that's unlikely to happen) they probably won't exist.
Everything nowadays is so throwaway and fleeting that people don't seem to be able to think beyond next week.
Photographs don't only belong to us. They belong to future generations.
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But we've also lost millions of negs and prints too! What's left are the ones that people cared enough to keep. That's not changed at all, whilst many people will store their photos for only as long as they need on Facebook, plenty of others have real prints made, books printed and hard drives archived.
 
I've just started photographing old family phot albums, shots that my dad took during the war, followed by my childhood. I propose to try and make a video recounting the family history for the benefit of the grandchildren, something I hope they will appreciate later in life, when I've joined that great Lightroom in the sky. Better than the Darkroom, just make sure where you are going ;)
 
artyman said:
I've just started photographing old family phot albums, shots that my dad took during the war, followed by my childhood. I propose to try and make a video recounting the family history for the benefit of the grandchildren, something I hope they will appreciate later in life, when I've joined that great Lightroom in the sky. Better than the Darkroom, just make sure where you are going ;)
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What edition of lightroom is that Ken.:eek:
 
Phil V said:
But we've also lost millions of negs and prints too! What's left are the ones that people cared enough to keep. That's not changed at all, whilst many people will store their photos for only as long as they need on Facebook, plenty of others have real prints made, books printed and hard drives archived.
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Not really the same.
Nobody had to make an effort to keep the photos. They were just there, in the wardrobe or the old drawer or a box in the attic.
You would have to be pro-active with digital information in order to keep re-storing it.
It's not that the 'facebook' people wouldn't want to keep them forever, it's just that they can't think beyond next week. . . . the other side of the coin to having your current boyfriend's name tattooed on your arm !
 
clark kent said:
Not really the same.
Nobody had to make an effort to keep the photos. They were just there, in the wardrobe or the old drawer or a box in the attic.
You would have to be pro-active with digital information in order to keep re-storing it.
It's not that the 'facebook' people wouldn't want to keep them forever, it's just that they can't think beyond next week. . . . the other side of the coin to having your current boyfriend's name tattooed on your arm !
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They might have been just 'there' when they came back from the chemists, but people still threw them away, people divorced and died. Many families may have a pile of old photo's but it's nowhere near the complete set that existed in the physical world.

And you're making a large assumption about the amount people print and the amount of effort many people are happy to put into keeping their digital photo's.

I just see someone looking at the past through rose tinted glasses and looking at the present through a veil of cynicism.

How about the positives about the number of photo's taken nowadays? Or the advances in technology which have meant it's easier than ever to take a decent photo?
 
Phil V said:
I just see someone looking at the past through rose tinted glasses and looking at the present through a veil of cynicism.

How about the positives about the number of photo's taken nowadays? Or the advances in technology which have meant it's easier than ever to take a decent photo?
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What he said!
 
I'm with Superman..:)

Phil V said:
They might have been just 'there' when they came back from the chemists, but people still threw them away, people divorced and died. Many families may have a pile of old photo's but it's nowhere near the complete set that existed in the physical world.
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And ?
You're saying you think peeps print and save more photos now than when they were printed by default ?

Phil V said:
And you're making a large assumption about the amount people print and the amount of effort many people are happy to put into keeping their digital photo's.
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well its all about opinions


Phil V said:
I just see someone looking at the past through rose tinted glasses and looking at the present through a veil of cynicism.
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Cynicism, pink specs..??, it would be equally ridiculous to say you're shoving your head in the sand and hoping everything will be ok, but we're all adults here discussing a valid topic and we wouldn't suggest that.

Phil V said:
How about the positives about the number of photo's taken nowadays? Or the advances in technology which have meant it's easier than ever to take a decent photo?
Click to expand...


Positives ??, what's that got to do with anything ?
Within the context of the thread, the number of photos shot these days hardly seems relevant if they are all stored digitally.


Peeps don't print because they don't have to, they share their pictures on line through social media and just assume they will be there when they want them, thus the questionable storage factor will continue to be an issue until it is proved to be something other than questionable.
 
A few years ago I wrote to Outdoor Photography about this, they published my letter as 'Letter of the month' for which I won a Gitzo Tripod...which was nice.

I have prints from scans which I took from glass plate negatives of my late parents wedding from the late 40's. Film and digital both have their place, I still use my RB67 and love it to bits and I wouldn't part with my DSLR.

I would recommend using both film and digital. I'm 44 and still have pristine B+W negs which I developed at school when I was 14 but I'm not sure I could have preserved digital files for this long. Anyhow...I'm no different to anyone else since I have digital files that aren't backed up and I expect the worse will happen someday. Will I have done the sensible thing by then? Who knows.

Bet I'm not the only one despite being accutely aware of the risks.:cuckoo:

I would say it's easier to keep film for far longer than digital files. Granted there are risks but they are easier to control with regard to film.

I have Cibachrome prints hanging on the wall (hands up who knows what they are!) and B+W. Both will be archively stable for around 100+ years. That's a legacy.
 
joxby said:
I'm with Superman..:)

And ?
You're saying you think peeps print and save more photos now than when they were printed by default ?

well its all about opinions

Cynicism, pink specs..??, it would be equally ridiculous to say you're shoving your head in the sand and hoping everything will be ok, but we're all adults here discussing a valid topic and we wouldn't suggest that.

Positives ??, what's that got to do with anything ?
Within the context of the thread, the number of photos shot these days hardly seems relevant if they are all stored digitally.

Peeps don't print because they don't have to, they share their pictures on line through social media and just assume they will be there when they want them, thus the questionable storage factor will continue to be an issue until it is proved to be something other than questionable.
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Have you ever looked at a 40 year old print that's been stood on a sideboard?

Because i've scanned a few and worked my b***s off trying to create a passable picture from them.

So I'm well aware of what happens to all the loved photos from yesteryear. The unwanted ones are safe in shoeboxes. But only for people too lazy to have thrown them out.

That was a bit tongue in cheek, but there's an element of truth there too.

For the record I never said we printed more now. But that plenty of people do still print, and those prints are probably as stable as the old ones too.

Stand in Jessops and watch the IT illiterate cone in and print 400 pics from their holidays, because it's easier to chuck the unwanted cheap prints than to sort the files on a PC.
 
There aren't enough trees to print all the photos taken these days and most of them are best lost to posterity anyway. When browsing your photos on the computer, next to the left/right buttons the delete button is the most important, it's easy enough to archive those images that you do deem important, weather they are important to the rest of the world is quite another thing and does it really matter anyway ?
 
Quote from op post " In former times, we used our negs and developed, fixed and printed them and we had them for a lifetime. " unquote

Old prints faded or turned sepia, no way did they last a lifetime, that is a bit of a sweeping statement to say the least. Photos I took with my Brownie 127 camera well over 55+ years ago have faded. even more so with the photos my late father took with his bellows type Kodak camera


Realspeed
 
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Even paintings are not guaranteed longevity, there is a painting in Petworth House that has darkened over the years as the artist used bitumen as a black, how much it has changed even in the last 150 years was shown when I saw a watercolour painted by Turner withe the painting in the background, and it was considerably brighter than it is now. So prints may not be as long lasting as we may think, and digital formats change, so updating digital stores may still be a more secure way of preserving information. Whether anyone will be bothered to do that with our photos remains to be seen.
 
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