Durability & Stability: Film vs. Digital

When my children were growing up twenty years ago, I usually kept a roll
of B/W in a backup camera so that I could be reasonably certain that some
decent family photos would survive even if the color prints and negs faded.
So to update that problem:

Is there any consensus on the image and color stability over time
of film vs. digital?

Don

Is there any consensus on the image and color stability over time
of film vs. digital?

There isn't much of a consensus concerning anything film vs. digital imho.

"Don McC" wrote in message
...
When my children were growing up twenty years ago, I usually kept a roll
of B/W in a backup camera so that I could be reasonably certain that some
decent family photos would survive even if the color prints and negs
faded.
So to update that problem:

Is there any consensus on the image and color stability over time
of film vs. digital?

Don

Don McC wrote:


Is there any consensus on the image and color stability over time
of film vs. digital?


Google away. Both need to be managed to be durable.

All prints fade...all pigments fade. Even cave paintings, the oldest art on
the planet, fade. Data does not. While the storage media that holds the data
can go bad the data, if copied to other media can survive. Digital has it
all over antique forms of photography....except for the human
factor...people should not wait for the CD to go bad before saving to a new
form of storage....but they will.

--
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
(visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com)
freebridge design group

"Don McC" wrote in message
...
When my children were growing up twenty years ago, I usually kept a roll
of B/W in a backup camera so that I could be reasonably certain that some
decent family photos would survive even if the color prints and negs
faded.
So to update that problem:

Is there any consensus on the image and color stability over time
of film vs. digital?

Don

"Gene Palmiter" wrote:

All prints fade...all pigments fade. Even cave paintings, the oldest art on
the planet, fade. Data does not.


You're right. Data doesn't fade.

Data merely disappears without trace, and the nature and timing of its
disappearance are totally unpredictable.

Don McC wrote:
When my children were growing up twenty years ago, I usually kept a roll
of B/W in a backup camera so that I could be reasonably certain that some
decent family photos would survive even if the color prints and negs faded.
So to update that problem:

Is there any consensus on the image and color stability over time
of film vs. digital?

Don
As others have said to make either one last some care is needed. I
believe that digital in the long run will be a much better format for
saving images. Having said that it cost me very little to hedge my
bets and print out a fair number of my photos, I have these printed at
Costco and they are printed on the same print paper then film prints
are made on.

When my DVD backups get to two years old I make a new set. And of
course the photos are stored on at least one hard drive. I also resize
all my photos from time to time to 1280 x 1024 and burn these to a
couple of DVDs. Then for the photos that I particularly want to keep I
back up more often then the bulk of the photos.

Scott

"Gene Palmiter" wrote

All prints fade...all pigments fade. Even cave paintings, the oldest art on
the planet, fade.

IIRC, it is not the paintings fading but the rock crumbling
away. TTBOMK carbon black, iron oxide and calcium carbonate do not fade.

Data does not. While the storage media that holds the data
can go bad

As in cave paintings...

the data, if copied to other media can survive.

Didn't they make a duplicate cave for the tourists to go through?

Digital has it all over antique forms of photography

Now hold it a minute. Antiques are valuable.

....except for the human factor...

Aye, there's the rub.

people should not wait for the CD to go bad before saving to a new
form of storage....but they will.

Which is why digital is not all that great a shake above film.

In my experience every time I move data from old media to new media there
is some percentage that doesn't get moved either through error or "it's late,
I'm tired, this stuff is worthless...". Through slow attrition I expect
all my digital data will eventually be lost. Stuffing it in an attic
trunk for the next 100 years isn't an option.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
To reply, remove spaces: n o lindan at ix . netcom . com
Fstop timer - http://www.nolindan.com/da/fstop/index.htm

"Tony Polson" wrote in message
news
"Gene Palmiter" wrote:

All prints fade...all pigments fade. Even cave paintings, the oldest art
on
the planet, fade. Data does not.


You're right. Data doesn't fade.

Data merely disappears without trace, and the nature and timing of its
disappearance are totally unpredictable.


I think it does....Fade, that is. But it continues to work right up until it
fades to the point where part of it becomes unreadable, and at that point,
the machine can't interpret any of it, so it is just like it suddenly
disappears. I wonder why they can't make a machine that guesses what the
missing bits might be, and tries to interpret them anyway......Sort of a
clean-up program......

"Nicholas O. Lindan" wrote in message
hlink.net...
"Gene Palmiter" wrote

All prints fade...all pigments fade. Even cave paintings, the oldest art
on
the planet, fade.

IIRC, it is not the paintings fading but the rock crumbling
away. TTBOMK carbon black, iron oxide and calcium carbonate do not fade.

Data does not. While the storage media that holds the data
can go bad

As in cave paintings...

the data, if copied to other media can survive.

Didn't they make a duplicate cave for the tourists to go through?

Did they have Gary Larson do the paintings?

"William Graham" wrote:

I think it does....Fade, that is. But it continues to work right up until it
fades to the point where part of it becomes unreadable, and at that point,
the machine can't interpret any of it, so it is just like it suddenly
disappears.

My point, exactly.

I wonder why they can't make a machine that guesses what the
missing bits might be, and tries to interpret them anyway......Sort of a
clean-up program......

There are several available, but the success rate is patchy at best.