The durability of film (scan example)

On 4/3/2009 5:24 PM Scott W spake thus:

On Apr 3, 2:32 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 4/3/2009 3:23 PM Scott W spake thus:

I have slides but no longer a slide projector. I do have a film
scanner but when it breaks down I will not be buying another one. How
many people do you know have a working slide projector?

Tons and tons. Where do you think all those slide projectors that
continuously show up at secondhand stores come from?

People who now no longer have a slide projector.

Yes, but they had one yesterday, which was my point.


--
Made From Pears: Pretty good chance that the product is at least
mostly pears.
Made With Pears: Pretty good chance that pears will be detectable in
the product.
Contains Pears: One pear seed per multiple tons of product.

(with apologies to Dorothy L. Sayers)

wrote:
On Apr 3, 5:04 pm, "Colin.D" wrote:
Microfilm is a high contrast film. It does not have the dynamic range
to faithfully record the full range of tones from normal photographic
images, film or digital.

There are many ways around this constraint that have appeared in the
literature and in patents. For example, Normand, Gschwind and Riedel,
describe the use of an archival colorimetric transform. That's just
one. If you are interested, I suggest you go to the website of the
Society for Imaging Science and Technology (www.imaging.org) and
search their abstracts.

Your previous post to which I replied made the point about archives
being 'human-readable'. Is a colorimetric transform readable by human eyes?

Colin D.

Scott W wrote:
On Apr 3, 12:51 pm, Doug Jewell wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:

I have 8mm movies that I still have to get around to getting
transfered to DVD. Sure I can look at the film with my eyes, not all
that useful. I also shot a number of video formats, far easier to
transfer from format to format and I have most of my old video tapes
now on DVD.
But what if you skipped a generation of transferring?
You say looking at the film with your eyes isn't all that
useful - I say it is extraordinarily useful, because your
eyes can tell you instantly what is on that little strip of
plastic. Sure you can't hear the audio or see it as a motion
picture, but you can tell the important things of who, what,
when & where, and that will tell you whether that piece of
plastic is worth going to the time and/or expense of doing
something further with it.


I have slides but no longer a slide projector. I do have a film
scanner but when it breaks down I will not be buying another one. How
many people do you know have a working slide projector?
Thing is, you don't need a slide projector to view a slide.
Like me, I'm pretty sure you were born with 2 slide viewers
too. Sure you can't see it in all it's glory like you would
if you projected it, but hold it up toward a light source
(which can be as simple as a window or a light globe), and
you can instantly see what's on it. You will almost
instantly tell whether the shot is worth preserving, whether
it has some historical interest etc.

When my grandmother died no one wanted to take the time to look
through her slides, my parents were going to throw them out. I saved
them and still have them, taking up room. I have not looked through
them, too much work.
I ended up with my grandmother's slides too. Most of them,
as you say, are just taking up room. However a very small
portion of them (less than 1%) were invaluable. Among them
were the only known photos of my Aunt & Uncle's wedding, who
lost their actual wedding photos in a house fire. The only
known photos of some of my cousins as children. Funny thing
is, no-one can actually remember grandma having a camera,
let alone using it! Yet she took a couple of thousand
slides, and documented a significant portion of our extended
family's history. When Dad found them, it only took a couple
of moments for him to realise what was there. A few hours
one afternoon and we had previewed pretty much all of them,
and shortlisted the ones that we would scan to distribute
around the family - that didn't take a slide projector to do.

I have just about all the digital photos my parents have taken, about
7,000 all together. This takes up a very smll amount of room on my
drives. And I have looked through their photos. It is far easier to
look through digital images then slides or prints.
Indeed it is - if you have suitable equipment. Now lets say
you didn't know your parents were taking photos and you
weren't an enthusiast yourself (In my family the photography
bug skipped a generation - Dad couldn't give a hoot about
taking photos, but he does love seeing what others have
taken). In 30 years time after they have passed away you are
going through their house and find a funny little box with a
few odd shaped connectors on it. You vaguely remember seeing
boxes like that some 30 years ago - they were computer
storage devices - primitive compared to what we have now in
2040. If you remember right, they plugged into the computer
using some primitive cable connection, not the wireless link
that everything uses now. You ponder - wonder what is on it,
wonder if it still works, wonder if there is a way of
connecting it to modern computers to see what is on it. Nah
too much hassle you say, and toss it in the bin.

BTW, I don't see this as a film vs digital argument, I see
it as a digital only vs physical copy argument. Where I have
used "slide" above, could just as easily be prints. If it is
worth looking at on the computer, it is worth printing -
even if you only put it in a shoebox and file it away.

The wonderful thing about digital is that you can make as
many perfect copies of data as you like, and make as many
reprints as you like - which is why, like yourself, I have
been working on digitising my grandparents photos. The vast
majority of my personal film work is also digitised. There
is a hell of a lot to be said for having digital data.

Regardless of whether the image was taken on film or
digital, storing it digitally has a great advantage. But
that advantage is also it's biggest weakness. Because
digital data doesn't physically exist, it is incredibly easy
for it to be destroyed. I would always prefer to have
multiple copies of all information I have - photos, videos,
documents etc.

But if I was to have just one copy of something, I'd rather
it be a physical copy rather than a digital copy. One good
thing about taking the photo on film, is that you are forced
into the good practice of having a physical copy. You will
most likely want to scan the image if it is any good, and
you've immediately got 2 copies.




--
Have you ever noticed that all legal documents need to be
completed in black or blue pen, but we vote in pencil?

wrote:
On Apr 3, 11:51 pm, "Colin.D" wrote:
Your previous post to which I replied made the point about archives
being 'human-readable'. Is a colorimetric transform readable by human eyes?

To the similar extent that a color negative with its integral color
mask is human readable, yes. That is, it is not a finished print, but
you can see the image. And unlike a digital file, where a few bits
lost here and there can make the entire file unreadable without
complicated recovery processes (and maybe not at all if the file was
compressed, even in lossless form), the image can be reconstructed
without the need for media-specific equipment.

My point is not that we shouldn't be using digital storage--I do it
all the time and consult for companies that do as well. But that
reliance on it as not being subject to degradation and additionally
media obsolesence is false comfort.

Ok, thanks.

Colin D.