3200 rolls of film

[GAD]

Frono, I did not read the article. I know bad form. However, the analogy of magnetic media and chemical media is not a great one. Magnatism has a longer life than a very thin film of chemical emulsions. While digitally scanning the results may allow someone to guess at the details lost, film doesn't have pixels, really. With color film, certain colors go off first. I think the reds. and then others. It's not like color film is just black and white details with color shading. Some of the detail IS the color. A persons face could almost go clear on a slide film, if they weren't cared for properly.

You might be surprised. Data backup is a HUGE issue and one that most of us take for granted. Hard drives go bad, and it can happen in surprisingly short amount of time. Take this article: https://blog.storagecraft.com/data-storage-lifespan/ While I don't necessarily agree with those numbers, but when you've been in and around IT as long as I have you absolutely see data "just go away". I've seen hard drives that someone stored "for safe keeping" be practically useless after just sitting in a safe deposit box for years. Same with tape, same with everything that holds data. There really is no such thing as data permanence.

Of course I've seen the opposite, too. A floppy disk that sat in my drawer for 15 years read perfectly when I found it. The problem was finding a floppy drive!

I don't discount your point about undeveloped film, though.

 

[Midnight Toker]

You might be surprised. Data backup is a HUGE issue and one that most of us take for granted. Hard drives go bad, and it can happen in surprisingly short amount of time. Take this article: https://blog.storagecraft.com/data-storage-lifespan/ While I don't necessarily agree with those numbers, but when you've been in and around IT as long as I have you absolutely see data "just go away". I've seen hard drives that someone stored "for safe keeping" be practically useless after just sitting in a safe deposit box for years. Same with tape, same with everything that holds data. There really is no such thing as data permanence.

Of course I've seen the opposite, too. A floppy disk that sat in my drawer for 15 years read perfectly when I found it. The problem was finding a floppy drive!

I don't discount your point about undeveloped film, though.

Why I still love my vinyl. Plays just like it played 75 yrs ago...and will play exactly like that 75 yrs from now!


I've been collecting Zep for 40+ yrs. Have external HD's w/ upwards of 2.8 TB in Zep audio/video in my collection, which is basically every known circulating show in existence (if ten people snuck in recorders in LA 77, I have all ten recordings!)(plus loads of studio outtakes/rehearsals). Every 3-4 yrs, I buy a new external to have a newly updated backup. Thank god data storage has gotten so cheap. I once was paying an arm and a leg for boxes full of 500MB zip drive carts! I never thought there would be a day when an example of every Zep show could fit on a thumb drive! That's now a reality! But knowing how often digital media has failed me during this journey, and how magnetic tape degenerates and degradates ....all you can do is suck it up and refresh the digital master files from time to time, and keep multiple backups just in case.

I do it for my beloved collection... and for my personal files/photos.

 

[fronobulax]

Frono, I did not read the article.

We can stop right there since that was my point.

 

[JohnW63]

I have now read the article and my point is pretty close to the same. It isn't going to be all rainbows and hummingbirds getting good stuff out of a good percentage of that stuff. Since he used Tri-X black and white, that will have more chance of not being bad. Kodachrome will be a problem because Kodak stopped making the chemicals to develop it some years back. The last place was a lab in the mid-west. They shut down the Kodachrome jobs in 2010.

I liked this quote:
"My favorite Nikkor lenses are the 85mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.4, and 35mm f/1.4. And maybe the 105mm f/2.5."

The 85 and the 105 are classic short and long portrait lenses. The 50 and the 35 were the basic kit lenses of the day. Even today, the 85mm will cost you $500 and up. No chump change for a manual focus lens.