Re: OT: corrupted .NEF files
Dan, To be honest with you, I was quite surprised to find that Warner Brothers requires the creation of RGB separations of all their digital elements and stipulates that they be stored on bw film. But, from both a cost perspective and preservation standpoint it makes sense. If you consider that the average life of a hard disk is about six years, storing a life times worth of digital work electronically (and I'm talking still images here) is VERY expensive (hardware, compatibility, migration, etc.) compared to film. Digital storage is also far less dependable when compared to film. In the world of archives, film is the medium of choice for long term storage - for both still and M.P.; digital material is generally only considered acceptable for viewing or reference. Kodak is hoping to pitch film as a storage medium for digital data of all sorts because it may be, if a standard can be established for writing the data, significantly cheaper over a span of 100 years than any known digital technologies. BTW, I agree with you that prints, inkjet or otherwise, if stored properly might be a good way to go. But, most of us are all ready doing that with our images. Prints however do not offer a practical, or economical solution if we want to refer to the bulk of the images that we have made in the past. I suspect I'm not alone in going back and finding gems that I shot 30 years ago, but passed over because of the way I was looking at the world at the time. Best -greg On Thu, 9 Nov 2006, Dan Burkholder wrote: First off, most still photographers would sure take issue with the "costs more to shoot and store" point. Secondly, the issues of archiving an entire motion picture (24 frames per second for two hours...you do the math) are a lot different from the concerns of those of us who just want to make sure we can still make another print in 40 years. Let's be realistic. You can drive yourself nuts trying to ensure that your images will be available down the road but, digitally speaking, it's not a big deal to build some reliable redundancy into your system. And if you do want hard copy archives of those special images, why not make good archival inkjet prints that you can store away somewhere? They could always be scanned for reproduction down the road if needed. A heck of a lot of info is stored in a sharp, smooth surface print. And last but but not least, some of us might be better served putting that time and energy into trying to MAKE images worthy of concern in the first place. A well preserved boring image will always be a boring image, no matter how permanent we make it. Lord knows I have plenty of negs and digital files that NOBODY is ever going to want to see again...ever. ;^) Dan
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