U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: Digital Film backup

Re: Digital Film backup



Title: Re: Digital Film backup
I agree that losing most of what we shoot is not a bad thing. Every five years or so I go through my work and discard about 90% of it.

However, if I were going to archive important work that was captured on digital I would not do so on Ektachrome since the dyes are not permanent. It would be much better to make color separations on B&W pan film. You could capture more detail than is in most digital  prints with 120 or 220 film and 6X7 or 6X9 format.

Sandy




At 8:53 AM -0400 6/9/07, sam wang wrote:
Sandy,

To make 4x5 Ektachromes from digital files is no problem. Here's a company that does it: http://www.ezslides.com/4x5.htm

The problem is cost. At $40 a transparency, how many can you afford? Then you'd have to worry about mold that loves slides, especially in the South.

On the other hand, I don't think losing most of what we shoot is a bad thing, unless they have historical value. Reminds me of a beginning art student who insisted on keeping his initial work forever...

Sam



On Jun 9, 2007, at 12:47 AM, Sandy King wrote:

Mark,

That may be so. In my own case I have it covered since I use only film.

For others, there is always film. I could think of several types of systems to archive digital on film. I am surprised that none are available commercially.

Might be a good commercial enterprise to set this up?  There is absolutely a need, because whatever you are doing digitally will be lost. That you can count on.

Sandy






At 12:29 AM -0400 6/9/07, Ender100@aol.com wrote:
Sandy,

I haven't yet seen a system that has the resolution, a reasonable price & is artifact free to be able  to handle this.  Furtunately I do have a lot of 35 mm negatives too.

Best Wishes,
Mark Nelson

Precision Digital Negatives - The System
PDNPrint Forum at Yahoo Groups
www.MarkINelsonPhoto.com

In a message dated 6/8/07 3:28:24 PM,
sanking@clemson.edu writes:

I would suggest that if you fellows want true archival back-up of your digital files you better have them printed on film while film is still available. In some cases you might even save space.




Unless one is very systematic in moving files from one generation storage device to the next, and I suspect that very few of us are, the files are going to eventually be lost. That is one of the major reasons I continue to do all of my work on film, even though I scan and print mostly from digital files.




Sandy King














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