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develop and print your film with a new machine coming soon!

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Freak

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Jun 18, 2002, 4:07:48 PM6/18/02
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How many times have you gone into Wal-mart at midnight and wanted to have
some film developed right at that very moment because you couldn't wait to
see how the pics came out? Or when a hour is not soon enough? Well, Applied
Science (the same people that make digital ice and ice3) has a new machine
in beta format at http://www.precision-camera.com/ in Austin, Texas. The
machine will develop your film in about 5 minutes and make prints and a cd
from the film. It has two Mitsubishi 4X6 dye sub printers and one Sony 8X10
dye sub printer. On the cd it will have three different resolutions(low, med
and high), it also has the thumbnails of the pics on the cd label. Now the
bad side. You will not get the negatives back they are destroyed in the
process. Also, at the present time it only works with Fuji 100, 200, 400
,Kodak 100, 200, 400, and 800. The whole process takes about 10 Minutes. The
engineer said it has been in the works for about 5 years now. This is not a
replacement for good pro labs but for the typical vacation photos or for
business pics it looks good. I'll post more info when I get some...Maybe
even some sample pics.
Corey


Freak

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Jun 18, 2002, 4:20:28 PM6/18/02
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Here is their web site about it.
http://www.asf.com/products/pic/default.asp


EDGY01

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Jun 18, 2002, 5:03:33 PM6/18/02
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<< Applied
Science (the same people that make digital ice and ice3) has a new machine
in beta format at http://www.precision-camera.com/ in Austin, Texas. The
machine will develop your film in about 5 minutes and make prints and a cd
from the film. It has two Mitsubishi 4X6 dye sub printers and one Sony 8X10
dye sub printer. On the cd it will have three different resolutions(low, med
and high), it also has the thumbnails of the pics on the cd label. Now the
bad side. You will not get the negatives back they are destroyed in the
process. Also, at the present time it only works with Fuji 100, 200, 400
,Kodak 100, 200, 400, and 800. The whole process takes about 10 Minutes >>


<< <i>Now the


bad side. You will not get the negatives back they are destroyed in the

process.</i> >>

That one little issue will cause this to die on the vine, in my opinion.
People want the ability to reprint from a negative/slide, especially when you
get that one special shot. Waste of research dollars in my opinion, and
they're not listening to their customers. (I saw the same future for Polaroid
back in 1994 when I studied them during an MBA,--they never listened to the
customer).

Dan Lindsay
Santa Barbara

Ralf R. Radermacher

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Jun 18, 2002, 5:07:53 PM6/18/02
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Freak <fr...@austin.rr.com> wrote:

> You will not get the negatives back they are destroyed in the
> process.

Well, then.....

Ralf

--
Ralf R. Radermacher - DL9KCG - Köln/Cologne, Germany
NEW URL!!! private homepage: http://www.fotoralf.de
manual cameras and photo galleries - updated May 9, 2002
Contarex - Kiev 60 - Horizon 202 - P6 mount lenses

Jefro

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Jun 18, 2002, 4:53:39 PM6/18/02
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Sounds very cool, but...

> You will not get the negatives back they are destroyed in the process.

Doesn't leave much of an option for rescanning. Probably not a problem for 95%
of my relatives, who throw away those weird little plastic things anyway once
they get their prints back.

Now the real question---will this obsolete digital? (nudge, wink)

Skip

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Jun 18, 2002, 5:33:52 PM6/18/02
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In my humble opinion, you are dead on! When I get a CD made, I'm often
using it as proofs for later printing in a traditional way, or scanning at
higher res than is currently available on commercial CDs, in my area,
anyway. If the negs are destroyed, this process is absolutely useless to
me.
--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com
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Freak

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Jun 18, 2002, 5:43:56 PM6/18/02
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True, but I wonder what the high resolution is. I am going to shoot a "junk
roll" and test it out to see if the high res image is high res enough.


Bob Hickey

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Jun 18, 2002, 5:26:15 PM6/18/02
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I'm missing something here. Why is it necessary to lose the neg?
Bob Hickey

http://photos.yahoo.com/rollei711

Freak

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Jun 18, 2002, 5:54:51 PM6/18/02
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I'm told it uses a dry process that renders the neg useless afterwards. I
don't know why. If the rep is still there tomorrow i will ask them.

"Bob Hickey" <bobh...@webtv.net> wrote in message
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Tony Spadaro

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Jun 18, 2002, 6:00:23 PM6/18/02
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The process develops each layer of emulsion, then scans it and destroys it
to develop the next layer. When this was first demonstrated some people said
this was "BAD BAD BAD" because you only get one shot and if something goes
wrong you got no negs -- they weren't thniking about the fact that if
something goes wrong in conventional processing you don't gots no negatives
either - you gots ungotz.
Everything I've tried by ASF has worked beautifully. I use ICE on every
scan and I have a lot of fun with ROC too. These guys are really operating
on the knife edge between science and magic. I hope to be able to try out
the film to digital process soon.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html


"Bob Hickey" <bobh...@webtv.net> wrote in message
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Tony Spadaro

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Jun 18, 2002, 6:05:14 PM6/18/02
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Don't be silly. This is completely unlike the Polaroid slime and re-shoot
process. You can re-print as much as you want from the CD -- the same way
anyone who scans film can. You can re-touch the files at home, and have them
printed by a lab, or inkjet them, or send them to gramps via email,
snailmail, UPS, FedEx or bicycle messenger. In other words the only thing
you lose is the negatives --- as one who is storing far too many of the
things I'm all in favour --- until the CDs start piling up, which they are.
Ahh well, the real trick to photography is learning how to efficiently store
your work. I re-learn that truism a couple times a month.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"EDGY01" <edg...@aol.com> wrote in message
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Tony Spadaro

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Jun 18, 2002, 6:07:22 PM6/18/02
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When they first demo'd the system the highest res was 6megs - no dpi given,
but they said that they expected to be up to 50megs by the time it went on
the market. Please repost with whatever you find out about the system --- I
live in a backwater where it will probably be some time before we see it.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"Freak" <fr...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
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Mike

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Jun 18, 2002, 6:07:51 PM6/18/02
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"Freak" <fr...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
news:wQNP8.29144$9b.30...@typhoon.austin.rr.com...
> True, but I wonder what the high resolution is. I am going to shoot a
"junk
> roll" and test it out to see if the high res image is high res enough.
>
Quoted from asf's site:

"Approximately equivalent to 18 Megapixels (2000 x 3000 x 3 channels).
Digital PIC output is essentially the same as C-41 processed film scanned on
a high quality DML scanner."

Doesn't sound that exciting to me, and dye sub printers are pretty poor IMO.

Mike

Freak

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Jun 18, 2002, 6:18:17 PM6/18/02
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I agree, I use ICE , ROC and GEM on a daily basis also...the odd thing is
that beta unit , they don't incorporate any of those. Although, they said
they might in the future.


"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message
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-B-

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Jun 18, 2002, 6:31:17 PM6/18/02
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AH HA, I have unveiled the conspiracy behind this new mysterious device, it
destroys the neg's so that traditional film goes out of business and digital
photography takes over the world....

"Jefro" <je...@transmeta.com> wrote in message
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Skip

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Jun 18, 2002, 7:53:56 PM6/18/02
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Let us know the results, all I've been able to get is 72dpi and 144dpi. (
The latter is what I remember Fuji offered locally, but I'm not sure.) Not
high res enough for galleries...

"Freak" <fr...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
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Bob Hickey

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Jun 18, 2002, 8:34:56 PM6/18/02
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It sounds good on paper, but if I look at the out box at any
drug/dept. store, I just don't see many CDs. What's this going to cost
$25-$30? Around here where most people can easily afford pictures, they
fight over a buck. Kodak is state of the art, and
their prints are the worlds worst. It annoyed me to death to pay for
prints to throw away just to get a CD for ebay. Now, I found a guy that
dev. and scans a CD with no prints. Ironically, the blow-ups he does are
excellent. His whole gimmick is, he asks you how you want them, and
really does it. Strange. Bob Hickey
Re: develop and print your film with a new machine coming soon!

Group: rec.photo.equipment.35mm Date: Tue, Jun 18, 2002, 10:00pm (EDT+4)
From: tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com (Tony Spadaro)

http://photos.yahoo.com/rollei711

Francis A. Miniter

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Jun 18, 2002, 10:21:27 PM6/18/02
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Someone actually thought this was a good idea???? And someone worked on it for
five years???

Is this a put on?

Francis A. Miniter


Freak wrote:

> <snip>You will not get the negatives back they are destroyed in the
> process. <snip>

> The engineer said it has been in the works for about 5 years now. <snip>
> Corey

anti...@ftc.gov

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Jun 19, 2002, 1:36:19 AM6/19/02
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> Here is their web site about it.
> http://www.asf.com/products/pic/default.asp

The worst idea ever, developed by propeller-heads who only understand
computers.

The dry process at ASF destroys the negative, leaving only a digital copy.
So it essentially replaces a process that renders a human readable negative
with a process that renders a machine-only readable disk.

Now you can enjoy all the expense of film and all the impermanence of
today's (but not tomorrow's storage system.)

John

William E. Graham

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Jun 19, 2002, 2:03:41 AM6/19/02
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"EDGY01" <edg...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020618170333...@mb-mq.aol.com...
> That one little issue will cause this to die on the vine,
in my opinion.
> People want the ability to reprint from a negative/slide,
especially when you
> get that one special shot. Waste of research dollars in
my opinion, and
> they're not listening to their customers. (I saw the same
future for Polaroid
> back in 1994 when I studied them during an MBA,--they
never listened to the
> customer).
>
> Dan Lindsay
> Santa Barbara

Yeah, except I heard about some company the other day that
is developing a process that can create a film negative from
a digital image file. - If true, this process will make
digital imaging obsolete.......


obakesan

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Jun 19, 2002, 2:39:43 AM6/19/02
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HiYa

In article <19VP8.76526$nZ3.33935@rwcrnsc53>, some kind human wrote:

>> Santa Barbara
>
>Yeah, except I heard about some company the other day that
>is developing a process that can create a film negative from
>a digital image file. - If true, this process will make
>digital imaging obsolete.......

if it wasn't for the small problem that it is of course one of the types of
digital imaging ...


See Ya

--
(when bandwidth gets better ;-)

Chris Eastwood
Photographer, Programmer, Motorcyclist and dingbat

please remove u n d i e s for reply

Bigbrum

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Jun 19, 2002, 4:51:47 AM6/19/02
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Maybe I'm missing the point, but as someone who remembers when you had to
wait a week or more to get a film processed, using a lab that does a one
hour turn around doesn't seem a problem. Is getting prints in ten minuets
instead of sixty really that important? I would have thought that one of
the main reasons for using a "traditional" film camera was to get negatives!
Otherwise, why not just use a digital camera in the first place - or
Polaroid , if you want "instant" prints?


Billy B

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Jun 19, 2002, 9:17:28 AM6/19/02
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being a lab owner I can't wait till someone puts their film in and something
Bad happens. And you know it will

jmho
billy burwick

"Freak" <fr...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message

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Steve

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Jun 19, 2002, 12:21:26 PM6/19/02
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I have seen this machine in action here in Austin. I wish I
could remember the exact pricing- but it was around $12-$13
for a 24-exp roll. I am headed in there later today and will
double-check. The factory rep who was babysitting the
machine during it's debut said that this was (approximately)
the target price.

-Steve

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Amardeep S Chana

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Jun 19, 2002, 12:53:02 PM6/19/02
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"Steve" <securit...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ac2Q8.33364$9b.42...@typhoon.austin.rr.com...

> I have seen this machine in action here in Austin. I wish I
> could remember the exact pricing- but it was around $12-$13
> for a 24-exp roll. I am headed in there later today and will
> double-check. The factory rep who was babysitting the
> machine during it's debut said that this was (approximately)
> the target price.
>

Does that price include prints? It seems kind of high for a target price.
It would have to be competitive with a standard 1 hr lab to be really
compelling.

I would consider using this system if for about $6 it could yield a CD with
36 frames of 16base (3000 x 2000 pixel) tiff files. I would then get
regular silver halide paper prints from the various online print labs.

J. Cordaro

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Jun 19, 2002, 4:41:19 PM6/19/02
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Freak,

This is a bad idea for several reasons:
1/ resolution is too low. Wait, these are only 2kx3k images, we can
rescan those now for that 11x14...oops no we can't. And, if you have
50 meg images, like they claim they're moving to, you can't fit more
than 12 on a CD. 2cd's are about equal to a sleeved negative page in
terms of bulkiness.

2/ You still need lab personnel. reading the literature seems to
indicate the principal benefits to be autonomous operation and lower
operating costs (no personnel), and also the ability to process
one-time-use cameras, but when I worked in a lab, we went to using
hammers to break open the waterproof cameras quickly, and I always
shocked myself a couple of times a week opening up one-time flash
cameras. Consumers couldn't open them themselves.

3/Excessive reliance on focus groups to indicate business opportunity-
what does this mean?
it means you really listen to what customers want, not what they say
or what you want them to say. ASF literature claims, "92% of
participants prefer a digital negative CD rather than film negatives.
Any preference to film negatives was suggested to be out of habit."
How was this question asked? Did participants understand clearly the
quality difference (6x8 max vs. 10x15+), price, expected lifetime of
Digital PIC CDs vs. regular film negatives? Of course not.

4/ low throughput. 15 rolls of 24 exp is nothing. I worked at a
crappy 1hr noritsu place to pay for college and we could push 25-30
rolls per hour.

5/ poor quality. dye-sub doesn't match frontier or minilab quality.
give me a focus group and 92% will prefer the frontier print.

6/ like adding a woman with herpes into Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's love
commune, one roll of c-22 in the thing and the party's over.

bottom line - Could be a niche product, depending on price, 5% of
photofinishing market, maybe in resorts, places like that, where high
cost and low quality don't matter as much as capturing vacation snaps
w/impluse buy one-time cameras.
If you want digital, get a G2, if you want film/digital use a frontier
lab.
That reminds me, Freak, tell Jerry after all the $14 rolls of 400f I
bought from him he should have enough $ to buy a frontier and not
monkey with this BS.

orcarodyaj \
orcarodjay > yahoo.com
corradojya /
figure it out.

"Freak" <fr...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message news:<oqMP8.28139$9b.29...@typhoon.austin.rr.com>...

Steve

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Jun 19, 2002, 7:22:44 PM6/19/02
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Just got back from the shop that has this (in)famous
machine:

The kiosk will do scanning with multi-resolution recording
to a CD for $4.59
If you want prints (dye-sub apparently, 4x6, includes CD),
pricing jumps to $12.99 for 24 exp. or $17.19 for 36 exp.
The unit can also print 8x10s and multiple images of various
sizes on 8x10 paper.

I haven't tried it yet- so I don't know about scan
resolution, etc..

Losing the negs may be a tough obstacle to get past for
many - including me for rolls I really care about... so
we'll see. I think I'll run a test roll through it to see
how the scans turn out. I'll post results...

-Steve


"Amardeep S Chana" <usenet0...@spamgourmet.com> wrote
in message news:uh1dnf7...@corp.supernews.com...

Cornholio

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Jun 19, 2002, 7:57:59 PM6/19/02
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oradr...@yahoo.com (J. Cordaro) said:

>film lasts longer than a CD

a CD will last a long time without degrading (100 years plus), film
degrades much quicker, you can make a dupe of old CDs to make sure they
last longer, you can't do that with faded film

Francis A. Miniter

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Jun 19, 2002, 10:02:15 PM6/19/02
to
I have negatives my father made 70 years ago that I can easily print. Will
your children in 70 years be able to figure out what obsolete (and
unobtainable) machine was supposed to be able to do something with that
disk with a hole in it that you left in the attic for 30 years?

Francis A. Miniter

Mike

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Jun 19, 2002, 11:00:15 PM6/19/02
to

"Francis A. Miniter" <min...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3D1137A7...@attglobal.net...

> I have negatives my father made 70 years ago that I can easily print.
Will
> your children in 70 years be able to figure out what obsolete (and
> unobtainable) machine was supposed to be able to do something with that
> disk with a hole in it that you left in the attic for 30 years?
>
> Francis A. Miniter
>
Mmmmmm....I've just been printing (for fun) negs taken just after WWII by my
grandfather and father. And at work I've been getting data off some old 5MB
hawk disk packs for a client. They are paying through the nose for me to do
so - I have the dinosaur to do it, and they (nor anyone else they have
found) has. I don't really fancy the chances of the equipment for reading
CD's being common in even 25 years.

Mike

Cornholio

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Jun 19, 2002, 11:34:32 PM6/19/02
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"Francis A. Miniter" <min...@attglobal.net> said:

>I have negatives my father made 70 years ago that I can easily print.

color negative films haven't been around for 70 years
(http://www.eastman.org/5_timeline/1949.htm)

> Will
>your children in 70 years be able to figure out what obsolete (and
>unobtainable) machine was supposed to be able to do something with that
>disk with a hole in it that you left in the attic for 30 years?

CDROM is a standard, there are billions of CDROMs out there, and people are
using them for archival purposes, with CDs, if they go obsolete, you just
copy them to the new media, you can't do that with film


George E. Cawthon

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Jun 20, 2002, 12:37:37 AM6/20/02
to

Cornholio wrote:
>
> "Francis A. Miniter" <min...@attglobal.net> said:
>
> >I have negatives my father made 70 years ago that I can easily print.
>
> color negative films haven't been around for 70 years
> (http://www.eastman.org/5_timeline/1949.htm)

And your point? I've printed negatives that were made in the
1910s and 1920s. No problem, and some of them are on glass
plates.



> > Will
> >your children in 70 years be able to figure out what obsolete (and
> >unobtainable) machine was supposed to be able to do something with that
> >disk with a hole in it that you left in the attic for 30 years?
>
> CDROM is a standard, there are billions of CDROMs out there, and people are
> using them for archival purposes, with CDs, if they go obsolete, you just
> copy them to the new media, you can't do that with film

You don't need to with film? Stuff on 8" disks is useless,
stuff on 5-1/4 disks from non-IBM clones is useless, stuff
on 5-1/4 disks from IBM-clones is mostly useless. Stuff on
old VHS (Ha!. "old VHS" is an oxymoron)is often useless.
8-track stuff is useless. Stuff on 3-1/2 disks will soon be
useless. Commercial CD's may be good for a long time, but
stuff from CD burners is likely to degrade and stuff from CD
R/W can't even be read by lots of existing CD players. What
makes you think any computer data storage system will be
useful in 20-30 years?

BTW, something that will go out of style and needs to be
recopied is incompatible with the concept of archive.
Archive means you make it once and it lasts for a long
time. None of the computer storage media, existing today,
except maybe commercial CD, is compatible with the concept
of "archive."

Tony Spadaro

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Jun 20, 2002, 3:39:14 AM6/20/02
to
Then why are you wasting your time using a computer? This is the most
illogical of all the arguments against digital -- at least from people who
are using computers to do everything for their work and home.
BTW -- I took my Wordstar distribution 5 inchers to my wife's office a
year or so ago and copied them to 3.5 inchers. A few months ago I burned
them onto a CD. CD-RW is a temporary storage medium for moving large files
or holding backups until the next archive. Every CD Rom drive can read CD
roms -- and so can DVD drives.
I will expect a tart reply to this, but to be credable it had better be
typed on an IBM selectric and delivered by USPS.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"George E. Cawthon" <George...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
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Mike

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Jun 20, 2002, 5:28:03 AM6/20/02
to

"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message
news:CEfQ8.128458$6v2.5...@twister.southeast.rr.com...

> Then why are you wasting your time using a computer? This is the most
> illogical of all the arguments against digital -- at least from people who
> are using computers to do everything for their work and home.
> BTW -- I took my Wordstar distribution 5 inchers to my wife's office a
> year or so ago and copied them to 3.5 inchers. A few months ago I burned
> them onto a CD. CD-RW is a temporary storage medium for moving large files
> or holding backups until the next archive. Every CD Rom drive can read CD
> roms -- and so can DVD drives.
> I will expect a tart reply to this, but to be credable it had better be
> typed on an IBM selectric and delivered by USPS.


Tony, I rest my case. You have done 2 "renewals" on your Wordstar discs in
what, 10-12 years. And will likely have to do it again in the foreseeable
future. I have negatives taken by my grandfather in the early 1930's that
are still printable - no "renewal" needed. I have my serious doubts
regarding the long term future of CD or DVD as a mainstream format - 20
years and I expect they'll both be historic curiosity items.

And I'd have used the old Imperial 66 to type this, but it's buried in my
archive (and the PC is still functioning at present, but due for renewal
when it hits 24 months old).

Mike

Ralf R. Radermacher

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Jun 20, 2002, 5:37:04 AM6/20/02
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George E. Cawthon <George...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> Stuff on
> old VHS (Ha!. "old VHS" is an oxymoron)is often useless.
> 8-track stuff is useless.

I'm having a hard time finding a means of reading and copying video I
made in '92 on Hi8 cassettes with PCM audio....

Ralf

--
Ralf R. Radermacher - DL9KCG - Köln/Cologne, Germany
NEW URL!!! private homepage: http://www.fotoralf.de
manual cameras and photo galleries - updated May 9, 2002
Contarex - Kiev 60 - Horizon 202 - P6 mount lenses

Skip

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Jun 20, 2002, 8:04:53 AM6/20/02
to
I'm sure nobody expects any replies to you to be archival! <G>
But with IBM working on a new storage system that is rumored to hold 20
times the data of a CD, on wonders of the CD's days are numbered as the
standard storage medium...

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T.P.

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Jun 20, 2002, 8:08:39 AM6/20/02
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Exactly how do you make a dupe of a failed CD-ROM, CD-R or CD-RW?


Markus Keinath

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Jun 20, 2002, 9:44:21 AM6/20/02
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Hi,

first: Sorry for my bad english!

I think the guys at Applied Science Fiction understand a lot of
Photography, you know the IR scanning technology in Nikon and other
slide scanners (ICE, ROC, GEM Technology). For further Explenation look
at www.asf.com, or the web sites of Nikon,...

Digital PIC / Dry Film Processing is at the moment only for customers
with lower quality needs. Today it is so.
But I think (after reading the patent literature ~ two years ago), the
potential of the system is big:

-You are able to scan the film shortly after the progessing begun, wait
some time, second scan, wait some more and scan a third time. So you get
images of a pulled and pussed film together! I think it shuold be
possible to archive a larger Image contrast dynamik range. And smaler
graininess.

-If the system should raise, Kodak or so may introduce "scanning films".
Films without colour couplers ( ?German: Farbkuppler). It would be
possible to made films with spectral sensitivitis R, R B, IR or two R
sensitivitis or so on. Better colour rention is possible.

-It should also be possile to scan conventional developed films to
achive less grain.

Main problem, the film ist destroyed, letæ„€ hope the don't have an
Windows based computer ;-)

Markus

--
Keinaths Photohomepage
DIY repair and modification of photographic equipment
www.keinaths-fotohomepage.gmxhome.de

Michael Hood

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Jun 20, 2002, 10:10:41 AM6/20/02
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Bah, as long as you have negs... And light.. You can make a print. Now lets
say I shoot several fine photo's with a digital.. Or scan my negs and throw
the negs out.. Then burn the resulting digital images to cd. Now these cd's
get put in a box.. eventualy moved into the attic and forgotten. 40 years
from now, I die and my kids want to find out what's on those cd's. Sucks to
be them. Had they been negs, They could probably still get a usable image.
And this will be the case most of the time in the future IMHO. When you
shoot thousands and thousands of images a year... You may only use a
fraction of those to sell... But the others still may have historic value,
possibly to your family. It's often our throw away shots that we forget
about... Or 15 years later you may go back through your images and find one
that you now like but didn't back then If you had burned them to CD and
forgotten about them for a while.. They probably didn't get copied to a
newer replacement medium.

Another problem with CD's is simple. They are more fragile than negatives.
One accidental drop on a hardwood floor can split that cd and make all of
your images useless and lost. They also get scratched easily. A scratched
neg will still make a print... but one that will need to be touched up. A
scratched cd may become unreadable. I hope you have 2 extra copies of each
cd just incase of an accident. It happens.

Digital is great and has it's place for certain things. It just doesn't fit
for anything I do, except for quick photo's of junk I might sell on ebay.

-Mike

"Cornholio" <Anonymous...@See.Comment.Header> wrote in message
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anti...@ftc.gov

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Jun 20, 2002, 11:30:05 AM6/20/02
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I have a Commodore 64 floppy disk that is less than 20 years old. MILLIONS
of these computers were sold. Can you extract the data for me, please?

Digital photographers (myself included) MUST realise that the photo industry
has been hijacked by the PC-tech industry that cares nothing for archiving.

Anyone who seriously thinks that the tech crowd will support CD-R in 50
years is a fool. Buy, hey, they are YOUR pics, not mine!

John

anti...@ftc.gov

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Jun 20, 2002, 11:33:49 AM6/20/02
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> >I have negatives my father made 70 years ago that I can easily print.
>
> color negative films haven't been around for 70 years
> (http://www.eastman.org/5_timeline/1949.htm)

Get a grip! They never said COLOR negatives. The point is that they can
print the 70 year old negatives while 70 years from now people will laugh at
you when you uncover a CD-R and try to use it. Might as well be an Edison
cylinder. (And I know that stereo wasn't invented until....)

anti...@ftc.gov

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Jun 20, 2002, 11:35:28 AM6/20/02
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> BTW, something that will go out of style and needs to be
> recopied is incompatible with the concept of archive.
> Archive means you make it once and it lasts for a long
> time. None of the computer storage media, existing today,
> except maybe commercial CD, is compatible with the concept
> of "archive."

Now THAT's a very good statement!

John

Tony Spadaro

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Jun 20, 2002, 2:48:28 PM6/20/02
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I doubt I'll ever have to renew then again. They are now on CD --- the
same things everyone buys to replace their vinyl albums. Why are you
answering this on computer? Why are you using a computer? I don't trust
Program Mode on my camera, so I don't use it. You apparently don't trust
your computer yet you use it --- there is a small crack in your logic, which
you had better patch.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"Mike" <teh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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Tony Spadaro

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Jun 20, 2002, 2:53:58 PM6/20/02
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I hope they come up with something REAL SOON. I would love to copy my CDs
out at a 1:20 rate. Right now I have only flattened ready to print versions
of my finished pictures stored in my safe deposit box -- about 35 CDs. If I
could run those pictures onto a storage medium with 20 times the capacity I
could store the entire layered files for all of them, and still have room
left over.
The shelves that used to hold Audio CDs are filled with CD ROMs now and
those audio CDs that don't fit into the 400 capacity changer are stored in
boxes on the shelves in the back room.
I'm more than willing to change media.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"Skip" <shadow...@cox.net> wrote in message
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Freak

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Jun 20, 2002, 5:56:49 PM6/20/02
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It has a cd\dvd burner (4.7 gig). I thought of that too.


"J. Cordaro" <oradr...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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Bob Hickey

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Jun 20, 2002, 5:51:18 PM6/20/02
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2 weeks ago, I tried to run a CD and something went wrong, anyway
one thing led to another, and now no computer. I've returned 2 scanners
behind warped CDs. Put them on the table and they rocked. I've seen the
printer take a brand new one out of the box and have it not run; he
tossed it and the next one was fine. I had one made with reversed negs.
Ekert said they couldn't fix it.No more Ekert. I deliver music CDs going
to the distributor. They come in these huge cotton-picking bags, which
are thrown on the dock, dragged inside, recorded, put in jewel cases and
boxed. Guess who figures out if it's a good recording?
Nevertheless, they seem to have a high success rate. Compared to film,
nothing to write home about though. I can't help but wonder how many CDs
would be lost when these things glitch. With film, they are constantly
picking up the pictures, noticing mistakes, and can re-run the negs. Or
the customer can get a re-do. It's possible they'll run blanks "till the
first customer goes home and tries to run it. And generally, people who
shoot 3 rolls a year, think every shot is priceless. How long are they
going to keep a customer when all they get is a free roll of CVS film?

Bob Hickey
Re: develop and print your film with a new machine coming soon!

Group: rec.photo.equipment.35mm Date: Thu, Jun 20, 2002, 3:35pm (EDT+4)
From: anti...@ftc.gov

http://photos.yahoo.com/rollei711

George E. Cawthon

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Jun 20, 2002, 6:28:40 PM6/20/02
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I said nothing that could be interpreted as an argument
against using a computer or storing information on digital
eqiupment. The only thing that is illogical is how you
arrived at that conclusion. Sure I use a computer, and sure
I store some of it on disks. But I don't presume to say
that I am archiving anything and neither are you. Just be
prepared to keep changing the format every few years, and
that's not archiving.

Mike

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Jun 20, 2002, 6:35:20 PM6/20/02
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"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message
news:0spQ8.90491$lM2.3...@twister.southeast.rr.com...

> I doubt I'll ever have to renew then again. They are now on CD --- the
> same things everyone buys to replace their vinyl albums. Why are you
> answering this on computer? Why are you using a computer? I don't trust
> Program Mode on my camera, so I don't use it. You apparently don't trust
> your computer yet you use it --- there is a small crack in your logic,
which
> you had better patch.

I trust my computer, within it's limitations (like you don't use Program
mode) - hence I do backups.

However I have absolutely no faith in the march of technology staying
backward compatible for any significant length of time. You mentioned this
with your Wordstar disks, and you seem to have great faith in the CD
remaining a commonly available standard, a faith which flys in the face of
most computer storage history.

Mike

George E. Cawthon

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Jun 20, 2002, 6:42:01 PM6/20/02
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Well, actually I can, or I could if I could remember how. I
still have my Commodore 64 and 128 and I had a program to
record data in IBM format (more or less). And I did; on
5-1/4" disks. Damn, now I have no way read 5-1/4" disks.

Some people seem to forget that airplanes are only 100 years
old, television is only 50-60 (the format will soon change),
and desktop computer are only about 25 years old. One must
be awfully young or stupid to not realize that there will be
huge changes in technology within the next 50 years and much
of it will have no backward or forward compatibility.

Mike

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Jun 20, 2002, 6:45:36 PM6/20/02
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<anti...@ftc.gov> wrote in message
news:1ymQ8.171$C56....@news7.onvoy.net...

>
> Anyone who seriously thinks that the tech crowd will support CD-R in 50
> years is a fool. Buy, hey, they are YOUR pics, not mine!
>
> John

I am part of that tech crowd. I seriously doubt that CD will be common in
15 years, let alone 50. I already support software that is only supplied on
DVD (installs, documentation, etc). And I can see that better scanners and
CCD's will leave us with bigger files making CD impractical merely due to
it's lack of capacity.

Mike

Skip

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Jun 20, 2002, 7:59:59 PM6/20/02
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The other day, I had a couple of CDs made from rolls I shot. When I got
home, one of the CD only had 3 images on it, rather than the expected 36. I
wonder what would have happened if the negs had been destroyed. Are the
operators going to save all the files? And if they do, for how long?

"Bob Hickey" <bobh...@webtv.net> wrote in message
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Skip

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Jun 20, 2002, 8:03:49 PM6/20/02
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No one said "color negatives."
And, yes, you can copy CDs to new media, if someone thinks to before that
becomes impossible, and, yes, you can't do that with film. But you don't
have to. Well, actually, you can, just scan it and put it on whatever
storage medium is current at that time. But as long as there is
photographic paper, you don't have to do that.

"Cornholio" <Anonymous...@See.Comment.Header> wrote in message
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Tony Spadaro

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Jun 20, 2002, 10:10:34 PM6/20/02
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Well then lets look at that wonderful archival storage medium -- Film.
I started shooting in 1965 -- but my oldest surviving negatives date to
1967. I have 17 pages of negatives shot between 1966 and 1978 --- thousands
of films worth went up in smoke at that time. There was film lost in a flood
in 1970, and there was film lost due to a window in the apartment above mine
being left open during a heavy rain in 1982. Our first summer in the south
got a lot of the slides that had survived all the damage up to that point as
I foolishly stored them in a closet in an un-airconditioned house. The same
mold that turns shoes green here destroyed much film. The following summer
we had air conditioning and the film was stored in the one room of the house
that could be kept fairly cool and dry -- but that did not bring back any of
the lost slides and negatives.
I know that if CDs are replaced during my lifetime I will change
format -- because I've learned that film is a crap medium to store pictures
on -- you can't make back-ups, and you can't store each picture in two
places unlikely to have the same natural disasters.
Or take the big box full of pictures my mother kept around for decades --
no negatives, just prints - she never kept negatives in the first place. The
box simply dissapeared when she moved. It's never been found. We did go back
and check the old apartment. If it was left there someone stole it --
although that seems unlikely, and the landlord hadn't been in to check the
place over either.
Now let's look at the restoration work I do. I can safely say that I've
never had anyone who wasn't a serious amateur photographer bring me a
negative to get a picture restored or cropped better, or have some ex-in-law
removed. They bring prints. They only have prints. When I ask about the
negatives I get a blank look. People don't keep negatives. Only amateur
photographers keep negatives. I've even gotten a few prints that were
obviously made by dedicated amateurs but when I ask about those negatives I
get the same blank stare or: "When Daddy died we sold all his stuff, I guess
the negatives musta been in with the rest of the darkroom junk." I have
literally never been brought a negative or a slide from a non-photographer.
I mentioned this at my lab a couple months ago. The girl told me that
people come in all the time to get re-prints, frequently from film recently
developed at that same lab. In most cases they tossed the negatives out when
they put the prints into the album.
You can preserve your film all you wish, but the chances are pretty good
that if succeding generations want anything it will be a fresh copy of the
print on the wall - the one that got a little smoke damage from the
fireplace, or was on the damp wall. They won't know what happened to the
negatives, or won't want to sort through them, or perhaps won't remember who
took the picture. Unless the shots are of family they won't even be
interested in looking at them, so don't think you'll become a postmortum
famous artist - it mostly don't happen.


--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html
"Mike" <teh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

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Tony Spadaro

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Jun 20, 2002, 10:30:12 PM6/20/02
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So you figure that everything being done on computer these days is
temporary. What makes you think your film is any more permanent? Look at the
reply I gave Mike. Tell me your film is safer than a CD stored at home with
a copy at the bank. Tell anyone wh has ever had a fire or flood, or tornado,
etc etc, that film is a safer archive than digital.
Digital files can be copied without quality loss. Film cannot be copied
without quality loss. Film is subject to all kinds of damage - so is digital
media -- but there is that safe deposit box. I figure a 100 kiloton bomb
would get both my house and the bank -- but it would probably get me too so
screw the pictures.
The Vatican is currently digitizing their library too so they apparently
think the CD will be around a while.
Right now I have about 100 pictures stored as web pages --- You think
webservers are going to vanish next month? You think it would be difficult
to send them to a new server?
You said: "Archive means it will last a long time." Really? Not according
to the Oxford English Dictionary I have. I expect my CDs to last as long as
I need them but I put no minimum requirement on them. When something more
efficient comes along it's a rather quick transfer to the new medium --
about 20 seconds each to put my Wordstar discs on 3.5s, and even less time
to run them onto a CD rom. I'm looking forward to the day when I can copy 20
of my CDs onto a single piece of media. I know I'll never be able to
compress my film any, although I have not been having my slides mounted of
late. They take up less room without the mounts.


--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html
"George E. Cawthon" <George...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message

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Tony Spadaro

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Jun 20, 2002, 10:41:29 PM6/20/02
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Send it here. I can take it to any one of several places that will get the
data off your Commodore discs and put it in a format you can read again.
You know, In all the years of using a computer I've only lost one program
I wanted to keep. It was a shareware program called Moonbeam, and I
apparently lost the floppy it was on.
In 1967 I left a dozen rolls of film in the darkroom at San Francisco
State College. When I went back an hour later they were gone. That is just
one incident in a 37 year career of finding out all the things that can
happen to film.
BTW I saw my pictures a couple years later -- in a John Birch Society
publication with a title like "Hippies - Threat or Menace?" I checked with
the ACLU but since I had no proof I took the shots, there was no case
possible. Besides the Birchers tended to have stuff like this printed by
little "Un-related" groups which would rapidly vanish - so there was nobody
to sue for libel. According to the lawyers, a lot of the pictures they used
in these things were stolen straight out of national magazines but Time Inc.
and other publishers had given up on trying to nail them for copyright
infringment. It was a tactic I'm sure they had learned from the hippies -
"There is nobody in charge here, officer. We're all just guests."

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html
"George E. Cawthon" <George...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message

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Bigbrum

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Jun 21, 2002, 3:38:23 AM6/21/02
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"Anyone who seriously thinks that the tech crowd will support CD-R in 50
years is a fool."

Hopefully, as time goes on, and CDs are replaced with new technology, it
will be possible to transfer images from the "old" media to the "new". In
the same way that now films can be transferred to video or DVD, vinyl
records to CD etc!


Skip

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Jun 21, 2002, 7:10:09 AM6/21/02
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Tony, do you think that CDs or any other digital medium would have withstood
any of that and survived? Hardly...

"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message

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T.P.

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Jun 21, 2002, 8:56:08 AM6/21/02
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"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote:

>The Vatican is currently digitizing their library too so they apparently
>think the CD will be around a while.


And you think they are going to trash the film originals? Never!

The main and best reason for digitising a picture library is to enable
easier dissemination. Many museums and libraries do it routinely, but
that is solely because it makes the material easier to access, study,
copy and transmit.

In extremis, it is there to *supplement* the real archive material,
which is film.

My local library service has recently invested several million GBP in
a scanning system. I understand that it is a Sony system that
operates at a resolution of *only 1500 dpi*. There is nothing
"archival" about a degraded (1500 dpi) copy of an image on film.


George E. Cawthon

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Jun 21, 2002, 2:17:53 PM6/21/02
to
Strictly speaking, "archive" means simply to collect and
preserve. So you are right, you can do that with your CDs.
But "to archive" and "archival quality" when dealing with
forms of information has the inherent meaning of retaining
in a useful form for a long period. Saving something that
you can no longer understand may be archiving, but the
information is lost, so you haven't archived the
information. Safe is safe, whether it is a CD or film.

You are right, digital is temporary, otherwise why would so
much stuff be converted to hard copy and the hard copy
archived? Magnetic stuff suffers from internal degradation.
Old recording wire can be saved (archived the spools), but
will the information on the wire be retained as the magnetic
field spreads to adjacent wires?
I'll keep my negatives. I've got negatives in good shape
that are older than any digital recordings. When those CDs
you made are 50 years old, report back on how much of the
original information is still there. Of course you will have
to compare it with a hard copy.

Tony Spadaro

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Jun 21, 2002, 2:21:34 PM6/21/02
to
I expect the set in my safe deposit vault to survive anything that happens
to my house. I expect the set in my house to survive anything that happens
to my bank, As I've stated before, I figure a 100 kiloton nuke would get
both sets -- but since it would get me too I ain't overly worried about not
having any pictures to play with after the war.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"Skip" <shadow...@cox.net> wrote in message

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George E. Cawthon

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Jun 21, 2002, 2:52:38 PM6/21/02
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All that discussion about losing negatives is irrelevant.
It doesn't make any difference what the format is if it
burns up, or the neighbor stole it, or it was flushed down
the toilet. If you had actually preserved those negatives,
they would still be good. I've got negatives from my first
camera dating back before 1950. I've even got color slide
that date back to 1952 and were developed in the bathroom.
You apparently are just sloppy or incredibly unlucky. I've
got some of my father's glass negatives made in the 1920's.
Yeah some of his negative were stolen too. Is that the
fault of the negative, or the fault of the person storing
them? Oh, yeah, you can't make duplicates of film? Where
did you ever get that idea?

Lots of people have prints, no negatives. BECAUSE THEY
NEVER HAD THE NEGATIVES. And if they were foolish enough to
throw out the negatives, is that the fault of the media? or
the due to the stupidity of the person that threw them out.

I find no merit in any of your arguments. They have nothing
to do with inherent survivability of the media or the
capability of deciphering the data. I could argue that my
mother was a shrew and went around trashing all the pictures
on the walls (she wasn't and she didn't), but that would
have nothing to do with the quality of the van Gogh, the
brightness of his paints, or that the colors are still
vibrant after 100 years. (By the way I also have no van
Gogh painting.)

Cornholio

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Jun 21, 2002, 6:03:15 PM6/21/02
to

"George E. Cawthon" <George...@worldnet.att.net> said:

>If you had actually preserved those negatives,
>they would still be good. I've got negatives from my first
>camera dating back before 1950. I've even got color slide
>that date back to 1952 and were developed in the bathroom.
>You apparently are just sloppy or incredibly unlucky.

even with the best care, color films aren't archival and can't last as long
as a CD-R, film is rated around 25-50 years, cd is rated at 300+

>Oh, yeah, you can't make duplicates of film? Where
>did you ever get that idea?


copy negatives or slide dupes don't maintain the original color
characteristics, when you copy a CD you gewt exact color reproduction


Tony Spadaro

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Jun 21, 2002, 8:17:26 PM6/21/02
to
It is MORE than relevent. If I had been able to back up that film I would
still have it. I CAN back-up my digital files, and keep the back-ups off
site. You cannot possible have any real back-ups of your film.
If you think I'm unlucky think about the amount of artwork - including
the archives of several well known photographers - that was destroyed in the
WTC on 9/11/01. Were those guys sloppy? Is your house fireproof? Floodproof?
TheftProof, Earthquakeproof? Tornadoproof? My safe deposit box is a lot
safer from all of the above than my house.
Yeah - B/W negatives and Kodachrome probably have a 200 year plus life
expectancy, but in order to live up to that expectancy the "luck" has to be
with you every step of the way. Good Luck to you and your negatives but I'll
depend on my safe deposit box, thank you very much.
Since this thread is about a development/scan process that destroys the
original negative, I think it's also quite relevent to point out that many
people don't keep their negatives in the first place -- the very people who
will probably form the bulk of users of such a system, since they are the
bulk (about 97%) of all photographers anyway.
And yes, you can make a COPY of your film - not an actual DUPLICATE. It
will not have the quality of the original. The digital file does not lose
quality as it's copied -- which is why the film and music industry are so
frightened by digital.


--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"George E. Cawthon" <George...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message

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George E. Cawthon

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Jun 21, 2002, 9:16:26 PM6/21/02
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Cornholio wrote:
>
> "George E. Cawthon" <George...@worldnet.att.net> said:
>
> >If you had actually preserved those negatives,
> >they would still be good. I've got negatives from my first
> >camera dating back before 1950. I've even got color slide
> >that date back to 1952 and were developed in the bathroom.
> >You apparently are just sloppy or incredibly unlucky.
>
> even with the best care, color films aren't archival and can't last as long
> as a CD-R, film is rated around 25-50 years, cd is rated at 300+

Ha.Ha. I said I had color slides, I didn't say they were
very good. color media doesn't stand up to the light very
well (magazines, books, slides, prints, oil paintings, water
color paintings) and of course some (e.g. slides)
deteriorate in the dark. CD is rated at 300+ years? Are
you talking about the physical backing or the data? I don't
know what the plastic is used, but I doubt that it will be
in good shape in 300 years. The real point is that no one
has any idea of what life or the technology will be like 300
years from now. But, I'll bet those CDs you make today will
not be a part of it.

>
> >Oh, yeah, you can't make duplicates of film? Where
> >did you ever get that idea?
>
> copy negatives or slide dupes don't maintain the original color
> characteristics, when you copy a CD you gewt exact color reproduction

First, no one said anything about copying a negative. You
do not get an exact color reproduction when you copy a CD,
you get zeros and ones, no color at all and the output may
or may not resemble the original. In fact, I guarantee that
it won't be the same as the original 99.999% of the time.
If you look at CD graphic on a monitor, that monitor won't
provide the same rendition of your original monitor, and my
monitor won't give the same color as your monitor today. If
you print the graphic, the printer you use won't give the
exact color that the original printer did, and the monitor
view will not match the printer output. You may be able to
change the color in all sorts of ways, but if you have the
CD only, there is no way to know what the original print
looked like and therefore no way to adjust the output to
match that print. And you thought duping a color slide
was difficult!

William E. Graham

unread,
Jun 21, 2002, 10:32:29 PM6/21/02
to
To me, one of the best uses of the new digital stuff is the
ability to archive my photos with digital format. I am
trying to decide on which digital film scanner to buy right
now to do this. Most of my family's photographs are lost
because of the things you mentioned in your earlier post. I
had a bunch of my dad's film ruined by storing it in a box
together with a jar of mineral oil. (I can't believe I was
that stupid, but it happened, so I have to believe it) The
oil migrated out of it's jar and destroyed all those strips
of film. I really don't think it matters much which kind of
camera one uses in the pursuit of ones photographic hobby.
But the really great thing about digital photography is its
ability to archive all your stuff for future generations...

"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message
news:qmPQ8.18181$ZQ6.1...@twister.southeast.rr.com...

Mike

unread,
Jun 21, 2002, 10:39:12 PM6/21/02
to

"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message
news:qmPQ8.18181$ZQ6.1...@twister.southeast.rr.com...

> It is MORE than relevent. If I had been able to back up that film I
would
> still have it. I CAN back-up my digital files, and keep the back-ups off
> site. You cannot possible have any real back-ups of your film.
[snip]

> And yes, you can make a COPY of your film - not an actual DUPLICATE. It
> will not have the quality of the original. The digital file does not lose
> quality as it's copied -- which is why the film and music industry are so
> frightened by digital.

No, but the digital "original" is nowhere near the quality of the "original"
neg/slide and probably not the same quality as a dupe slide. In the past I
have made a living doing dupe slides for pro photographers as their backup.
Even though they now scan to CD, they also still make dupes. The CD's are
their 3rd line of defence, and not a substitute for film based images. So,
agreed the dupe process "loses" information, but scanning is worse.
Mike

Skip

unread,
Jun 21, 2002, 11:34:28 PM6/21/02
to
If you treated film in the same manner as you do CDs, you'll probably have
similar results. Film in a bank safe deposit box is equally safe.

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com
"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message

news:O8KQ8.17690$fR2....@twister.southeast.rr.com...

Tony Spadaro

unread,
Jun 22, 2002, 1:24:27 AM6/22/02
to
I don't know about you but I have enough film to fill the better part of a
bank vault. Besides, film in the bank is not available to work on.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"Skip" <shadow...@cox.net> wrote in message

news:8fSQ8.35051$Ok1.2...@news2.west.cox.net...

Tony Spadaro

unread,
Jun 22, 2002, 1:40:14 AM6/22/02
to
Quite frankly you are completely wrong. I have made slide dupes and had
them made by good labs both - it's expensive, time consuming, and the
quality takes a pretty hard hit.
My current scanner Gives me a 4000x6000 pixel scan of a 35mm frame --
that's enough to see the grain on all but a couple film emulsions. The bit
depth is 14, and what it can't get off a slide I can't see. It might be
possible to get more than that bit depth off some B/W films --- but not in
35mm - and there is a scanner that takes 120 now with the same specs as
mine.
The whole idea of the ASF process is that each layer is scanned
separately - the claim is that it will allow ALL the information on the film
to be recorded by the scanner -- obviously I don't know how close they are
to living up to this, but I know that it will only get better in the
future - and I know I can make better scans than any dupe slides now.
Your pros who make dupes are most likely making them for submissions --
the real slide is brought in when a sale is made. If they are using scans
that are below the quality of the film dupes, they are using old equipment,
and will change their techniques once that modernize.
The LS2000 came on the market 3 years ago -- it is better than the
quality one can get duping slides -- and doesn't have all the PITAs
involved. I got mine then, and have had two rolls of Ektachrome duping film
in the freezer ever since -- I'm thinking of seeing what else it can do
since I'll never make another direct dupe again. For one thing, there is no
point, even if a slide is the end product -- a digital file can now be
burned onto film AFTER spotting, colour corrections, etc. There is not a
reason in the world to go from one chip of film directly to another when one
can do much better with a scanned image.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"Mike" <teh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:af0o0l$qgc$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...

Tony Spadaro

unread,
Jun 22, 2002, 1:46:13 AM6/22/02
to
Quick note. With my tired old inkjet I get closer colour rendition to my
original slides than any lab ever made for me. It takes work and practice --
about the same amount of work that it takes making a good B/W print in a
darkroom.
Labs come in all qualities but very few are really all that good and they
charge accordingly -- I can't afford to have a lab that good make my prints,
but don't need them anyway because I have taken the time and effort to learn
how to do high quality printing.
To make that clearer -- I HAVE NEVER HAD A SLIDE PRINTED AS WELL AS I CAN
DO IT MYSELF WITH A 5 YEAR OLD INKJET.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"George E. Cawthon" <George...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message

news:3D13CFEB...@worldnet.att.net...

Starlord

unread,
Jun 23, 2002, 2:40:40 PM6/23/02
to
And then there are those of us who still like records better than CD's, that's
why I still have a record player and records.


--
The Babylon project was our last best hope for peace, it failed.
But in the year of the Shadow War it became our last best hope
for Victory. They year is 2260, the place is Babylon 5


SIAR
www.starlords.org
Akumaizer Cattery
http://akumaizer.united.net.kg
Global Japanese Bobtail Club
http://cathobbyist.com/gjbtc/
Telescope Buyers FAQ
http://home.inreach.com/starlord

"Bigbrum" <bigbrum47(remove this)@(and this)yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:aeul44$k9m$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...

Tony Spadaro

unread,
Jun 19, 2002, 2:23:01 PM6/19/02
to
And it does with regular film processing too - so what's the diff?

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"Billy B" <wwo...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:uh114a...@corp.supernews.com...
> being a lab owner I can't wait till someone puts their film in and
something
> Bad happens. And you know it will
>
> jmho
> billy burwick
>
>
>
> "Freak" <fr...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:oqMP8.28139$9b.29...@typhoon.austin.rr.com...
> > How many times have you gone into Wal-mart at midnight and wanted to
have
> > some film developed right at that very moment because you couldn't wait
to
> > see how the pics came out? Or when a hour is not soon enough? Well,
> Applied
> > Science (the same people that make digital ice and ice3) has a new
machine
> > in beta format at http://www.precision-camera.com/ in Austin, Texas. The
> > machine will develop your film in about 5 minutes and make prints and a
cd
> > from the film. It has two Mitsubishi 4X6 dye sub printers and one Sony
> 8X10
> > dye sub printer. On the cd it will have three different resolutions(low,
> med
> > and high), it also has the thumbnails of the pics on the cd label. Now
the
> > bad side. You will not get the negatives back they are destroyed in the
> > process. Also, at the present time it only works with Fuji 100, 200, 400
> > ,Kodak 100, 200, 400, and 800. The whole process takes about 10 Minutes.
> The
> > engineer said it has been in the works for about 5 years now. This is
not
> a
> > replacement for good pro labs but for the typical vacation photos or for
> > business pics it looks good. I'll post more info when I get some...Maybe
> > even some sample pics.
> > Corey
> >
> >
>
>


Tony Spadaro

unread,
Jun 19, 2002, 2:27:24 PM6/19/02
to
This is not just "instant prints". It's prints AND scans in 10 minutes. I
tend to drop off my film and go back the next day, so the speed is of no
importance to me -- but to have good scans without doing the work myself --
a rather involved and time consuming process -- that would be very much
worth the effort.
Even if it only is "snapshot" quality, it means that the people who
normally toss their negatives away --- and there are vast numbers of
them --- will have scans to send to the family, and prints for the album,
and they might actually save the cd so that re-prints can be done without
flatbed scanning the first set.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html

"Bigbrum" <bigbrum47(remove this)@(and this)yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message

news:aepgm5$9t0$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Maybe I'm missing the point, but as someone who remembers when you had to
> wait a week or more to get a film processed, using a lab that does a one
> hour turn around doesn't seem a problem. Is getting prints in ten minuets
> instead of sixty really that important? I would have thought that one of
> the main reasons for using a "traditional" film camera was to get
negatives!
> Otherwise, why not just use a digital camera in the first place - or
> Polaroid , if you want "instant" prints?
>
>


Tony Spadaro

unread,
Jun 21, 2002, 5:29:05 PM6/21/02
to
So how are your old Kodacolour negatives holding up? Got any E2 slides that
still look like anything. Archival quality is different from Archiving. It
is a made up term that means exactly nothing as people are selling "archival
quality" Ilfochrome prints with a life expectancy of less than 50 years,
while there are B/W prints that could be expected to last 200 --- but there
is also no guarantee that they actually will, because no one actually knows
that they will.
Digital copies are exact duplicates of the original file. This means that
anything important will last as long a civilization gives a damn about
them --- if you look at the history of art you will find that about 99% of
it is lost: burned, flooded, aged, stolen and destroyed, destroyed by the
artist -- several hundred erotic watercolours by J.M.W. Turner were burned
by the critic Ruskin, because he thought they were "filthy" and didn't want
Turner's reputation soiled with them.
Keep your negatives - I hope the future is kinder to them then the past
was to mine. I'll keep digital files of what I feel is important and know
they are actually fairly safe.
As I stated above the Vatican is copying their hard copy onto CD -ROM --
does this tell you anything? Aparently not.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/links.html
"George E. Cawthon" <George...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message

news:3D136DD3...@worldnet.att.net...

Jerry Thomas

unread,
Jun 25, 2002, 6:02:48 PM6/25/02
to
With wet processing, I get my prints, cd AND my negs for archival
storage. From where I sit I already have it all and all this new
contraption can do for me is to distroy my negs! Not much of a deal at
all. Ten minute processing time is... well I beleive it when I see it.
I have yet to have even a 1 hour lab finish my pics in under 4 hours.
When I scoff at their 1 hour claim they say. We are back logged. Why
won't this process be "back logged" all the time as well? Tell them to
keep trying.

Freak wrote:

> How many times have you gone into Wal-mart at midnight and wanted to have
> some film developed right at that very moment because you couldn't wait to
> see how the pics came out? Or when a hour is not soon enough? Well, Applied
> Science (the same people that make digital ice and ice3) has a new machine
> in beta format at http://www.precision-camera.com/ in Austin, Texas. The
> machine will develop your film in about 5 minutes and make prints and a cd
> from the film. It has two Mitsubishi 4X6 dye sub printers and one Sony 8X10
> dye sub printer. On the cd it will have three different resolutions(low, med
> and high), it also has the thumbnails of the pics on the cd label. Now the
> bad side. You will not get the negatives back they are destroyed in the
> process. Also, at the present time it only works with Fuji 100, 200, 400
> ,Kodak 100, 200, 400, and 800. The whole process takes about 10 Minutes. The
> engineer said it has been in the works for about 5 years now. This is not a
> replacement for good pro labs but for the typical vacation photos or for
> business pics it looks good. I'll post more info when I get some...Maybe
> even some sample pics.
> Corey
>
>
>


--
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
-William Pitt, British prime-minister (1759-1806)

Amardeep S Chana

unread,
Jun 25, 2002, 6:30:01 PM6/25/02
to
"Jerry Thomas" <tho...@pilot.sbcc.net> wrote in message
news:3D18E888...@pilot.sbcc.net...

> With wet processing, I get my prints, cd AND my negs for archival
> storage. From where I sit I already have it all and all this new
> contraption can do for me is to distroy my negs! Not much of a deal at
> all.

Sounds like it isn't suited for you. Why the scornful attitude? Nobody is
forcing you to use it.

Personally I'd love to get 3072x2048 resolution scans in place of negatives
for most of my snapshots. It would save me hours of scanning time per roll.
I wouldn't even have them make prints, just a CD. Plenty of online
companies that print to real photo paper for reasonable prices.

I'd use regular processing for the important stuff, but I think there'd be
room for this technology in the marketplace until digital capture becomes
the dominant form of picture taking.

> Ten minute processing time is... well I beleive it when I see it.
> I have yet to have even a 1 hour lab finish my pics in under 4 hours.
> When I scoff at their 1 hour claim they say. We are back logged. Why
> won't this process be "back logged" all the time as well? Tell them to
> keep trying.
>

My local Wal-Mart gets the prints done in about 45 minutes. The other 1
hour labs I've used have met the deadline consistently.

Jerry Thomas

unread,
Jun 25, 2002, 8:11:17 PM6/25/02
to
Perhaps not at Walmart, but the lab I use most of the time, not a 1
hour, can develop and scan to a zip or cd without the prints if I want.
And sometimes that is all I have them do. I only use the scans for
making computer content anyway. I go back to the negs for any
enlargments I want printed. Just old fashioned I suppose.

Amardeep S Chana wrote:

> Personally I'd love to get 3072x2048 resolution scans in place of negatives
> for most of my snapshots. It would save me hours of scanning time per roll.
> I wouldn't even have them make prints, just a CD. Plenty of online
> companies that print to real photo paper for reasonable prices.
>

> My local Wal-Mart gets the prints done in about 45 minutes. The other 1
> hour labs I've used have met the deadline consistently.

-

George E. Cawthon

unread,
Jun 25, 2002, 11:21:17 PM6/25/02
to

I don't have Kodacolor negatives but I have Ektachromes
(they really degrade). Those that are only 30 or so years
old look good. My slides from '50s, are pretty red but
they probably degraded most in the first 2-3 years after
they were made; treated rather rough. I quit taking color
about 1968. How are your 30 year old CD's? Oh, I forgot
they didn't make CD's back then. My wifes, Kodachromes from
the '60s still look good or as good as her lousy camera
allowed them to look.

Things are destroyed, but that doesn't have anything to do
with the media? Some of those old books in the Library at
Alexandria would still be readable if the library hadn't
been destroyed. How are your 2000 year old CDs? Oops,
forgot again, they didn't make CDs back then.

Digital copies are not exact duplicates of film. How can
you make a duplicate of my negatives with over 4000 dpi when
your scanner only provides 40O0 dpi. You can't.

I have no intention of dumping my B/W negatives. When I
die, my wife and child will probably throw most of them out,
maybe all of them; just like I did with my father's. I
selected what I wanted and dumped the rest, just like others
will do with your CDs. If you expect your CD's to survive
you, good luck.

I think the Vatican probably spent a whole lot more on
restoring Michaelangelo's paintings than they will ever
spend on CDs.

Annika1980

unread,
Jun 25, 2002, 11:28:40 PM6/25/02
to
>From: "George E. Cawthon" George...@worldnet.att.net

>I think the Vatican probably spent a whole lot more on
>restoring Michaelangelo's paintings than they will ever
>spend on CDs.

That and legal fees.


Tony Spadaro

unread,
Jun 26, 2002, 4:16:36 AM6/26/02
to
You have missed the point -- as usual.
DIGITAL FILES CAN BE EXACTLY COPIED,
unlike film which degrades every generation, and which tends to self
destruct over time: ask yourself why 50% of all the movies ever made on this
planet no longer exist.
I have CDs that date from 1985 and they still play jes'fine thank you very
much, and I have CD ROMS from the early 1990s and The information on them is
exactly what it was when I bought them.
The fact is -- you haven't the vaguest idea how long a CD will last. You
just guess low (and it is nothing more than a guess) to make your point. As
I recall the swipers who argued against CDs and for lps made the same point
"Those thing sare gonna fall apart!" and just like the film boys they ignore
the fact that their preferred analog media turns into junk at a pretty good
clip. Play your lps and they age quickly, handle film in a darkroom and it
begins to show wear. Digital files remain pristine throughout all
operations -- the prints can be damaged but the file is going to stay
perfect.
I've just finished digitizing a fellows kodachromes from the 50s -- they
were thin and the colour looked a bit blue to me, but they were taken at sea
so it might be the way they looked for 50 years. However, as I'm sure you
know, Kodachrome fades pretty rapidly if projected. It has better dark
storage than Ektachromes but doesn't stand up to light.
The time consumer, was spotting the new files. The slides had picked up an
awful lot of dirt in that time and it wasn't about to come off the slides,
even with PEC 12.
Where did I say I can make dupes of your slides at over 4000 dpi -- I can
make them AT 4000 dpi -- which shows grain structure on all but a few
emulsions. The next generation of consumer scanners will probably go up to
6000 dpi but I don't think I personally would have any use for that much
res.
I don't give a damn if my cds survive me. Once I'm gone they can either
take care of themselves or get used as frisbees. It's while I'm alive that
they are important TO ME - once I'm outta here they can go too -- but I've
learned over and over again that film isn't going to outlast me --- I've had
a lot more destroyed than I currently have stored.
If you aren't worried about what will happen to your negatives why have
you spent all this time trying to convince yourself that they will outlast
digital files? Or is that too close to logic for you?

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
Photography ... the hard way
and partial home of
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
The Links are at
news:3D19332E...@worldnet.att.net...
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