On Wed, April 30, 2008 15:37, Mark Blackwell wrote: > Add to the mix black and white film. Negatives are very very stable if > processed correctly and I guess with the right connections you could still > print from the plates of Matthew Brady images taken from the US Civil War. > Prints on fiber base paper and the image will last as long as the paper > and even RC papers are getting much much better. I know one person who has made prints (and scans) from old glass-plate negatives he found; not Matthew Brady, these came down to him from a relative and as I remember it he thinks they were taken by his relative. But in terms of technology compatibility, yes, you're quite right that one can still work with stuff that old fairly easily (pretty much as easily as with modern negatives). > Now how things handle excessive abuse really can not come into play. > Fires and floods happen and fact of life is that somethings you just can't > prevent or control. What good does it do to have two copies of an archive > that can not be read by any computer currently in existence. You have 2 > copies of worthless junk instead of one. Though you may lose a negative, > a digital alternative is always available as long as a print survives and > even better if a digital scan is made of the negative, but then you have 2 > archives. Yes, I can't prevent or control fires or floods that well (I can to some extent; a central alarm system with smoke detectors which will call the fire department if I'm not home, or sooner than I might notice myself, *does* reduce the risk of fire, and I also have a pretty good collection of fire extinguishers around; and I live on relatively high ground relative to local drainage patterns). But I don't see any reason to just give up; I think it makes sense to try to protect myself from the things I can't prevent. I'm in no danger of having two copies of an archive that no current computer can read. I've got off-site copies of my digital photos in a format that *any* modern computer can read. > Just not as simple as most think. There really isn't in my opinion a > right or wrong answer with some of the questions and possibilities. I agree it's not simple, and I agree there's no perfect answer; all answers involve tradeoffs, and what will be best for any individual depends on what they care about and what they do, and can only really be determined by them. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
