Re: filmscanners: Digital vs Conventional Chemical Darkroom

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

Since I was quoted on the bottom of this (I've edited it out), I want
to make it quite clear that on many occasions I have stated that I find
the number one problem with digital is the poor archival nature of
storage, so I am in total agreement with Karl.

The problem of change of format, no easy way to identify what is on the
disk/tape without a specialized (and maybe unavailable) reader, loss of
magnetic or optical data reliability in minimal time often causing a few
bytes worth of loss to render the total file or disk unreadable, etc,
all lead to the same problem.  Film is much more reliable.  All you need
is light to see it, a scratch is repairable without the full loss of
data, etc.

As I've said many times: show me a medium 1.5" x 1" x nearly zero, that
stores a readily accessible, 200 megs of info, which is also almost
fully archival with minimal care, and costs under 25 cents, and I'll be
ready to go fully digital.

Further, tell me of a more upgradable machine than a silver film based
35mm camera, which only needs a new roll of film (under $10) to take
advantage of the latest in photographic image taking...

Sure, I love digital, but no one should be fooled into thinking that
right now it is a "better" media in the above mentioned areas of cost or
reliability of storage, archiving and expense in upgrading.

Art

Karl Schulmeisters wrote:

 > Well this has another 'permanence problem'.  I still have in my 
'archive' of
 > storage media
 > 2 9track 6250 tapes (from less than 20 yrs ago and now effectively
 > unreadable)
 > 6 8" Floppy disks (now unreadable)
 > 3 IoMega removable disks (from 10 years ago - now unreadable)
 > lots of 3.5" floppies, which are rapidly becoming unreadable on many
 > machines
 >
 > OTOH, I have a cabinet full of negatives from 30+ years ago - and 
negatives
 > from my grandmother's time, as well as positives, that survived Displaced
 > Person's Camps and all sorts of horrible situations. How many CDRoms 
do you
 > think would have made it through Forced Labor camps of WWII?
 >
 > ALL of which are 'readable' (ie printable)
 >
 > Data CD-ROMs, exposed to sunlight, have a life expectancy of about 
15years
 > before bit-rot becomes uncorrectable (not AS big a deal in image and 
music
 > CDs where it appears as noise)
 >
 > As for Digital having the same quality as film - maybe if you are purely
 > looking at 35mm - but I would disagree here as well.  Note also, that as
 > wonderful as an Epson 1280 is, It can't do 16x20 or larger.  I can 
with my
 > chemical enlarger.  Pretty trivially.
 >
 > That said, I'm not an anti-digital luddite.  But unless you are going to
 > spring for a Canon D-30 or a Nikon D-1, even point-and-shoot film cameras
 > give you better image quality, and  I will take the crispness of a
 > photographic print over a glossy inkjet anyday.
 >
 >