Hersch wrote:
>He [Mark] wants 20 years. My 20-year-old slides and negatives have degraded
>enough that they need Ed's roc, and are generally not as 'good as new.' I
>think the digital resource is more reliable, if proper care and storage,
>and regular renewal are carried out.
It needs to be mentioned that not all 20-year-old film is equal (we all know
the principles, but we don't often encounter the examples head-to-head). :-)
If film is stored in a cool, dark, humidity-controled environment, its
lifetime is very good over a period of 100-years or so--providing that the
film base and chemicals were "archiveable" in the first place (and not all
were). Some of my mother's slides are 52 years old--only a few of them are
degraded: some by obvious light exposure, some by dust, a very few just
faded (poor dyes or development).
But both Hersch and Maris are right. Film is stable, and so are digital
numbers; the problem being that *nothing* is really permanent, so continuous
and redundant archiving, at this point in time, is the safest way to
approach this problem.
Best regards--LRA
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