Top photographers condemn digital age

The Wogster wrote:

First is the media, it must be able to survive for an
extended period of time, say 500 years. Something based on gold is most
likely to have that kind of lifespan. Note film does NOT.

I have to disagree here; microfilms (which *can* be used to store full
tonal range images, and by extension color separations) are specifically
made to have an archival life of five hundred years; that's their design
criterion. No, we won't know for centuries whether the criteria were
met, but when processing standards are adhered to (fixing and washing)
and storage conditions held, there's reason to believe even ordinary B&W
film materials can have this kind of life (especially if sulfide or
selenium toned, as would be the case with archival microfilm).

And the advantage of a film storage medium, of course, is that the image
is visible with nothing more than magnification; separation images can
be combined for optical viewing with only lenses, mirrors, and filters,
simple optics open to hand production by amateurs in any future time.

There is no digital medium that will preserve images past a
technological singularity, which some futurists predict to occur within
the next century. Film at least has a chance.

Next you need an agreed upon technology, in other words the machine to
read the gold disk, needs to have long term standards compliance, so
that a machine made 500 years from now, can still read the disk.

Third the data format needs to be standardized and supported so that 500
years from now, the software will be able to read it.

Currently the standards are not there and nor is the technology. However
5 or 10 or 25 years from now, it may be.

And how do I ensure my digitally stored images survive the next two and
a half decades, and get transferred to the new medium? Film doesn't
have that problem; I can reproduce glass plate and film images up to 140
years old (as old as the medium) with the same equipment and materials I
use for film I shot last week; I can view older photographic images
(Daguerreotypes, bitumen plates, etc.) directly by eye. I can't do that
with disks I recorded ten years ago. With film, if the physical medium
is undamaged and undeteriorated (a matter of correct process and
storage), the image is trivially retrievable.

As I've said in another thread, I won't be comfortable with digital as a
primary medium until I have a way to back it up -- ideally, to film at
resolution similar to optically imprinted film.

--
I may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz!
-- E. J. Fudd, 1954

Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer
Lathe Building Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/HomebuiltLathe.htm
Speedway 7x12 Lathe Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/my7x12.htm

Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth
and don't expect them to be perfect.

Ken Nadvornick wrote:

It's only been - what? - 27 years (1977) since the twin Voyager
interplanetary probes were launched and the technology to read that golden
phonograph record is already extinct to all but a small group of
afficianados. (At least here on Earth.) I wonder... what will be the
situation in another 475 years?

Nice of them to include the replacement cartridge and needle, though. A
Radio Shack might be hard to come by...

But, just as an interested amateur, much less a professional scientist
or engineer, could easily create an optical system to view or project a
photograph even if the very idea of photography has been lost to time,
anyone capable of retrieving the Voyager disks and reading the symbolic
playing instructions would be capable of fabricating a stylus and
cartridge. The inclusion of those devices just makes it easier; they
need provide only amplification to listen to the audio portions of the
record. I could probably manage that myself, with my extremely limited
electronic knowledge; it should be trivial for anyone capable of
retrieving those disks from deep space (assuming they see, hear, and
think even a little like us). Viewing the images would require some
computer capability or a lot better knowledge of analog electronics than
I possess, but again shouldn't be a problem for those capable of finding
the disks.

The only way I see those disks as being information to retrieve is if
they're found by too mature a civilization -- if they've reached the
stage where "trailer trash" routinely lives and travels in space, it's
very possible that the finder might be technologically (or genuinely)
illiterate and see the item as simply metal to be recycled as scrap, a
wall hanging, etc., without ever realizing it contained information --
or be ignorant enough of scientific constants to be unable to decode the
instructions for rotational speed etc. even if they understand the disks
contain information. Imagine a Dust Bowl era Okie confronted by a
message encoded in terms of the dimensions and tolerances of parts
inside the engine of his clunker Ford; he might well be able to repair
most common failures, but likely wouldn't know what a micrometer is for,
much less how to use one, and still less likely own one -- and even if
he does, his worn old engine might be far enough out of tolerance to
render the message indecipherable.

--
I may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz!
-- E. J. Fudd, 1954

Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer
Lathe Building Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/HomebuiltLathe.htm
Speedway 7x12 Lathe Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/my7x12.htm

Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth
and don't expect them to be perfect.

Donald Qualls wrote:
The Wogster wrote:

First is the media, it must be able to survive for an extended period
of time, say 500 years. Something based on gold is most likely to
have that kind of lifespan. Note film does NOT.


I have to disagree here; microfilms (which *can* be used to store full
tonal range images, and by extension color separations) are specifically
made to have an archival life of five hundred years; that's their design
criterion. No, we won't know for centuries whether the criteria were
met, but when processing standards are adhered to (fixing and washing)
and storage conditions held, there's reason to believe even ordinary B&W
film materials can have this kind of life (especially if sulfide or
selenium toned, as would be the case with archival microfilm).

Ideally though, to get film, any film to last 500 years, does require a
few things, for one only Silber Halide monochromatic film can be
considered, as colour films, and chromogenic monochrome filmes are dye
based, and the dyes will certainly last less then 100 years.

Second, the film must be stored under optimum conditions, cold
conditions, low humidity, little light. Many miles of film, stored in
less then optimum conditions, has been lost, due to the backing plastic
materials rotting.

And the advantage of a film storage medium, of course, is that the image
is visible with nothing more than magnification; separation images can
be combined for optical viewing with only lenses, mirrors, and filters,
simple optics open to hand production by amateurs in any future time.

There is no digital medium that will preserve images past a
technological singularity, which some futurists predict to occur within
the next century. Film at least has a chance.

So computers, and digital data storage will disappear? Naw, people are
too stupid and lazy to live without them now. I know 20 year olds that
can't figure out the tax on a $0.99 purchase, without a computerized
cash-register!

Next you need an agreed upon technology, in other words the machine to
read the gold disk, needs to have long term standards compliance, so
that a machine made 500 years from now, can still read the disk.

Third the data format needs to be standardized and supported so that
500 years from now, the software will be able to read it.

Currently the standards are not there and nor is the technology.
However 5 or 10 or 25 years from now, it may be.


And how do I ensure my digitally stored images survive the next two and
a half decades, and get transferred to the new medium? Film doesn't
have that problem; I can reproduce glass plate and film images up to 140
years old (as old as the medium) with the same equipment and materials I
use for film I shot last week; I can view older photographic images
(Daguerreotypes, bitumen plates, etc.) directly by eye. I can't do that
with disks I recorded ten years ago. With film, if the physical medium
is undamaged and undeteriorated (a matter of correct process and
storage), the image is trivially retrievable.

Replacement storage? We know that a CD-R will last about 5 years, if
kept cool and dark, with low humidity. So if you have a 4.5 year old
CD-R, then make a copy, on another newer media. Considering that most
DVD players can play CD-R's there will be readers available for at least
another 10 years.

Film does have other issues though, for example a colour separation, is
an encoding method, in 300 years will anyone remember how to turn that
image back into a colour one? Because it's visible, people may simply
think it's some weird old black and white stuff. Will anyone remember
that film used a negative image. In 300 years people running into a box
of current negatives in the attic, will probably look at them, think
they are crap and throw them out.

Last issue, most photographs I have seen, don't really deserve to last
500 years. Amongst my own work, this year I have about 5 images, that I
would really want preserved for all eternity. Will anyone really care,
100 years from now, that I was here, and took a photograph of my cat,
I'n dead the cat's dead, nice photo, but who will cares?

W









As I've said in another thread, I won't be comfortable with digital as a
primary medium until I have a way to back it up -- ideally, to film at
resolution similar to optically imprinted film.

The Wogster wrote:

Donald Qualls wrote:

The Wogster wrote:

Ideally though, to get film, any film to last 500 years, does require a
few things, for one only Silber Halide monochromatic film can be
considered, as colour films, and chromogenic monochrome filmes are dye
based, and the dyes will certainly last less then 100 years.

Hence why I specified B&W materials.

Second, the film must be stored under optimum conditions, cold
conditions, low humidity, little light. Many miles of film, stored in
less then optimum conditions, has been lost, due to the backing plastic
materials rotting.

That's not the issue it used to be; the film that was lost to base
deterioration was almost entirely on nitrate stock, which is inherently
unstable; celluloid will deteriorate in any storage condition other than
deep freeze, though buffering to avoid acidity helps a great deal.
Modern polyester (aka Estar) and acetate base is so durable that those
same materials are seen as major, long-term environmental problems in
landfill conditions (buried in dirt with tens of thousands of unknown
chemicals and enough water to keep everything active, along with
bacteria busily converting anything organic into acids, alcohols, and
methane). Any conditions that don't promote bacterial or fungal attack
against the gelatin should work nicely -- which probably includes any
conditions you and I would find comfortable for day-to-day living.

And the advantage of a film storage medium, of course, is that the
image is visible with nothing more than magnification; separation
images can be combined for optical viewing with only lenses, mirrors,
and filters, simple optics open to hand production by amateurs in any
future time.

There is no digital medium that will preserve images past a
technological singularity, which some futurists predict to occur
within the next century. Film at least has a chance.


So computers, and digital data storage will disappear? Naw, people are
too stupid and lazy to live without them now. I know 20 year olds that
can't figure out the tax on a $0.99 purchase, without a computerized
cash-register!

Not "will" but "might" -- the ever accelerating rate of change, if
plotted on a graph, looks like an exponential curve with its asymptote
within the next century (exact date is plus or minus 100 years because
of noise in the data). We don't know what the singularity will look
like -- by definition, we can't see to the asymptote. We can be
reasonably sure that the time just before the singularity will make the
past thirty years look as quiet and bucolic as the 19th century looks to
a lot of modern nostalgists, and it's very possible that by the end of
that time, electronic computers and tangible storage of digital data
will be so completely obsolete that the generation after the singularity
will forget that data was ever stored on removable physical media
instead of (insert "miracle" storage technology here, ranging from
nanomechanical or nanoelectronic to RNA strand to "magic" we can't even
conceive of).

But we can be reasonably sure that people 200 and 300 and 500 years from
now will still have eyes and use pretty much the same kind of light to
see by that we do (it's convenient to be able to see by the light our
planet naturally receives, and light much like that is very common in
the universe even if we spread to the stars in that time). And if they
have eyes reasonably similar to ours, they'll be able to see images on
film, even if their computers are inside their heads.

And how do I ensure my digitally stored images survive the next two
and a half decades, and get transferred to the new medium? Film
doesn't have that problem; I can reproduce glass plate and film images
up to 140 years old (as old as the medium) with the same equipment and
materials I use for film I shot last week; I can view older
photographic images (Daguerreotypes, bitumen plates, etc.) directly by
eye. I can't do that with disks I recorded ten years ago. With film,
if the physical medium is undamaged and undeteriorated (a matter of
correct process and storage), the image is trivially retrievable.


Replacement storage? We know that a CD-R will last about 5 years, if
kept cool and dark, with low humidity. So if you have a 4.5 year old
CD-R, then make a copy, on another newer media. Considering that most
DVD players can play CD-R's there will be readers available for at least
another 10 years.

Replacement storage is great, if you can manage it. It won't happen if
my old CR-R media get stored in the attic, as has often happened with
photographs over the past century. Leave a CD-R in the attic for 50
years, and you'll find a coaster with odd printing around the center
hole. Leave B&W negatives up there that long, and you'll most likely
find intersting pictures of Grandma from before Mom was born.

Or possibly completely boring pictures of Grandma's trip to Wally World
-- but you'll very likely find *pictures* of some kind, not just media
you have no hope of reading.

Film does have other issues though, for example a colour separation, is
an encoding method, in 300 years will anyone remember how to turn that
image back into a colour one? Because it's visible, people may simply
think it's some weird old black and white stuff. Will anyone remember
that film used a negative image. In 300 years people running into a box
of current negatives in the attic, will probably look at them, think
they are crap and throw them out.

For archival storage, it would make sense to encode the edge of the
film, in human-readable text (and yes, language changes are a
consideration, but less intractable than format changes in computer
hardware because language changes much more slowly), the peak filter
pass wavelength for each image -- something like "Image 20040608-00032,
670 nm, red" and "Image 20040608-00032, 540 nm, green" and "Image
20040608-00032, 430 nm, blue" (though this might work better with
positives than negatives). The finder is likely to note three images
with effectively identical scenes, and the lettering, and draw the
obvious conclusion -- and unless display technology changes radically
(to the point of no longer using additive light), anyone with even a
hint of technological knowledge will be able to take the next steps --
even failing any knowledge that "nm" stands for nanometer wavelength,
they'll get images that are reasonably close.

Last issue, most photographs I have seen, don't really deserve to last
500 years. Amongst my own work, this year I have about 5 images, that I
would really want preserved for all eternity. Will anyone really care,
100 years from now, that I was here, and took a photograph of my cat,
I'n dead the cat's dead, nice photo, but who will cares?

No argument there -- I doubt I've made any that deserve to last 500
years. OTOH, isn't that for someone to judge 500 years from now? Look
how wonderful Leonardo da Vinci's daily notbooks and sketches are, work
that wasn't ever intended for anyone else to read, much less to be
viewed as a marvel five centuries later. Nope, I'm no Leonardo -- or at
least, I don't think so -- but if today's Leonardo works solely in
digital, his work might all be lost by 2100, and never mind 2504.

--
I may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz!
-- E. J. Fudd, 1954

Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer
Lathe Building Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/HomebuiltLathe.htm
Speedway 7x12 Lathe Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/my7x12.htm

Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth
and don't expect them to be perfect.

Donald Qualls wrote:

The Wogster wrote:

First is the media, it must be able to survive for an extended period
of time, say 500 years. Something based on gold is most likely to
have that kind of lifespan. Note film does NOT.


I have to disagree here; microfilms (which *can* be used to store full
tonal range images, and by extension color separations) are specifically
made to have an archival life of five hundred years; that's their design
criterion. No, we won't know for centuries whether the criteria were
met, but when processing standards are adhered to (fixing and washing)
and storage conditions held, there's reason to believe even ordinary B&W
film materials can have this kind of life (especially if sulfide or
selenium toned, as would be the case with archival microfilm).

And the advantage of a film storage medium, of course, is that the image
is visible with nothing more than magnification; separation images can
be combined for optical viewing with only lenses, mirrors, and filters,
simple optics open to hand production by amateurs in any future time.

There is no digital medium that will preserve images past a
technological singularity, which some futurists predict to occur within
the next century. Film at least has a chance.

Next you need an agreed upon technology, in other words the machine to
read the gold disk, needs to have long term standards compliance, so
that a machine made 500 years from now, can still read the disk.

Third the data format needs to be standardized and supported so that
500 years from now, the software will be able to read it.

Currently the standards are not there and nor is the technology.
However 5 or 10 or 25 years from now, it may be.


And how do I ensure my digitally stored images survive the next two and
a half decades, and get transferred to the new medium? Film doesn't
have that problem; I can reproduce glass plate and film images up to 140
years old (as old as the medium) with the same equipment and materials I
use for film I shot last week; I can view older photographic images
(Daguerreotypes, bitumen plates, etc.) directly by eye. I can't do that
with disks I recorded ten years ago. With film, if the physical medium
is undamaged and undeteriorated (a matter of correct process and
storage), the image is trivially retrievable.

As I've said in another thread, I won't be comfortable with digital as a
primary medium until I have a way to back it up -- ideally, to film at
resolution similar to optically imprinted film.

Right on. I just responded to Brooks Jensen's blog on LensWork's site,
where he pooh-poohed the idea of archival processing because most images
aren't worth preserving. While agreeing that many of us will not make
images that are deemed great art 100 or 200 years from now, that's not
the point. Photographs are, among many other things, historical
records. Digital images, unless someone finds a way to achieve not only
permanent storage, but permanent accessibility, are not.

Donald Qualls wrote:
The Wogster wrote:

Donald Qualls wrote:

The Wogster wrote:

Ideally though, to get film, any film to last 500 years, does require
a few things, for one only Silber Halide monochromatic film can be
considered, as colour films, and chromogenic monochrome filmes are dye
based, and the dyes will certainly last less then 100 years.


Hence why I specified B&W materials.

Second, the film must be stored under optimum conditions, cold
conditions, low humidity, little light. Many miles of film, stored in
less then optimum conditions, has been lost, due to the backing
plastic materials rotting.


That's not the issue it used to be; the film that was lost to base
deterioration was almost entirely on nitrate stock, which is inherently
unstable; celluloid will deteriorate in any storage condition other than
deep freeze, though buffering to avoid acidity helps a great deal.
Modern polyester (aka Estar) and acetate base is so durable that those
same materials are seen as major, long-term environmental problems in
landfill conditions (buried in dirt with tens of thousands of unknown
chemicals and enough water to keep everything active, along with
bacteria busily converting anything organic into acids, alcohols, and
methane). Any conditions that don't promote bacterial or fungal attack
against the gelatin should work nicely -- which probably includes any
conditions you and I would find comfortable for day-to-day living.


Fact is, nobody knows how long it takes nature to break down the
molecules in polyester or acetate. It may be 100 years it may be
100,000,000 the key is that it does start to break down at some point,
and that point is so far an unknown. They thought plastic buttons from
the 1900's would last forever too, until museums had to replace them
because the buttons were deteriorating, and affecting the garments they
were attached to.

And the advantage of a film storage medium, of course, is that the
image is visible with nothing more than magnification; separation
images can be combined for optical viewing with only lenses, mirrors,
and filters, simple optics open to hand production by amateurs in any
future time.

There is no digital medium that will preserve images past a
technological singularity, which some futurists predict to occur
within the next century. Film at least has a chance.



So computers, and digital data storage will disappear? Naw, people
are too stupid and lazy to live without them now. I know 20 year olds
that can't figure out the tax on a $0.99 purchase, without a
computerized cash-register!


Not "will" but "might" -- the ever accelerating rate of change, if
plotted on a graph, looks like an exponential curve with its asymptote
within the next century (exact date is plus or minus 100 years because
of noise in the data). We don't know what the singularity will look
like -- by definition, we can't see to the asymptote. We can be
reasonably sure that the time just before the singularity will make the
past thirty years look as quiet and bucolic as the 19th century looks to
a lot of modern nostalgists, and it's very possible that by the end of
that time, electronic computers and tangible storage of digital data
will be so completely obsolete that the generation after the singularity
will forget that data was ever stored on removable physical media
instead of (insert "miracle" storage technology here, ranging from
nanomechanical or nanoelectronic to RNA strand to "magic" we can't even
conceive of).

Suppose they invented a new memory next week, that allowed you to store
500 exabytes (87 262 827 images from a Canon digital rebel in Raw
format) would last as long as the planet does, and never become
corrupted, even when at ground zero under a Hydrogen bomb. You probably
still not be satisfied.


But we can be reasonably sure that people 200 and 300 and 500 years from
now will still have eyes and use pretty much the same kind of light to
see by that we do (it's convenient to be able to see by the light our
planet naturally receives, and light much like that is very common in
the universe even if we spread to the stars in that time). And if they
have eyes reasonably similar to ours, they'll be able to see images on
film, even if their computers are inside their heads.

And maybe the computer inside their head will be able to read and decode
a DNG file as well when stored on our memory chip..... Same
difference in that case.

And how do I ensure my digitally stored images survive the next two
and a half decades, and get transferred to the new medium? Film
doesn't have that problem; I can reproduce glass plate and film
images up to 140 years old (as old as the medium) with the same
equipment and materials I use for film I shot last week; I can view
older photographic images (Daguerreotypes, bitumen plates, etc.)
directly by eye. I can't do that with disks I recorded ten years
ago. With film, if the physical medium is undamaged and
undeteriorated (a matter of correct process and storage), the image
is trivially retrievable.



Replacement storage? We know that a CD-R will last about 5 years, if
kept cool and dark, with low humidity. So if you have a 4.5 year old
CD-R, then make a copy, on another newer media. Considering that most
DVD players can play CD-R's there will be readers available for at
least another 10 years.


Replacement storage is great, if you can manage it. It won't happen if
my old CR-R media get stored in the attic, as has often happened with
photographs over the past century. Leave a CD-R in the attic for 50
years, and you'll find a coaster with odd printing around the center
hole. Leave B&W negatives up there that long, and you'll most likely
find intersting pictures of Grandma from before Mom was born.

Or possibly completely boring pictures of Grandma's trip to Wally World
-- but you'll very likely find *pictures* of some kind, not just media
you have no hope of reading.

How will they know that it's grandma, it's an old fashioned negative,
there are no corner labs anymore, and nobody you know still has a fume
room. They are more then likely to get pitched, then someone going to
the work of trying to figure out what they are.

Film does have other issues though, for example a colour separation,
is an encoding method, in 300 years will anyone remember how to turn
that image back into a colour one? Because it's visible, people may
simply think it's some weird old black and white stuff. Will anyone
remember that film used a negative image. In 300 years people running
into a box of current negatives in the attic, will probably look at
them, think they are crap and throw them out.


For archival storage, it would make sense to encode the edge of the
film, in human-readable text (and yes, language changes are a
consideration, but less intractable than format changes in computer
hardware because language changes much more slowly), the peak filter
pass wavelength for each image -- something like "Image 20040608-00032,
670 nm, red" and "Image 20040608-00032, 540 nm, green" and "Image
20040608-00032, 430 nm, blue" (though this might work better with
positives than negatives). The finder is likely to note three images
with effectively identical scenes, and the lettering, and draw the
obvious conclusion -- and unless display technology changes radically
(to the point of no longer using additive light), anyone with even a
hint of technological knowledge will be able to take the next steps --
even failing any knowledge that "nm" stands for nanometer wavelength,
they'll get images that are reasonably close.

They had that technology once, other then Walt Disney, nobody uses it
anymore. Will someone, other then possibly an archeologist want to go
to all the bother to build the machine needed to decode a 300 year old
image that they found. Most people will just toss them out, without
bothering to try and figure out what they are.


Last issue, most photographs I have seen, don't really deserve to last
500 years. Amongst my own work, this year I have about 5 images, that
I would really want preserved for all eternity. Will anyone really
care, 100 years from now, that I was here, and took a photograph of my
cat, I'n dead the cat's dead, nice photo, but who will cares?


No argument there -- I doubt I've made any that deserve to last 500
years. OTOH, isn't that for someone to judge 500 years from now? Look
how wonderful Leonardo da Vinci's daily notbooks and sketches are, work
that wasn't ever intended for anyone else to read, much less to be
viewed as a marvel five centuries later. Nope, I'm no Leonardo -- or at
least, I don't think so -- but if today's Leonardo works solely in
digital, his work might all be lost by 2100, and never mind 2504.


Some of those images may last, digital can be lossless copied, meaning
that an image can be copied from media to media, and retained for an
extended period of time. What may be a good business idea, is a
service, where for a fee they will keep refreshing the media your data
are stored on for an extended period of time.....

W

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 23:09:02 -0400, The Wogster
wrote:

Suppose they invented a new memory next week, that allowed you to store
500 exabytes (87 262 827 images from a Canon digital rebel in Raw
format)

You're off a little aren't you ?

500 quintillion (500X1,152,921,504,606,846,976 =
576,460,752,303,423,488,000) vs 87,262,827 X 6MB/image =
523,576,962,000,000.


Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:37:21 -0400, LR Kalajainen
wrote:

Right on. I just responded to Brooks Jensen's blog on LensWork's site,
where he pooh-poohed the idea of archival processing because most images
aren't worth preserving. While agreeing that many of us will not make
images that are deemed great art 100 or 200 years from now, that's not
the point. Photographs are, among many other things, historical
records. Digital images, unless someone finds a way to achieve not only
permanent storage, but permanent accessibility, are not.

Our image may or may not be great art but they are certainly
efforts of expression that will echo as long as the images are
viewable. I have about 50 B-&-W's from 1880 forward and they are among
our most valued items in our home. Right up with my Grandmothers
Noritake china.


Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 22:16:45 -0400, The Wogster
wrote:

So because prior methods have failed to last, then new ones will be
condemned to the same failure?

Yep. It's called "commerce". "New and improved" sells new
equipment. Old equipment and methods are replaced and rapidly become
extinct. All in the name of Big Bizness. In two years your 32 bit OS
will be extinct. Ready for that ?


Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

On 3 Oct 2004 18:15:07 -0700, (Phil Glaser)
wrote:

Conventional black-and-white photography is the most different from digital
(in terms of ability to achieve high quality). It is the one most worth
preserving as a craft.

I have seen this statement made before, but I'm not sure I understand
why this should be so. This is one of the reasons I was so surprised
about Ilford's woes: if traditional black and white is stronger than
digital black and white, why aren't these materials still selling? Can
you elaborate?

--Phil

The thing is that people find working in the dark
uncomfortable. Also they believe the spinmeisters when they tell them
it's going to be easy for them to capture and print "photoz" on their
inkjet printer. As if an inkjet can render a decent black ! I have
some comparison prints I keep on the walls of my cubicle. A contact
print from a 5X7 negative (Tri-X), several RA-4 prints made from a
Fuji Frontier from my 6MP FinePix along with a coupld inkjet prints my
wife made. Inkjet prints look like water colors, the Frontier prints
aren't much better and of course the contact print is perfect.

Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
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