Question:
I should add one important comment. Defining kinds of labs is difficult. I have a one-hour lab close by. Prices are maybe a little higher than most, but not much and not close to most "custom" labs. Yet the results and the care they take is equal or very close to the quality expected from a custom lab. There are also some terrible custom labs around. The moral of the story is while generalizations generally are correct, don’t bet the farm on them. — Dia ’s Muire duit Joe M
Response:
Apparently you weren’t reading my email very attentively, Sonny. When I said "even if" DVD-R becomes the affordable standard, what part of that did you interpret to mean that "it never will" ? Hmm? I know for a fact it will soon become the standard. Unlike people who think they know what technology is going to do, I work in the semiconductor industry where we pave the way for it. Mike
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Begin Quote CD-R is here to stay, and I doubt it will ever become a format you can no longer read End Quote I really hate to hear myself say this, but here goes, You’ve got a lot to learn sonny. ;-) I don’t know how many things I have watched come out which were the ultimate this or that and would never be replaced, but 8 track tapes LP records and much more have come and gone. Today it happens even faster. Sure you can still read (play) 8 tracks and LP, but most people can’t any more. The same will happen with CD’s. Heck I can remember when I could not imagine ever needing more than that first harddrive of mine (10 meg). CD’s are about to be replaced with DVD’s and it will not be long before they are replaced. In 10 years you might have difficulty fitting more than one image on a CD. Don’t bet on the world staying still. You will be left behind. — Dia ’s Muire duit Joe M
Response:
I find on a "process only" order, the local lab charges 3.50 to develop and put my film into a sleeve – no fingerprints. For 3.00 I can have the drug store develop the film and either leave it lying on the top of the machine gathering dust, or roll it up into a tight little wad of scratches and stick it into a 35mm can. The 50 cents a roll strikes me as a bargain. The film is the product. All the money you spend on cameras and equipment, all the time you put into the shot are there on that little rectangle. What is the value of a camera except to produce those little rectangles? I’ve lost enough of those rectangles over the years to know their value. — Digital photo restoration in autumnal Chapel Hill NC http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony New – A Digital Workflow + Sharpness: Threat or Menace? And Selecting Your First SLR - Java must be enabled Before you buy.
Response:
Begin Quote CD-R is here to stay, and I doubt it will ever become a format you can no longer read End Quote I really hate to hear myself say this, but here goes, You’ve got a lot to learn sonny. ;-) I don’t know how many things I have watched come out which were the ultimate this or that and would never be replaced, but 8 track tapes LP records and much more have come and gone. Today it happens even faster. Sure you can still read (play) 8 tracks and LP, but most people can’t any more. The same will happen with CD’s. Heck I can remember when I could not imagine ever needing more than that first harddrive of mine (10 meg). CD’s are about to be replaced with DVD’s and it will not be long before they are replaced. In 10 years you might have difficulty fitting more than one image on a CD. Don’t bet on the world staying still. You will be left behind. — Dia ’s Muire duit Joe M
Response:
digital can last as long as you want it to last if you had taken your files from tape onto 5.25" disk when it came along, then from that to 3.5" then copied them to your hard disk when they became available (whilst still keeping backups) you can easily migrate files (with no quality loss) between formats. Sure it takes some effort but it’s not that drastic to keep backups in sensible formats. film on the other hand is limited by the chemicals G
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Begin Quote but i scan them and put them on CD for archival End Quote I can’t really fault you, but I have some forty plus year old images that are just fine. I also have a number of 10 year old digital files that I can no longer read because the disk died or they are in a format I can no longer read (The drive died). Sure I could try and find a new drive, but it is just not worth it so I dump them, but the images I have from High School 40 years ago are still fine. — Dia ’s Muire duit Joe M
Response:
Begin Quote but i scan them and put them on CD for archival End Quote I can’t really fault you, but I have some forty plus year old images that are just fine. I also have a number of 10 year old digital files that I can no longer read because the disk died or they are in a format I can no longer read (The drive died). Sure I could try and find a new drive, but it is just not worth it so I dump them, but the images I have from High School 40 years ago are still fine. — Dia ’s Muire duit Joe M
Response:
CD-R is here to stay, and I doubt it will ever become a format you can no longer read. Sure, if you scratch it, you’re screwed. But if you scratch a negative or a slide, which is far easier to do, isn’t that the same thing? You can’t damage a CD-R by wiping the dust off it. You CAN with a slide or negative. This topic’s been beaten to death, but even if, say, DVD-R becomes the new, affordable standard, the process of transferring from CD-R to DVD-R will be as painless as it was making the transition from hard-drive to CD-R. I’ve been doing what Koen does – scanning negatives and making digital archives to CD-R. The beauty of digital is the LOSSLESS transfer of photos, which are composed of 1’s and 0’s like everything digital, from one media to another, i.e. cd to hard-drive, hard-drive back to cd, which is what I do when I start to suspect that a cd is reaching its age limit. I have a few four year old Maxell brand green CD-R’s, that are becoming difficult to read, but luckily I don’t have any photos on them. I also used Direct-CD at the time, before I figured out that Direct-CD was only designed for the lazy bums that Adaptec caters to, so that may also be why they’re hard to read from as well. Mike
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Begin Quote but i scan them and put them on CD for archival End Quote I can’t really fault you, but I have some forty plus year old images that are just fine. I also have a number of 10 year old digital files that I can no longer read because the disk died or they are in a format I can no longer read (The drive died). Sure I could try and find a new drive, but it is just not worth it so I dump them, but the images I have from High School 40 years ago are still fine. — Dia ’s Muire duit Joe M
Response:
I can’t afford the quality labs here in the area (assumed that they are really better). They cost me more than double of the price than the cheaper ones, but they still handle film with their bare hands, and there is regularly dust on the prints. I know my negatives might fade earlier than if they were handled by a more expensive lab, but i scan them and put them on CD for archival. Only for special occasions i use more expensive labs. Koen
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Begin Quote Is there any drawback to having a drug store process your negatives, and by that I mean not developing prints, but just processing the negatives? Is this step of the process less critical to the overall quality of the negative End Quote
Response:
Begin Quote Is there any drawback to having a drug store process your negatives, and by that I mean not developing prints, but just processing the negatives? Is this step of the process less critical to the overall quality of the negative End Quote There are many possibilities for the local drug store to screw up. Same with a good custom lab, but they are less likely to do so. Problems include not cleaning equipment properly, not handling the negatives properly, using exhausted chemistry, not using the best method (for example skipping or substituting a cheaper step in the process that may effect the archival quality of the result, something you will not know about for say ten years). — Dia ’s Muire duit Joe M
Response:
Is there any drawback to having a drug store process your negatives, and by that I mean not developing prints, but just processing the negatives? Is this step of the process less critical to the overall quality of the negative (aside from the obvious need to wear gloves and sleeve them), or is it still important to go to a pro lab for this? The Long’s Drugs a block away from my house has been doing mine for free, and I get them back within an hour. It’s great having the convenience of slides with the superior quality of negatives, AND get it for free, but I just wanted to make sure I’m not sacrificing anything by going there. So far they haven’t scratched any, they do wear gloves, and sleeve them. Mike
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