Rob Studdert wrote:
On 2 Oct 2005 at 17:57, Toralf Lund wrote:
Always glad to amuse ;-) [ ... ]
[ ... ] no more issues over scratched films blamed on my perfectly clean camera
bodies and no more bad print crops etc.
I guess I've been lucky in this respect... I've had my fair share of not
very good prints, but a generally view them as proof copies anyway, if I
do the development + all prints routine. The film is, however, OK as a rule.
[ ... ]
I'm much happier storing my image files on DVD, in fact I migrated all my old
CD back-ups to DVD as soon as it was economically feasible. DVD media is
inherently more robust [ ... ]
Possibly. The main issue with DVDs is really that there isn't one common
format. A bit annoying.
Every DVD I have written successfully has verified and has been
reliable on later reading, I have no concerns about "separation" etc, I'm
What I was referring to, is that the main risk with CD storage according
to people that use it for professional archival purposes, is complete
disintegration of the media, i.e. you don't expect one or two files to
go bad on you, but you might loose all of them in one go. These people
expect a lifetime of no more than 10 years from a CD - actually I think
they sometimes renew the media every 5 years. But they are probably a
lot more worried (or should I say paranoid) about the loosing the data
than you and I.
I had a very capable computer system before I bought my digital camera, it was
designed for digital editing of still images and audio, direct digital capture
just made the whole process more streamlined. [ ... ] The reality is that a very
capable computer is pretty inexpensive these days
Yes. Like I said, the real issue is the data management. Thinking that
storing a lot of largish files on a computer costs you nothing is very
naive. It either costs you time or it costs you money (or both). Then
there is the overall computer maintenance cost...
And you do need some kind of a computer, I think, at least if you want
to save money. If you let the labs do the job for you, you will easily
end up with a higher cost than for film. I guess you have one really
low-cost option in the stand-alone camera media/CD/DVD/camera i/o units,
though...
Not so, some people want the control that a computer provides some don't. For
instance I have an associate who is computer illiterate and who owns and uses a
DSLR, they print straight to a little Epson printer which reads cards directly.
It's not how I'd like to operate but this person is very pleased and they do
win print prizes at their camera club so it's fulfilling their requirements.
Yeah, I guess it depends on what you want to do. I think, however, it is
fair to assume that people in general, and subscribers to this list in
particular, will want to store their picture in a more permanent form
than what an inkjet print gives you. In fact, prints from a lab would
probably be better, and cheaper, too...
I do write this persons files to disc as a favour but as they only shoot JPG so
it wouldn't be costly to have it done at a bureau either.
To me, JPG storage just makes no sense for the kind of equipment we are
discussing here...
Some people throw away their negatives after they receive their prints, digital
shooters are allowed to do just the same. I'd bet that the vast majority of
reprints/enlargements made in my country are print copies.
Yeah, if you don't care about the quality... But I really don't
understand why people who don't would get a DSLR in the first place. Why
not save even more money by buying a cheap P&S?
If it doesn't suite you to do the work yourself pay someone else
At a higher cost than the one normally expected from film...
but one of the
biggest advantages to digital image work-flow is the creative control that it
returns to the photographer. The post-processing stream can become as important
as the image capture since there is no need to relinquish a large part of the
process to a lab who can only guess about what you wish to achieve in your
final prints.
I've been thinking that digital cameras *really* start to make a
difference as and when the media used in the camera itself becomes so
cheap and reliable that you can simply keep that as a "master copy"...
I personally far prefer to have my archive data on optical media than
electronic media.
Yes, but the camera media might conceivably be optical, too.
[ ... ]
Fair enough. I don't feel that I would shoot more than now, which is
perhaps a roll a week, in any case...
I suspect that if you had a DSLR you would likely be shooting far more than the
equivalent of a film per week.
I rather doubt it. A film per week is already shooting "more". The
normal is, or used to be, 2 or 3 films a year, I think... (I mean, for
people in general.)
- T
