[Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
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[Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
by Steve Harris-14
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According to wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life The concept of half-life is often used to describe the decay of
discrete entities, such as
radioactive atoms. It is the time when the expected value of the number of
entities that have decayed is equal to half the original number. The question is -- Has anyone on this list, or otherwise, done any
studies on the half life of photographic images recorded on various
media? The "decay" or loss of any given image could be from a number of
causes -- decay of the recording material, destruction due to damage
from fire, water, etc., discard by owner, change in technologies, etc. Do the members on this list think that the half-live of photo images
has significantly shortened, because of the shift to digital? What
about different categories of images (professional vs consumer)? Should a criteria of technology be the lengthening, rather than the
shortening of photo image half-life? Is there anyone working on this issue with a mathematical or
statistical model?
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Re: [Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
by David Dyer-Bennet
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On Thu, June 25, 2009 11:11, steve harris wrote: > Do the members on this list think that the half-live of photo images has > significantly shortened, because of the shift to digital? What about > different categories of images (professional vs consumer)? There are all sorts of ways to slice and dice what information we have. A lot more images are permanently deleted early on, I think. If that sort of infant mortality is included, that lowers the half-life. On the other hand, more images are shot (at least that's the report of everybody who has used both film and digital), so even if the life of average images is short, the life of a photo from the session may be higher. Ordinary consumer images were mostly on ordinary chromogenic negative film, and printed similarly. As digital came on, I started finding long-life papers at some of those places (Fuji Crystal Archive, for example), but most of them during most of the film era used ordinary short-life paper. Good quality CD and DVD blanks probably last longer than ordinary chromogenic materials, and possibly longer than Crystal Archive, from what I've seen published. Archival-grade blanks should definitely last longer than any chromogenic materials. Furthermore, the ability to make multiple copies makes it possible to improve the chances of a photo's surviving by having multiple copies in geographically dispersed locations. I don't know how widely used this capability is. I know a number of people who have participated in scanning *old* family photos, and a part of that process has always been making DVDs (or CDs previously) and sharing them around among the family members; but I don't know how often that's done with digital original pictures (I've done it in cases where there was interest, but we already know I'm not normal, eh?) And of course some people are just keeping the photos on their hard drives, not backed up on anything; those photos have a short half-life. Lots of people put their photos on Flickr and other services. Those services are much more secure than holding them on their own hard drives *in the short run*. And perhaps the medium run. I'm not nearly as clear about the long run; how long will Grandpa's Flickr account stay accessible after he dies? Will people remember to keep paying it until they rescue the photos they care about? On the other hand, those services make it possible for family and friends to grab copies of the ones they like easily, thus again creating multiple dispersed copies and greatly increasing the half-lives. One thing you definitely lose with Flickr is stumbling on the albums in the box of old books decades later. DVDs are less clear; they should last okay for decades, most of them; but possibly not as long as silver gelatine B&W prints. Probably longer than chromogenic color prints and negatives. They're susceptible to somewhat different problems. Furthermore, when going through a cache of old stuff, it's much easier to glance at photos in a box or an album and see that they're interesting than it is to glance at a DVD and reach that conclusion. And if you hit the box of Grandpa's 200 archive DVDs, it's enough to daunt even the most dedicated family historian I would think. (I'm not that concerned about the drives being unavailable for a while now; when I look at how long the LP lasted, and note that people can *still* buy equipment to transcribe 78s which become obsolete around the time I was born, and that DVD drives read CDs (and even write them), I feel rather reassured. Timescales of 500 years are another matter; it's much harder to even think sanely about that kind of interval. But chromogenic materials in casual storage are toast over that timespan too. I have an image in my head of people finding an old DVD in 500 years, and just putting it in their "atomic scanner" and then applying the DVD format specification data from the net archives to the output of the scan, and getting most of the data back.) Generally speaking, digital media does MUCH better than analog media in "curated storage" -- where people are actively taking care of it with some intelligence. And over the long term it does EXTREMELY poorly under "benign neglect". I describe digital archives as being rather 'brittle'. Still, copying and dispersal helps a lot. > Should a criteria of technology be the lengthening, rather than the > shortening of photo image half-life? Generally speaking, yes. Making prints and archive media more permanent is good, encouraging people to think about it is good, but a scheme to convince people to shoot a lot fewer pictures on the grounds that they would value them more and care for them better is IMHO not good, even though it might well increase the half-life. (I have formed the impression, from a couple of recent posts plus some vague memories, that you're a bit of an anti-digital zealot, focusing on archival preservation arguments. I apologize if this is inaccurate; I'm sure it's incomplete at best. In preservation arguments, I find I mostly speak on the pro-digital side because the other side is generally being well-represented already, and many of the benefits of digital for archiving are being overlooked. And I'm always pleased to learn more actual information, whichever side it supports. I'm strongly interested in historic preservation, both of photos WE consider important, and of ordinary photos of everyday life for future historians. I practiced "archival processing" with my B&W materials from very early in my hobby activities, because I liked the idea of photos traveling into the future.) -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@...; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info |
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Re: [Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
by Steve Harris-14
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David,
You concluded that I'm "a bit of an anti-digital zealot". That is not strictly true. In fact, my problem may have been that of an early digital adopter. I started with a Canon G1 in 2001, progressed to a Fuji S2, later a Leica DMR, and then reverted to film capture for a number of reasons. One being that I was uncomfortable with the camera life cycles and cost. Canon is now on a G10, averaging about 1 new version every year. I continue to shoot digital in the studio. I shoot film on the street. I think that we may indeed see the end of almost all film within the next few years. Maybe I just want to shoot it while I still can. I started to think about this longevity issue when I digitized some 200 or so negatives my Grandfather shot in the 1920's. The recent announcement of Kodak about Kodachrome revived my thinking about it. I appreciate your thoughtful answer to my queries. Steve |
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Re: [Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
by David Dyer-Bennet
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On Thu, June 25, 2009 16:17, steve harris wrote: > You concluded that I'm "a bit of an anti-digital zealot". > > That is not strictly true. In fact, my problem may have been that of an > early digital adopter. That can certainly warp ones viewpoint, yes! I picked up an Epson 850Z in the spring of 2000, myself, and found myself doing the vast majority of my photography with this 2MP P&S (though it did have a decent lens, and unusually fast). > I started with a Canon G1 in 2001, progressed to a Fuji S2, later a Leica > DMR, and then reverted to film capture for a number of reasons. One being > that I was uncomfortable with the camera life cycles and cost. Canon is > now on a G10, averaging about 1 new version every year. And I'm on my second DSLR since the Fuji S2 myself (a D200 and now a D700); definitely far faster than I ever replaced or upgraded film gear, I agree. Still, the lab and film costs for shooting in the quantities I've been shooting would have been far higher. And for a professional, often spectacularly higher; I've heard people talk casually about $18,000/year lab bills. (Apparently clients often want all the savings from no lab charges for themselves, and some pros are getting pinched by that; but as an amateur and only occasional semi-pro, I mostly couldn't bill the lab fees to customers anyway.) > I continue to > shoot digital in the studio. I shoot film on the street. I think that we > may indeed see the end of almost all film within the next few years. > Maybe I just want to shoot it while I still can. I have no quarrel with people who want to shoot film because they're used to it, or because they can get some particular effect that's harder in digital, or whatever actual sane reason. Including "I like the look better but I can't explain why", really :-). I've heard enough claims that seem to me loony (and remember, I'm perfectly happy to accept "I like it better but can't explain why"; you have to be far past that to be "loony" in my book) that perhaps I'm a bit quick on the trigger in this area. But I don't like people spreading disinformation and crazy ideas much. Or with people a bit nostalgic about things, either; I'm plenty old enough to appreciate that. I'm a bit nostalgic about the Leica M3 myself. > I started to think about this longevity issue when I digitized some 200 or > so negatives my Grandfather shot in the 1920's. The recent announcement > of Kodak about Kodachrome revived my thinking about it. I started doing digital printing in the early dye inkjet era, and then was running MIS pigment inks in an Epson 1200, so I was worried about the permanence of prints from digital pretty much from the beginning (and was worried about permanence of my silver gelatine prints while in higshcool, let's say 1970). Computers are my profession, so the issues of disk reliability and data loss and backups and so forth are very familiar. But photography in digital form brought me to considerations of longer term storage than I'd mostly worried about before (for business data). Also I've been around enough to see media nearly disappear -- punch cards, paper tape, now floppy disks, for example. Especially for photos from the 60s and 70s, I'm thinking that digitizing them is an urgent step in having any hope of preserving them. (Not so much B&W; but the ordinary family pictures on chromogenic color materials. Lots of them are badly faded already if they've been at all unlucky in storage.) > I appreciate your thoughtful answer to my queries. Thanks. There certainly ARE issues all around the question of archiving photos, in any format, and it's good to discuss them with other people who care, because I learn things. If somebody wanted to make really sure that five photos survived for the next 10 years, I could give fairly specific advice that I think would do the job (most likely massive overkill); but anything more complex, especially more long-term, than that, there's endless room for debate and doubt. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@...; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info |
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RE: [Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
by Chris-723
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Considering the life of media, photography has only been around for 100
years or so and most of the early prints have gone, I suppose the Derrograph (SP) is the best survivor (I've also developed another way of making a silver and gold image on copper), not many silver prints have survived and platinum prints survive well but the paper base oxidises away and the paper prints fall to pieces. Plastic base is similar. The electronic files cannot be seen without a display unit and these become obsolete very quickly as do file types. The media itself is highly destructible as it is only plastic which slowly erodes due to the impact of light. A platinum CD would last longest but is it lightly that if one turned up in an archaeological dig in 2000 years time no method of reading it would be known and the discoverer may not know what it was. The amount of material we are dumping is very high but we efficiently destroy it all before committing it to landfill sites. We generally do not leave our ancestors gifts in their graves as we mostly cremate our dead. I do not see much hope that anything will survive the Horus all our precious memories will be eaten by him. Just enjoy life while you have got it as the future will take care of itself. Chris http://www.chrisspages.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: owner-photoforum@... [mailto:owner-photoforum@...] On Behalf Of steve harris Sent: 25 June 2009 22:18 To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students Subject: Re: [Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes] David, You concluded that I'm "a bit of an anti-digital zealot". That is not strictly true. In fact, my problem may have been that of an early digital adopter. I started with a Canon G1 in 2001, progressed to a Fuji S2, later a Leica DMR, and then reverted to film capture for a number of reasons. One being that I was uncomfortable with the camera life cycles and cost. Canon is now on a G10, averaging about 1 new version every year. I continue to shoot digital in the studio. I shoot film on the street. I think that we may indeed see the end of almost all film within the next few years. Maybe I just want to shoot it while I still can. I started to think about this longevity issue when I digitized some 200 or so negatives my Grandfather shot in the 1920's. The recent announcement of Kodak about Kodachrome revived my thinking about it. I appreciate your thoughtful answer to my queries. Steve |
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Re: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
by karl shah-jenner
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Steve asks:
The question is -- Has anyone on this list, or otherwise, done any studies on the half life of photographic images recorded on various media? The "decay" or loss of any given image could be from a number of causes -- decay of the recording material, destruction due to damage from fire, water, etc., discard by owner, change in technologies, etc. Do the members on this list think that the half-live of photo images has significantly shortened, because of the shift to digital? What about different categories of images (professional vs consumer)? Should a criteria of technology be the lengthening, rather than the shortening of photo image half-life? Is there anyone working on this issue with a mathematical or statistical model? not that I know of, but half lives are readily determined for physical materials such as elements, anything that involves a statistical interpretation would have compounding error factors that would make such an interpretation vague at best.. basically - a guess These guys have millions of dollars at risk, and this is what they found when comparing film to digital: <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/business/media/23steal.html?_r=2&oref=sl ogin&ref=business&pagewanted=print> (http://tinyurl.com/lwuz2v ) As to the fad of going with the latest storage methods or migrating to new data storage media - the people who bought into HD over Blueray are probably regretting the cost and busy migrating everything to another media as we speak. A shame really, since HD had no DRM built in - but a no brainer really that the studios would go for the copy protected system over the flexible one. Blueray is probably heading for a dead end as well, so there may be a 'backward' 'upgrade' in years to come when that one finally dies.. For the time being magnetic (tape and HDD) still come up best. Longevity depends on storage more than anything else. Archiving is a storage process, not a method of manufacture - as the bits I posted not long back suggested regarding toning. Toning with suitable materials overcomes poor storage methods such as displaying a print, but a print deprived of oxygen will last much, much longer. The revelation that the old belief that poor processing was the reason prints degraded was a fallacy was telling. Many people in the archiving business have also failed to realise that many photos faded after time because they were DESIGNED to do so. I have here a photo manual that described in detail how the wedding proofs can be printed in such a way as to ensure they only last a short time, to stop the bride and groom simply keeping the proofs and not paying for prints. Of course an archivist stumbling across such prints wouldn't know that, and would be fighting an uphill battle saving such images, and would probably conclude from their experience that photographs don't last. they would be wrong, though such techniques were well known to photographers for a long time. As to colour prints, I also have prints from 1954 through to the current day. 1954. That is a 55yo colour print, and it looks great. I have many purple and orange prints from the 70's and 80's too, nasty faded things - when waterless wash systems were common in labs and prints were 'stabilized' with formaldehyde. Of course, we who knew about such processes knew these prints could be made to last longer by washing them in water - but many published archivists, the general population and indeed many photographers did not know this. Neither were many people of the mindset to experiment in trying different methods to prolong the life of such prints, subsequently they are doomed to fade. I posted a story some time back about an Australian auction site that competed locally with Ebay. Moderately successful, they had a crash and turned to their backup systems - which had been writing corrupted backups.. then they went to the offsite backup people they had been paying a grand amount to to run parallel backups weekly - and who had not. Last I heard it was all being seen to in court, but the fact remains that a thriving, prosperous auction site that had been doing all the right things is now gone. These guys had millions tied up in their digital world.. but it is now simply a memory. Anyone who is bored can get on the newsgroups some time and read the posts of people searching for old version of software. You'd think that software used by millions of people would be easy to find, but there is a LOT that has been lost. The idea of spreading the images around across a load of different web locations would be good in making sure the images survive *somewhere*, but then you'd have to ask yourself, how on earth would I find a particular image? Lost is as good as gone really. A few months back one of the Hospitals here in Aus had a power outage. Doctors had no access to patient records for a day or so. People in the hospital were being treated based on guesswork with no medical history available to the staff. Fortunately the information was all recovered (or so we are told) but for a period of time staff were working completely blind. This seems very irresponsible to me, and apparently it seems so to the good folks who are looking into it. A total dependence on digital has some serious flaws, the greatest being that in interpreter or interface is required to work between the human and the data. Anyone who speaks more than one language will understand the benefit of working without an interpreter :) This also leads to the storage matter - the interpreter must also be trustworthy - and if the computer is telling the operator that the data is fine and it's not, well.. CD's and DVD's have data correction built in as errors are inevitable - and a certain amount of errors is acceptable and correctable, but when one error too many creeps in (and these things DO degrade with time) then it's all over. Few people run error checking programs over their archive CD's or DVD's to see what the error rate is, fewer still check the disks regularly to see how much the disk errors increase over time. Really that is a specialised field all in it's own, and a job in it's own right. I doubt many people would dedicate the time to going over and over disks checking their state of decay and migrating the data when needed. I know I'm often seen to be a basher of digital, but it's not that at all - I see digital as a very good method of making data available to many with great ease. Used appropriately it is the most convenient method of distribution ever! it's just the longevity issues that concern me. karl |
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RE: [Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
by Chris-723
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Some parts of this message have been removed.
Learn more about Nabble's security policy.
The lunar data was only 30 years old and
look how difficult it was to recover the data. I recall watching spell bound as
they stepped out on the moon in 1969 and all my associates said that it never
happened and wanted to watch the feet-ball on the other channel (there were
only two) on our black and white TV. If you look at my web page you will find
the old tapes NASA made of the voice-overs of the journey, there and back. I
may have had the only copy. It may have gone now as the care workers clear up –
they do not know what the moon is! Chris http://www.chrisspages.co.uk From:
owner- Well the data might
live forever, but the computer necessary to read that data sure isn't likely to
be available. My wife has her masters thesis on disks. Anyone got a
computer that can read an old 5 1/4 floppy?? Lots of data still on tape
lost because there was no way to read it anymore. --------
Original Message -------- |
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RE: [Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes]
by Chris-723
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Prints extract themselves all else requires power. Apart from light....
(There is no Sun in the sky any more...) Chris http://www.chrisspages.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: owner-photoforum@... [mailto:owner-photoforum@...] On Behalf Of David Dyer-Bennet Sent: 26 June 2009 15:10 To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students Subject: Re: [Fwd: Photography Half-Life (Decay Rate) Changes] On Fri, June 26, 2009 08:50, lookaround360@... wrote: > Once data is digital it WILL live forever. > > I see no reason why data storage couldn't expand to "infinite" capacity > soon - and with it the means of extracting itself. Advancing search > engine technology will be recognized as vital to existence and forever > be refined. We already have PDF and DOC files being presented as HTML by Google, for example; something similar could be done for image formats, if we outgrow JPEG and PNG. > Most likely, so called "dark energy" or "dark matter," the stuff that > makes up most of the Known Universe AKA "The Big Attic in the Sky," is > stored data. Been saying this for years :-} And "computronium", sure! > > Here's a neat story about mining old picture data: > > http://www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars/features/LOIRP/ And what that's showing us is how close we came to losing some rather major data from a big project. Now imagine the loss risks for more minor stuff! The key point about digital archives is that they really need to be well-curated; they do NOT thrive on a program of benign neglect. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@...; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info |
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