Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/06/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Afterswift@aol.com wrote: > Whether a PC or Mac circa 2025 will be able to read CD-R's is problematic. > What may happen has an analogy to 8mm movie film. I don't think 8mm or > Super 8 > projectors are being made now. You can still find 8mm cameras in flea > markets. > We can still access these films but at some expense and trouble. CDs have been around for about 20 years now, and are still readable on all relevant devices. In any event, I do not indend to have anything stored on CD-R in 20 years. Already now I use only DVDs and external hard drives. As long as the computers in the future continue to have USB ports, my hard drives will be readable. I also expect that DVDs will continue to be readable on new equipment, since given the number of DVDs people have, it is safe to assume that future generations of DVD readers will be backwards-compatible. However, when the next generation of blue-ray DVDs comes out and the format is stable, I will convert to that because of the additional space they will provide. I am personally much more concerned about file formats. I hope that TIFF will continue to be supported. If not, then there will be some work involved in converting all my images to whatever new format emerges as a standard. But again, I hope that TIFF will be like standard ASCII--a text file created 20 years ago is still readable if saved in that format. There is no question that storage is the big challenge for digital photographers. > > That's why I suggest that we make good printouts on high quality papers of > our favorite image files. On subjects that I want to have a more permanent > record, I use a film camera so I can have a negative backup. Printouts as storage? Not very convenient, to put it mildly. I make prints when I want to hang a picture on the wall or give to someone. > > Which reopens a question: why doesn't one of the major camera outfits > market > a high quality yet reasonable 35mm negative scanner? Kodak and Fuji and > Leica > should be in the lead. Nikon and Polaroid featured film scanners a few > years > ago, but the market seemed to have lost its drive. That may be due to the > low > cost transfer of negatives to CD positives now. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of good film scanners out there at much lower prices than a few years ago. But because of the shift to digital image capture, the market for film scanners is small and shrinking, and so it does not makes sense for Nikon etc. to invest in product development in this area. And for Leica to enter such a market would be commercial suicide. > > If you have a good negative scanner, you can skip the CD-R and produce a > fresh print from the negative itself at any time, either digitally on in > the > darkroom. You still need to store the scanned image somewhere, unless you want to re-scan the negative every time you want to make a print. Nathan -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507 Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com