Film photography, a good business in the future ?

[darr]

For images we really want to last forever, we should print them out and get Bob Dylan to paint them.

Steve.

[Mark Stahlke]

Marko, your CRC and checksum only tell you if your file is damaged. They won't tell you the extent of the damage or, more importantly, repair the damage.

[darr]

9/30/2011

[Brian C. Miller]

Kodak business thread here!

Back to the original question: Film photography is a good business now, regardless of Kodak. The Twins Lens Life blog is run by some wedding photographers in California, who in January compared a Canon 5D to film. Film is good! Like we didn't know that already.

They make a business out of it, and if somebody wants to do it, they can too.

[David Luttmann]

Marko, your CRC and checksum only tell you if your file is damaged. They won't tell you the extent of the damage or, more importantly, repair the damage.

Sorry, that's not correct. A large amount of the error correction is built upon recording a large amount of redundant data.

[rdenney]

Marko, your CRC and checksum only tell you if your file is damaged. They won't tell you the extent of the damage or, more importantly, repair the damage.

No, but your redundant storage methods will.

Rick "recognizing that redundancy increases the amount of equipment that has to be bought and maintained" Denney

[David Luttmann]

Kodak business thread here!

Back to the original question: Film photography is a good business now, regardless of Kodak. The Twins Lens Life blog is run by some wedding photographers in California, who in January compared a Canon 5D to film. Film is good! Like we didn't know that already.

They make a business out of it, and if somebody wants to do it, they can too.

The Brothers Wright are a good example of applying the film niche to their business model. Check out the Twin Lens blog...it's a good read and a good example of what the latest emulsions can record.

[Marko]

Marko, your CRC and checksum only tell you if your file is damaged. They won't tell you the extent of the damage or, more importantly, repair the damage.

No, but as David and Rick pointed out, properly set redundancy - say RAID 1 as a minimum - will make it moot.

Now, did you ever have such a damage happen to you personally?

I have had many color films and prints fade beyond recognition, some of them as young as 15-20 years. And I've had many negatives scratched over the years because the ol' shoebox got ratty.

[Richard Mahoney]

Dear Greg,

Yes, that's a nice drive. But total overkill for these purposes. ... If you insist on using the drive you suggested, they you need to compare it to the absolute highest standard for archiving film.

Whether one considers a piece of equipment necessary or not depends on one's needs. This thread is about film photography as a business and for businesses there is nothing special about this type of storage, it is simply a typical commercial server grade disk. I've been using an earlier incarnation from HP in a redundant RAID 1 array for a long time. And yes, I've experienced disk failure, but with a hot swap fail over always waiting for the inevitable, never any data loss. Why would I willingly risk a client's -- admittedly non photographic -- data by using substandard hardware? Decent hardware is simply a cost of doing business, and as I suggested above, it is a significant cost that has to be factored in for the secure storage of digital images. And as you suggest, businesses primarily based on film will have other more pressing concerns ... dark cool dry rooms and acid free boxes. But unless they are based in Manhattan they should find that suitable storage is a little less costly than the digital equivalent. And that, in a nutshell, was all that I was trying to suggest.


Kind regards,

Richard

[Mark Stahlke]

No, but as David and Rick pointed out, properly set redundancy - say RAID 1 as a minimum - will make it moot.

Ever managed a large disk farm? Ever have multiple concurrent disk failures? It's painful. Thank God for tape backups.

Now, did you ever have such a damage happen to you personally?

I've never lost any image files but I have experienced many total and partial media failures. From floppy disks gone bad to the above mentioned disk array failure.

I have had many color films and prints fade beyond recognition, some of them as young as 15-20 years. And I've had many negatives scratched over the years because the ol' shoebox got ratty.

Here is some 70 year old color film for your enjoyment. Disclaimer: I have no idea how this film was stored or what manner of analog or digital restoration work was done to it.