Re: filmscanners: Digital Shortcomings

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

Silly me, I used almost exclusively Kodachrome back in the 60's 70's and 
80's.  I only really moved to E-6 films after they convinced me I could 
trust them (in the 1990's), (other than Afga slides which used some 
weird process (CF??) which has failed completely on me, and will need to 
be dealt with via digital repair (for what is left of the image).  Even 
the Agfa stuff made me nervous enough to go back and reshoot on 
Kodachrome before I left the area (good intuition that time...)

I do have some 40+ year old slides from childhood that are looking 
pretty ratty and some negs from the 70's and early 80's that need a bit 
of help, but these are in the minority.

I think today's slides and negs (properly processed!!! and stored) will 
remain very effective images for a long time to come.  If they last as 
well as my 1970's Kodachromes, I'll be overjoyed.

Art

Isaac Crawford wrote:

> Hersch Nitikman wrote:
> 
>> For all the concern about the lifetime of CDs, I have been scanning my
>> personal archives of slides and color negatives ranging mostly from
>> the past 30 years, with a few older. I have to say that most of my
>> 30-year old slides and negatives need Digital ROC (Restoration of
>> Color) very badly. Ed Hamrick's independent version in Vuescan has
>> done some remarkable things for me, turning slides that were very much
>> faded to a predominantly magenta image into very much more believable
>> ones. I would not count on slides and negatives to be truly 'archival'
>> unless stored under 'archival' conditions, and maybe not even then.
>> Storing and renewing a digital image on quality media every few years
>> still seems like the best means now available.
>> Hersch
> 
> 
>       This is an interesting idea that doesn't get talked about as much. B&W
> film has far better archival qualities than the color stuff. Many people
> lump "film" all into one group when obviously there are differences
> between films. Maybe digital is the best way to preserve accurate
> colors...
> 
> Isaac