Re: filmscanners: Rescans and archiving

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

Eastman color negative to positive films were never designed for long
term storage.  They are the films used to make cine "prints" from color
negs or neg separations which were made from the original reversal
films.  Those copy prints were designed to handle continual use in movie
projectors under bright lighting.  They are a heavier stock less likely
to tear sprockets, and less vulnerable to projector damage.  The film
was relatively cheap, so cine prints could be replaced as they faded
with new ones.  They are basically a color negative film without the dye
masks.  As anyone who went to $1 "arts" cinemas knows, those older
prints would be rented out cheap after they were beyond acceptable use
in first run movie houses, and they looked horrible (low density color
fading away before your eyes).

Like Ektachrome, the dyes were designed for more stable "light keeping"
but faded more rapidly in the dark than other films.  Kodachrome is more
vulnerable to light but has very good dark keeping characteristics.

I suspect real negative film, until recent times, was never thought of
of needing to stand up to light, since they were usually stored in
darkness and only used when reprints were desired.  My transparencies
overall are standing up very well unless the processing was compromised.

Art


Hersch Nitikman wrote:

 > On the other hand, I am somewhat depressed that a number of travel and
 > family pix that I shot between 10 and 30 years ago on Eastmacolor (5247,
 > 5254, etc.) negative stock and slides printed therefrom have become
 > pretty bad stored in their original boxes or in rotary trays in ordinary
 > home environment. Not only have the colors faded, but the images have
 > coarsened to the point that nothing more than a wallet-sized print would
 > look decent. Kodachromes shot at the same time, with similar treatment
 > are still quite satisfactory. (And some of the above movie stock has
 > survived much better.)
 > Hersch
 >
 > At 06:48 PM 12/11/2001 -0500, you wrote:
 >
 >> On 12/11/01 9:25 AM, "Mário Teixeira" <mjteixeira@yahoo.com> wrote:
 >>
 >> > "Arthur Entlich" <artistic@ampsc.com> wrote:
 >> >
 >> > | Personally, I trust my film to maintain most of its integrity for
 >> many
 >> > | years to come, so I'm not panicking to get everything on CD-R.
 >> > |
 >> > | Art
 >> >
 >> > Me too, I trust my color slides longevity -- I am scanning slides
 >> with near
 >> > thirty years that are in perfect conditions.
 >> >
 >> > Mario Teixeira
 >> > mjteixeira@yahoo.com
 >>
 >> Hi!
 >>
 >> I have a couple rolls of Kodachrome that my father shot (Leica IIIc)
 >> when I
 >> was 3 mos old. That makes them (shudder) over fifty years old. They look
 >> like the day they came back from Kodak. (Hell to scan though.) On the
 >> other
 >> hand, sometime in the Sixties Dad switched to some gawdawful stuff 
called
 >> "Dynachrome". Every last slide is useless.
 >>
 >> Les
 >
 >
 >
 > .
 >