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Some general interest articles on long term archiving from todays SMH


http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/t ... 84206.html


http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/l ... 84212.html



http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/f ... 84215.html


Might be time to print out all the images you really like

Aaaaaaaaargh-chiving.... a serious concern for me, and I only take crappy happy snaps!! I can't imagine how professional photographers handle it....

My archiving concerns are more for family photos than my own personal photography - in decades to come, I am sure no-one will care to see the arty farty sunset shot I took on holiday one time, but they might be interested to see photos of their parents' childhood, or the house their grandfather lived in as a child, etc etc. An amateur genealogist, I am also trying to work out storage/preservation of older paper prints as well....

I am still struggling with this issue , but I DO print (or rather, I WILL print - I am a bit behind at the moment) any and all photos I take of family/rellies/etc.... the digital long-term storage side, well, I am still in "research mode"....

(I struggle with suitable short-term storage/backup issues as well as longer-term archiving.....)

Rae, having just lived through some of these family issues, I understand your frustration. Interestingly, the habit my grandmother had of writing the date and people in the photo on the back has proven a huge boon. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. I think I should buy a big ream of acid free archival paper and then store it in an airtight box.

The domesday project shows how even big budgets can get it wrong.

Glen - absolutely!!

Having lost three grandparents in the last 5 years, I have had to stand by and watch frustratedly while the older photo albums have been stripped and photos distributed amongst the next generation.... I begged to be allowed to take them all, scan them properly, and then return the originals and distribute CD copies to everyone, so that ALL the family members could have a copy of ALL of the photos.... (and I could then print a couple of sets, as well!!) .....

But unfortunately, people were worried about the fact that I am living overseas, so the photos would be leaving the country.... so "consensus agreement" could not be reached.... they agree they are precious, but don't seem to take the next step of logic, ie WE NEED TO PRESERVE THEM PROPERLY.... I KNOW they go and store these ORIGINAL photos in a cardboard box somewhere in a cupboard in the QLD heat and humidity..... AAAAAARGH, I mustn't get started.....

[/rant]

I love my family.

Rae,
You had the right idea! I love the idea the relatives wouldn't let them leave Australia, maybe they view them as indegenous artifacts? Hope they ended up with someone who has a cellar or air conditioning in Queensland.

Hmmmmmm interesting Glen,

So really, the images I put on a CD now for storage will either degenerate with time or not be able to be read by something in the future

What are we to do ?


Mic.

Mic, I am printing my good images and family images out and supergluing them to cave walls for future generations

Mic, just in our lifetimes if we look at the list of obselete media it is quite extensive. 8 track, 8 in floppiess, 5 1/4 floppies, tape, half of all the proprietry media like sony's minidisc. Many more are going, a 1.44mb disc wont fit a full size jpg or nef file from our cameras. Very hard choice if you had to pick a media to leave info for your grandkids on.

Glen

This is an interesting read - thank you. One point - even printing out our digital images is no guarantee of preservation since the printed copy is inherently fragile in different ways to the digital copy. A CD or DVD will most likely survive a flood, the paper copy not so.

My archiving strategy is simple. Have a hard copy of the very best and for those and the lesser images have a digital copy, but assume obsolescence and as one image format or storage medium is obsoleted perform a migration during the overlap

So...

I've decide I'll do a yearly Momento book of my absolute best pics (maybe a few copies as gifts). I also make two DVD copies of my pics and keep one at home & 1 at work. Moving forward I'm expecting the media to be obsoleted and my plan is to copy from one medium to another (eg DVD to Blu-ray) when the transition happens. Additionally I store both the .NEF and a high quality TIFF in the expectation that the TIFF format will be arounrd for some time. Again if one format becomes obsolete - time to convert, but always lossless format to lossless. Final plank in my archive strategy is SmugMug. There's a medium quality version of my best pics there too.

I'm calm, but not complacent.

Your right Glen, at the end of the day if you want something thats foolproof and will stand the test of time your only option is to print them and archive them in a cool airtight box
Makes you think about all the money we've all spent on redundant technoligy, at least we've enjoyed them whilst they were the cutting edge!
I'll tell my great, great, great grandkids to look out for your cave pictures around the North Shore in 2150!

Stubbsy,

What the hell is Blue Ray

Sounds like something you have to sit around in lead lined Y fronts and stand back and shoot the ray gun

Mic.

ARchive onto CD/DVD and don't forget to pack away the machine as well

Stubbsy and Paul, interesting thoughts. Like the Momento book every year, just a 4 page book from me may look a little slim Paul, I have had a garage full of stuff which cost me a bomb but I now have to pay to get rid of eg my 486/25 Olivetti sub notebook with 20mb hard disk!

Mic where did you buy your lead lined Y fronts, I have found them impossible to buy in Sydney

Heee hee

Yes Glen, very hard to get

I thought I was the only one with them, maybe we should get together for a Mini Meet, call it the Lead Lined Y Front Brigade

Stubbsy will get on a pair won't he

Mic.

My archiving has proven to be the best in the world. If I have a pic that I really want to keep I purchase a block of marble and then chisel the image in. This method is guaranteed to last for milleniums

Might be a business opportunity there Chris

Chris, I saw something very similer in the shopping mall in Hornsby next to Dan Murphy's (Guess why I was there )
They had a small display stand on the concourse with a machine that scanned your photo then I assume it was a laser that etched the image in to a piece of glass.
At the time I thought it was a bit tacky, but there was a small line of people gettting it done.
Not my cup of tea but hey if it makes you money..

mic wrote:Heee hee

Yes Glen, very hard to get

I thought I was the only one with them, maybe we should get together for a Mini Meet, call it the Lead Lined Y Front Brigade

Stubbsy will get on a pair won't he

Mic.

Michael

Sooooo twentieth century

1. No one wears Y fronts anymore. I have lead lined boxers (or a very dainty lead lined g-string for those special occasions )

2. Blu ray is one of the two competing formats for the next generation DVDs (main reason for new formats is probably because the copy protection on the current format was cracked). Before you ask - the other format is HD-DVD (also worth a read is HD-DVD vs Blu-ray: who cares?)

This is a very real issue that all digital photographers should address.

I've noticed that my first burned CDR's are starting to become unreadable (ironically, the drive that burned these discs are unable to read them but a more modern Pioneer DVD drive manages to retrieve info intermitently). These are TDK branded (blue label and golds) discs which weren't generics at the time; and contained device drivers, programs and data backup of my system from 2 generations ago.

Although I still currently rely on optical storage for the majority of my data (including images) mainly due to cost. I use a variety of CD-R, DVD+R and -R media, burned at different times on different drives. And for those with NEFs, I include the current version of Nikon Capture with the images - in the hope of at least having appropriate software to access the files in future when the format becomes obsolete.

One of my friends who also happens to be the head TA in the Photography department at my old Uni may have a useful answer and approach to this problem.

He's going to try to get back a unit he gave away to a friend who hasnt figured out what do with it so I can figure it out and use it for myself.

This unit is a film recorder.

Now for those who don't know (because I think that Matt K. and myself are the only ones who do), a film recorder prints digital images onto film stock.

Essentially, aside from having digital images that could be worked on later, you could print those images you really love onto something like Provia, develop them, and have a harder-to-damage archival image that, if you were to lose your originals of, would just be an issue to scan in again.