60-year-old Leica negatives discovered


Status
Not open for further replies.
Found this very interesting:p
Another reason for those who perfer to keep to film rather than digital.......

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum65/45574-60-year-old-leica-negatives-discovered.html

Great images, no doubt.

However, 60 years from now, I doubt all the chemicals and equipments needed to develop/print films, negatives or slides, will still be readily available. Chances are, software to read current corp of digital files, jpeg, tiff, various raw formats, and the hardware to interphase with the CDs, DVD, HDD and other sotrage devices will still be there.

Development in film has all but stopped. Development in digital is on going. At some point, digital will surpass film in all aspects of image quality. Some may argue, with the latest medium format digital backs, we are there already.

What I miss, is the lenses of old. Only if I can have the glasses from a Leica Sumilux 80mm 1.4 with a Canon EOS mount (not an adaptor, that does not count) ...

Saddest in this whole thing, Leica has been dropping the ball for too long, they misread the market.
 

O.. M... G...
truely good find. made me so glad i'm shooting digital, and using p&s film in between.

as deadpoet said, 60 years from now, chemicals may not exist anymore for print, or they may be so damn rare and expensive.

but then again, people can and are still finding prints and negatives long forgotten buried somewhere, and still able to develop them and appreciate them.

60 years from now, all our dvd, cd and flash disk etc may not even be usable anymore. remember the floppy drive? imagine someone dug up their grandfather's diary, stored in 1978 8-inch floppy disk. how is anyone going to find the drive to read it? even if you find a drive somewhere, it will be nearly impossible to hook it up to windows vista. and 1978 is only like 30 years ago!

i'm pretty sure in 2068, the media (CF or harddisk or dvd/cd) we store our images on will all become useless.

the question is, how do we preserve our memories for generations to come?
 

Get a usb floppy drive. It works. Well, for the 5 1/2 floopy, good luck.

From film to digital, is a fundamental change. It's like going from analog record to CDs. At some point, the current digital formats will be replaced and we will again face the same problem, what to do?

First, digitize all your analog materials.
Second, store the digital files a format/storage device, and make sure technology is updated on a regualr cycle.
 

Get a usb floppy drive. It works. Well, for the 5 1/2 floopy, good luck.
hahaha. even worst for 8 inch floppy disk!

First, digitize all your analog materials.
Second, store the digital files a format/storage device, and make sure technology is updated on a regualr cycle.

of course if you do a regular technology refresh, it will not be a problem.

i'm just contemplating the circumstance similiar to the above, where images are left neglected for decades. if we are talking about digitals, then it will be stored in a media too outdated to be readable by devices in the future :dunno:
 

hahaha. even worst for 8 inch floppy disk!

of course if you do a regular technology refresh, it will not be a problem.

i'm just contemplating the circumstance similiar to the above, where images are left neglected for decades. if we are talking about digitals, then it will be stored in a media too outdated to be readable by devices in the future :dunno:

I see your point. Let's say, 60 years from now, someone dug up my old HDD left neglected somewhere, I doubt they will even bother to hook it up to "something" that can read the files, and that is assuming the old HDD is still working.

That is why I also love prints :) the latest archival quality Fuji and Epson prints, don't they last over a hundred years? ... hmmm, what happen after 150 years then?
 

That is why I also love prints :) the latest archival quality Fuji and Epson prints, don't they last over a hundred years? ... hmmm, what happen after 150 years then?

there are prints that were discovered that are at least 100 years old. i believe if you seal your photos properly and bury it somewhere safe, away from UV and light, it could well last longer. :bsmilie:

looking at some of his father's photos bring another thread to mind.
"Does composition matter anymore? "
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=385972&page=5
i bet a lot of people will not be excited by his dad's photos if they were not composed properly in the first place.
 

there are prints that were discovered that are at least 100 years old. i believe if you seal your photos properly and bury it somewhere safe, away from UV and light, it could well last longer. :bsmilie:

looking at some of his father's photos bring another thread to mind.
"Does composition matter anymore? "
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=385972&page=5
i bet a lot of people will not be excited by his dad's photos if they were not composed properly in the first place.


Nice try. You are compairing apples and oranges. One is portraitures and the other falls either into travel or photojournalism. Expectations are totally different. Even in travel and photojournalism, composition is still a crucial part of a winning image.

As far as my father's old pictures, well, an important elements come in you neglected. Sentiments. This reaches not only to the sons, but to the viewers too, for nostalgic reasons.

I am not taking anything away from the merits of these images, but, compodition is nonethelwss, still very important.
 

This is where you are wrong.

Raw chemicals are likely to be available, assuming the human race hasn't gone back to the Stone Age because of our destruction of the environment.

And if the knowledge of the chemical composition of developers, fixers, etc. is not destroyed, it's not difficult to make your own developers, fixers, stop baths, etc from first principles. Any secondary school student who has done chemistry can do that. Just buy, weigh and stir into distilled water.

As far as enlargers and lenses are concerned, they're virtually indestructible, the only thing that needs replacing from time to time is a light bulb-- hopefully that will still be available 60 years from now.

On the other hand, we no longer have the equipment to read 5.25" floppy disks or even old digital tapes. So where's the guarantee you will be able to read your DVDs 60 years from now?

As far as quality is concerned, unless someone can come up with better lenses, it's unlikely digital quality can surpass what we have today (20+ MP). Because the majority of the lenses are already resolving at the limit. There are already physical reasons (wavelength of light, etc) why we can't get more than 20+MP, but even if the laws of physics did not apply, a 100+MP file from a 35 mm image sensor makes no sense unless a lens is made that can resolve the equivalent of 100+MP in lpm.


However, 60 years from now, I doubt all the chemicals and equipments needed to develop/print films, negatives or slides, will still be readily available. Chances are, software to read current corp of digital files, jpeg, tiff, various raw formats, and the hardware to interphase with the CDs, DVD, HDD and other sotrage devices will still be there.

Development in film has all but stopped. Development in digital is on going. At some point, digital will surpass film in all aspects of image quality. Some may argue, with the latest medium format digital backs, we are there already.
 

This is where you are wrong.

Raw chemicals are likely to be available, assuming the human race hasn't gone back to the Stone Age because of our destruction of the environment.

And if the knowledge of the chemical composition of developers, fixers, etc. is not destroyed, it's not difficult to make your own developers, fixers, stop baths, etc from first principles. Any secondary school student who has done chemistry can do that. Just buy, weigh and stir into distilled water.

As far as enlargers and lenses are concerned, they're virtually indestructible, the only thing that needs replacing from time to time is a light bulb-- hopefully that will still be available 60 years from now.

On the other hand, we no longer have the equipment to read 5.25" floppy disks or even old digital tapes. So where's the guarantee you will be able to read your DVDs 60 years from now?

As far as quality is concerned, unless someone can come up with better lenses, it's unlikely digital quality can surpass what we have today (20+ MP). Because the majority of the lenses are already resolving at the limit. There are already physical reasons (wavelength of light, etc) why we can't get more than 20+MP, but even if the laws of physics did not apply, a 100+MP file from a 35 mm image sensor makes no sense unless a lens is made that can resolve the equivalent of 100+MP in lpm.

And that's where you are so wrong too.

First of all, before I go into why you are wrong, I will comment on what you got right.

Yes, chemical will be available. Papers will be available. A good example is records. Turntable, arms and stylus are still being manufactured. However, we are only getting the extreme high end equipment ($$$$$) or trash. Film and chemical will go the same way.

Now, what you are so wrong about. You are assuming that there will be no more progress in the digital field. One thing that is for sure is, there will not be any R&D into films, chemicals, papers etc. 14 bit 35mm sensors and 16 bit medium format sensors are being shipped today. Will they stop the advancements?

I know you love film. Great. Someone has to carry the torch. I am just saying, within our lifetime, analog film would have gone the way records did, it's inevitable.
Btw, Blu Ray is backward compatible to CD and DVD :) Sony finally did something right. Most of my older ATA HDD are still working, thanks to USB external casing.

I cannot argue, negative and slides, if stored properly, can almost last forever, but, we will soon not have the means to turn them into prints economically.
 

Read more carefully. I did not "assume" no more progress in digital.

What I said is that the progress is subject to the laws of physics, challenges due to physical parameters such as the wavelengths of light.

Digital cameras can certainly do things which film can't. Wifi the images back to a website for instance. Even mathematically correct focus after the shot. Etc. That's progress.

But in terms of quality, esp. pixels-- looks like we're up against the laws of physics and optics. Lenses too. Doesn't make sense to build a denser chip (even if we could) unless we can build a lens that can resolve fine enough to take advantage of it.

Now, what you are so wrong about. You are assuming that there will be no more progress in the digital field. One thing that is for sure is, there will not be any R&D into films, chemicals, papers etc. 14 bit 35mm sensors and 16 bit medium format sensors are being shipped today. Will they stop the advancements?

I cannot argue, negative and slides, if stored properly, can almost last forever, but, we will soon not have the means to turn them into prints economically.

Slides do not need to be turned into prints. They're really meant for projection.

As for negs, keep your enlarger. Paper could be expensive though
 

Status
Not open for further replies.