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Topic: Film vs Digital ... Lets put this one to bed.
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Tom Spielman
Master Film Handler
Posts: 339
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Registered: Apr 2016
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posted August 23, 2016 12:31 PM
If I were single I'd have more time, money, and probably space for my hobbies but that wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
My wife had had the extreme misfortune of being an only child to severely ailing and eventually dying parents. Her mother liked to buy things and their house was filled with stuff that had never been used tucked into every available nook and cranny. Along with having to deal with the grief of her passing, my wife had to deal with the estate. The volume of "stuff" was so overwhelming that a lot of things that would have been valuable to someone just got tossed. She did give a lot away and there was an estate sale, but just the time involved was too much, let alone dealing with the emotions.
So I can understand why sometimes even going through the effort of giving something away isn't worth it, though I personally hate to bin anything.
Being an only child was rough in her case, but at least she didn't have to fight with anyone over those sorts of decisions. My sister-in-law on the other hand, had a different set of challenges to deal with when her father died.
Something similar happened with our elderly neighbors. Their son was the only one that lived in the area and he was charged with dealing with their property. He lived about an hour away and had his own young family to manage. There was an estate sale but not everything was sold. Given enough time I'm sure he could have found homes for most of what was left, but time was something he didn't have.
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Tom Spielman
Master Film Handler
Posts: 339
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Registered: Apr 2016
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posted August 24, 2016 06:20 PM
You see some family films and photos showing up on Ebay. At first I couldn't imagine why anybody would be interested in some other family's home movies. I sort of get it now.
Then there is the story of Vivian Maier which I know has been posted about here before. She was a nanny most of her adult life, but photography and shooting 8mm film were passions of hers. She had so many photos and films that she had rented storage to keep them all, yet she never shared them with anyone else.
We she got older, she became destitute and could no longer afford the rent for her storage space. The owners auctioned off the contents. The buyers eventually realized what a talent she was and now her work has gone public.
On a different note, my wife has no siblings and is not terribly close to most of her family. She has some movies that were taken by her parents and grandparents which I probably care about more than she does. I can also see that my family movies, which I value a lot, will likely be valued less by future generations as they will have had no personal connection to the people in the movies.
Maybe someone in the future will want to preserve the films out of a desire to preserve family history, but maybe not. A little sad to think about, but in the end it's probably better to worry about maintaining good relationships with the living rather than with the dead.
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Tom Spielman
Master Film Handler
Posts: 339
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Registered: Apr 2016
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posted August 24, 2016 10:57 PM
Ken, while a lot of that may have been true in the past, it is becoming less so all the time, and in many cases digital has surpassed film in terms of quality.
Limits to dynamic range and latitude were partially the results of compression but many cameras can capture "RAW" video now with very little or no compression. And it terms of latitude you also have to remember that a digital camera can change the sensor's light sensitivity on the fly so that a lot of latitude isn't as beneficial as it is in the world of film. High quality sensors have already surpassed the sensitivity of high ISO film without introducing as much grain/noise
As far as archiving goes, I think we need think of preserving digital content in a different way. Instead of storing it long term on some media in a climate controlled and protected environment, we preserve it by having multiple copies and moving those copies to new media and new formats on a regular basis. For me that happens without too much effort. When I get a new computer, I copy the contents of my old one to the new one. I backup both to an external drive and a cloud service daily and automatically.
I have 15 year old digital images that I can view any time I wish whether I'm at home or not. I don't have to worry about a flood or fire destroying those videos or images since they are kept in multiple places.
However, not everything is perfect. I have a lot of video still on 8mm tapes and one reason I haven't moved them to other media is because of the storage requirements. Hard drives and flash storage get cheaper all the time but improved video and image quality require more space. It's an arms race.
I still have a soft spot and respect for film. I plan on doing more with it and not less in the near future. However, ultimately whatever I do with film will ultimately end up in a digital format.
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Winbert Hutahaean
Film God
Posts: 5468
From: Nouméa, New Caledonia
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 25, 2016 04:23 AM
quote:
For me that happens without too much effort. When I get a new computer, I copy the contents of my old one to the new one. I backup both to an external drive and a cloud service daily and automatically.
Tom, you can do this daily because you are talking your home (domestic) archive.
While Kenneth is talking about professional archive.
So for your rough idea, one 35mm cell :
quote:
A "35mm" frame is 36x24mm in size. Look at the resolution spec for some films and lenses. Some films were rated at nearly 200 lines/mm, but some much less. There was a tradeoff between sensitivity and grain size. That added noise and lowered spacial resolution of more sensitive films. Lenses also cover a range. Let's say roughly 50 lines/mm would be "good", and 100 lines/mm astonishingly superb. Of course that's only at the optimum f-stop and camera mounted and held very still.
So let's see what 75 lines/mm comes out to as a starting point. A "line" is actually one complete light-dark cycle, so you have to allow for at least 2 pixels per line width. So the 75 lines/mm becomes 150 pixels/mm, which means a full 35mm frame would have 5400 x 3600 pixels = 19.4 Mpix.
This means 1 cell can store = 19.4 MP data if we want orange-to-orange comparison.
Now using this chart: http://www.canonblogger.com/megabytes-versus-megapixels/
Roughly that 19.4 MP = 20MB (actually between 17.5-26.2 MB)
1 second of film needs 24 frames, which equals to 24 (frames) x 20 (MB) = 480MB!!
That is only for a second.
So now for 1 minutes shows ....you need......errrrr.. ...480 MB x 60 (seconds) = 28,800 MB or 28GB.
I bet your computer now can only save 4 minutes...
FYI to copy a hardisk with 120GB capacity (about 4 minutes) it will take 1.5 to 2 hours.
So for 120 minutes shows..... you can count now what type the hardisk you need and how long to transfer only for one movie.
--------------------
Winbert
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UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
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We ran the 35mm print a few years ago and its one film I would like to get my hands on ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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