How to destroy/discard 35mm film negatives?

<p><em>Craig</em> , Your reaction to the thought of archiving in digital is overstated. Any method of archiving requires some periodic effort. With film it is watching heat and humidity, the pH of any paper contacting the film and concern/intervention about certain fumes. Should the original fade, and it eventually will, then a copy is made to recover as much of the original as possible, but at a loss of some information.<br>

With digital it requires that at least annually, copy your photo files again to the then prevailing digital media. With digital no information is lost from one copy to another. Each medium will have life span but move the information to a newer media. I have backed up all the important info from my floppies a long time ago and didn't lose a thing.<br>

<em>Pavel</em> - you have the right idea about storing digital copies in multiple places. I recommend keeping the originals though. I know that scanning and post editing is a pain - but it might be easier later to repeat the process. In a decade and 1/2 or so expect to see the home personal general purpose robot becoming the norm. Just give it the task as the technology then will undoubtedly yield more detail.<br>

New prediction: I expect the technology of 20 years from now will be able to yield the maximum sharpness in a scan but the original will have faded some - so that digital file will be merged with the one made now to result in the best sharpness possible and include the shadow detail that will have been compromised in the original (or highlights in slides).</p>

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<p>Terence,</p>

<p>The robots you describe are possible with today's technology, but it will take some concerted algorithm development to make them a reality. Kodak and others have developed algorithms to recover the tone scale of faded originals. They are not quite as good as custom manipulations, but they are still pretty good. The problem is selling the service. While there is a huge reservoir of faded photographs that could be restored, it is a very tiny fraction of those whose owners are motivated enough to pay for it.</p>

<p>See if there is a commercial shredding business in your area. They come to your location in a truck that's equipped with a shredder. You get to watch your stuff shred so there is no doubt it's been destroyed. It will cost less than buying a heavy-duty shredder that you might not need again.</p>

<p>Please don't destroy them. Just find somewhere to hide the suitcase. A loft, maybe? <br>

If you must destroy them, how about a shredder. Can't believe i suggested that. Ok, back to my negative archiving project.....</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Geoff</p>

<p>Destroy the negatives because they are copied onto your computer? Do you actually think that your computer will last longer than a negative?</p>

<p>Just to add my own twist to this. I regret not taking proper precautions on an old print of my dad when he was a teenager. The print was stuck on one of those old "magnetic albums". I put the album in the garage when the temperature was about minus 40 degrees Celsius, hoping that the cold will allow the glued photo to separate from the album. My dad was cleaning out the garage and threw out the album. He later said that the photo was not him, although it clearly was. <br>

My only "backup" was a *photocopy* that I made for "just in case". I don't believe scanners were widely available then. The photocopy is fading and now I plan to take both a digital and film photo of it so that I can preserve it.<br>

Although my dad didn't think it was valuable (especially since he didn't recognize himself in it), I felt it important to keep and to show my children in the future.</p>

 

<p>There were some baby photos of me that I wouldn't mind being destroyed ;-)<br>

Ron, - my prediction that personal robots will be a common thing by 2025 is a prediction I've had for some time. But basically I'm saying technology will change in ways that is not easily predicted now - the only thing certain is that it will change. <br>

I'm talking about future recovery of film images that goes way beyond curve manipulation (Photoshop presets for some typical emulsions aged by particular amounts are available on the internet now). I'm talking about scanning the negative at various angles to get to the sides of individual dye clouds etc.<br>

So keep the negatives - better scanning will be possible later.</p>

 

<p>Ship them via USPS to Guam. They turn up again in 50 years in some house in Chicago.</p>

<p>Never store just images electronically with using par, rar MD5. </p>

<p>No they won't be compressed but they will have recovery records if they get corrupted.</p>

<p>Sorry, you guys. I don't agree about discarding this stuff. I'm in the middle of a similar project right now and have about 5% keepers of my film material. Despite years of slide shooting, where I discarded some material according to sensible critera, there are still binders of negatives, both color and b&w which could not be discarded because 1 of every 25 or so was worth keeping. Now I have an opportunity to get rid of the junk.</p>

<p>Here are some of the options I'm choosing:<br>

1. Donate material of historic or subject value to historical societies and interest societies that will take proper care of the material.<br>

2. Distribute some of the material to people who are connected personally to the subject matter - family, friends etc. (Pass the buck...)<br>

3. Scan the best of the material at the highest reasonable quality (4000 dpi, Adobe RGB, keyworded, captioned, etc.) and store the originals responsibly while also maintaining the digital collection in a proper manner.<br>

4. Discard the rest - cardboard slide mounts into paper recycling, plastic slide mounts reused for mounting of scanned negatives, film pitched into the trash (collected by town weekly and sent for incineration at local trash-to-energy service).</p>

<p>I see no reason to cling tenaciously to every stupid shot, especially since so many of them are variations or experiments which led ultimately to the final thing worth keeping. At this point, aside from the innate historic interest in the content, there is such an overabundance of visual material that the stock licensing industry is impoverishing those who participate in it. Film was a difficult and cranky medium compared to digital to boot. Family snaps were largely done on grainy, high speed film which was sloppily processed by the 1-hr shops, to boot. In addition, all the corresponding prints will be much more valuable to the casual subsequent family member - especially if attention is paid to identifying who, what, where, when, how on the print. Finally, distributing small printable jpgs to the people in the images is likely to be appreciated, while endowing the poor souls with your inability to throw stuff out will not be greeted with such good will.</p>