How to destroy/discard 35mm film negatives?

[patrick j dempsey]

<p>So you are going to destroy negatives that will probably outlive your children and maybe even your grandchildren in favor of digital files that can be completely erased in about 5 seconds from the right electrical storm? Aside from your house burning down, those negatives will probably live through just about anything... especially if any of them are B&W's. </p>

<p>One of the things that got me into film photography was several medium format negatives I found in an abandoned house as a teenager. The negatives were laying on the floor of the kitchen of a house that the roof had compleletly collapsed and the house itself had been empty since 1954. (Newest date on newspapers, magazines and post marks inside) There were rats living there, who had shredded anything made of cardboard or fabric for nests, and there was about 3 inches of snow all over everything. The 4 negatives I found were basically in perfect condition. They had little spots where insects had eaten some of the emulsion, but other than that they were fine and made beautiful contact prints. If you have a method of digital backup that can live through that, I'd really love to see it.</p>

[pavel_kupcik]

<p>Just out of curiosity. Not to be pushy, but how do you all intend to protect your purely digital sources like DSLR Raw files, JPGs or digital movies? According to most of these posts, all of my and also your digital media will be wiped out before our grandchildren get to see them. Should we stop using DSLRs and digital camcorders and go back to analog? Start buying vinyl records instead of CDs? Maybe stuff money into pillows instead of 1's and 0's in bank?</p>

[nicholas_rapak]

<blockquote>

<p>Just out of curiosity. Not to be pushy, but how do you all intend to protect your purely digital sources like DSLR Raw files, JPGs or digital movies? According to most of these posts, all of my and also your digital media will be wiped out before our grandchildren get to see them. Should we stop using DSLRs and digital camcorders and go back to analog? Start buying vinyl records instead of CDs? Maybe stuff money into pillows instead of 1's and 0's in bank?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Why not get rid of all of those paintings in the Louvre? After all, we have digital images. Why not get rid of the conventional oven? After all, the microwave oven is faster. </p>

<p>It is true that digital media will probably be wiped out long before our grandchildren see them. That is why, if you are serious about preservation, you should make prints of all of your digital images on archival-quality silver-halide based photo paper.</p>

<p>Remember, in a world without electricity, one can still make a phonograph record work and view a slide. No one can see the pictures on a CD without highly advanced technology. Don't destroy what you already have, and make sure to archive what you don't. As with another poster above: Keep it if it is viewable by humans unassisted.</p>

[patrick j dempsey]

<p>In the painting world, there was a attitude that rose up with moderism that presevation of artwork is stupid. In that movement, artists created works they specifically knew would degrade over time. Jackson Pollock used oil house paint on raw canvas and now exhibits of his paintings have a pile of colored dust collecting beneath the paintings. Sure I have some digital media... I have designed websites, done a great deal of digital editing, designed icons and interfaces and even done some programming. The stuff I did in elementary school and even in high school 15 years ago is all corrupted data sitting on useless unreadable floppy disks. Music me and my friends recorded on cassette tapes 10 years ago is getting hard to recover. Basically, I consider my drawings, paintings and photographs to be my REAL work, because I know they will outlive me... the rest... I guess I just resigned to the impermanence of it years ago.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Salt water as salty from the sea works well. Salt is dirty cheap. If you live by the ocean its free. In Detroit; its below the city and also used in roads for icing. Add the B&W negatives; Kodachromes; C22 and C41's in a 5 gallon pail full of salt water and let sit; sir abit. With Katrina in the summer home any of the above medium's I mentioned got totally hosed; much was only under salt water for a few hours. Place/stuff the negs and positives into a gallon paint can; add water and salt; and place on a shaker.</p>

<p>Burning works well too; an old barbeque grill works super. A Oxy Acetylene Torch cuts thru pesky negatives too<a onmousedown="return clk('http://topsoil.nserl.purdue.edu/nserlweb/safetywebsite/SOPs/Oxy-Acetylene%20Torch.html','','','res','3','')" href="http://topsoil.nserl.purdue.edu/nserlweb/safetywebsite/SOPs/Oxy-Acetylene%20Torch.html"><em>.</em> </a></p>

<p><br /> Shreaded B&W can be saved for silver recovery<br /> <br /> In scanning for the public this deal of distroying originals is really not uncommon; or even new at all; it really old. Its more common with sensitive/miltary data; oil field log work; or old ladies cleaning up their house.<br /> <br /> The old lady case it abit odd. The old lady is tired of the say 4 Kodak carousel/boxes taking up space in their (her) master bedroom closet; it competes with shoes and hats. Thus she takes the carousels too be scanned and asks for a disc. Then she asks us to chuck the slides and carousels and boxes.</p>

<p>Actually very little have I chucked; I expect some of senile chap to either go crazy/biserk (sp); or want their slides back. I have sold some of the carousels to others. I guess I just delay the salt bath in case the old chap arrives at our door mad as a hornet.<br /> In more daring old ladies;the want the Kodak Carousel boxes back; thus the old husband feel good that the box of 1964 New York Worlds Fair slides are OK; when the Carousel box really just contains the old birds custom jewelry.<br /> <br /> Moral; see if your slide boxes really contain slides or your wifes stuff! :)</p>

[pavel_kupcik]

<p>Kelly,<br>

me and my wife just had a good laugh - it is so true and sometimes the roles change too.<br>

<br /> Thanks.</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>I guess Kelly's salt water should probably work. I thought that was pretty interesting.</p>

<p>I once read a Scientific American article years ago that mentioned that magnetic media could only reliably hold data for about five years. While there have probably been innovations since then, I doubt it matches traditional artwork/artifact conservation. Backup, backup, backup. Then, there's the problem of future technologies somehow surpassing the recording already made. But, this would get you back into the scan-again cycle; either hire or self-service.</p>

<p>I'd keep 'em. But, if you insist on digital archiving, I'd recommend an overhaul every four years of so.</p>

<p>It really sounds like a Fahrenheit 451 bookburning, though. Why don't you sleep on it, for about a month.</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>Hi Pavel,</p>

<p>Cataloging analog media is not a problem, if you already have a scan and have the scan cataloged in decent Digital Asset Manager (DAM) - say Lightroom.</p>

<p>First file your negatives and slides, one roll to a page, in a binder or binders. Next number the pages. Now use the page number and frame number as a key word for that scan in your DAM. You can do the same with prints, but write the number on the back of the print. </p>

<p>As with most things in life, this is not a matter of "either/or" - either all digital or all analog. It is a matter of using the strengths of each to your best advantage.</p>

<p>Before I retired, I spent forty years working with computers as a programmer, systems programmer, systems administrator. I have never seen any backup system last more than about ten years, with the possible exception of punched cards. I watched I.B.M. mainframe computers go from 7-track reel-to-reel tape, to 9-track reel-to-reel tape, to tape cartridge, to ... The only thing to do is to migrate your data as new systems and devices become available. That is what I do with my digital only data.</p>

<p>If I had data on 8" floppies from the 1980's, I would have a difficult time retrieving it. If you had data on MFM hard drives from the early 1990's you would have trouble reading it. Solid state "disks" are just beginning to make their appearance. Will there be a rotating disk drive left 10 years from now? On the other hand, I have no problem printing my negatives from the 1960's.</p>

 

[craig_shearman1]

<p>I don't care how robust your backup is DIGITAL IS NOT ARCHIVAL!!! Do you have any concept how many computer operating systems, storage media, file formats etc have existed in the short few years that computers have been available? How many people online right now can still open a WordPerfect file on a 5 1/4-inch floppy? That was the universal standard not even 15 yeas ago for text documents let alone pictures. Today anybody can open a jpg on a CD but are your grandchildren even going to know what the shiny round piece of plastic is. How are they going to know it has pictures on it let alone have the equipment to play it back? Yes, professionals with revenue producing images will transfer them from today's media to tomorrow's over and over again, but even then probbly not all of their images. Amateur images and consumer snapshots are unlikely to survive more than whatever the replacement for CD is. For a good example, take videotape. There have been so many formats of video from the first B&W reel to reel tapes to today's digital formats that there's a comany called Vidipax in New York whose whole business is transferring obsolete formats not even the networks have the equipment for any more. But the 35mm local newsreels my grandfather shot for his theater in the 1930s can still be threaded up at the local multiplex. And the glass plates that Matthew Brady shot in 1865 can still be held up to the light and recognized as photos, and printed in any darkroom. Please, please, please don't be so short sighted to throw away your negatives. If you can't be bothered with them, stuff the box in a closet somewhere and leave them. Your grandchildren will find them and they will thank you for it.</p>

[hclim]

Pavel, you have not indicated the resolution of your scans. Did you drum scan them to the highest resolution possible? If not, what if one day you need a higher resolution scan?

[stanleys]

<p>I find it amusing that the negatives are more valuable to an imagined dumpster diver than they are to you. Everything else has been said.</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>Hi Stanley,<br>

"I find it amusing that the negatives are more valuable to an imagined dumpster diver than they are to you."</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I do not find it amusing at all. That is why I shred anything that that has any possible personally identifying information before I discard it in the garbage. It is, unfortunately, part of living in the 21st Century.</p>

[stanleys]

<p>Hi Brooks,<br>

Dumpster divers are looking for something of value.</p>

[bob_sunley]

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=852928">Pavel Kupcik</a> , Feb 12, 2009; 05:32 p.m.</p>

 

<p>"Just out of curiosity. Not to be pushy, but how do you all intend to protect your purely digital sources like DSLR Raw files, "</p>

<p>I only shoot film, print it with an enlarger and buy stamped cds that duplicate my favorite lp records. :) Anything transient like pdf files I want to keep are turned into paper copies, or I'll burn 6 or 7 copies onto cds.</p>

 

 

[anthony johns]

<p>again, as others have said<br>

just the thought of destroying the negatives is absolutely crazy.<br>

not much more to say than that really. </p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>Should we stop using DSLRs and digital camcorders and go back to analog?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I did.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Start buying vinyl records instead of CDs?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I do that too.</p>

[diegobuono]

<p>Pavel, you put the question in the wrong forum, no-one here would do what you wanna do, so no-one can recommend how to do it, even if probably we know the recipe, sorry. Try in the digital forum, some of them hate film, they should be happy to give you the recipe, may be can help you too when you do it.<br>

To other poster: don't try to persuate it, not all people give the original the importance they deserve, if he think this way he probably will never fell the need to use it again, sad but thrue, amen.</p>

[pavel_kupcik]

<p>Thansks everyone again. I believe I had gotten the answer to my original question and a lot of interesting "why?" responses. I did not intend to start another film vs. digital heated debate. We all have to put our own value on our photos and we all have our own unique strengths/skills. For some its easier to maintain backups, for some to look after the environmental longevity of film and prints. For many it's just a personal preference and the world would not end if all of it did not survive tomorrow.<br>

Thanks again.<br>

Pavel</p>

[randrew1]

<p>"Not to be pushy, but how do you all intend to protect your purely digital sources like DSLR Raw files, JPGs or digital movies?"</p>

<p>The Kodak answer (for still images) was "send them to the Kodak Gallery and we will keep them forever." As I suggested before, that strategy will work as long as:<br>

<ol>

<li>the Kodak Gallery exists</li>

<li>the Kodak Gallery maintains the same policies</li>

<li>Gallery memberships are kept in good standing (at least 1 purchase per year)</li>

</ol><br>

That ad hoc group of film people at Kodak recommended imaging digital files on stable human readable media. The ideal for longevity would be B&W separations. A close second would be Ektachrome Dupe film. There are a few labs that will provide this service. The typical customer is an artist who has a digital reproduction of their artwork and needs to submit a slide for an art show. </p>

[dangoldman]

<p>Is this a joke?...</p>

[jim kerr]

<p>Well Pavel, I imagine as many negatives as you have possibly more, I've just decided to keep mine and not worry about it.........Jim</p>

[russ_butner___portland__or]

<p> Do NOT destroy them. Put them away somewhere safe.</p>

<p>Russ</p>

[Robert_Lai]

<p>You may not think that you want them now, but as you go process each of those scans with your editing software, you'll probably see a few that need rescanning. As with everything else, the more you scan, the better your technique gets.</p>

<p>While you were scanning, it would have been easy to put the negs and slides into archival storage sleeves. It's still possible to do it now, as time-consuming as that is. But, then you only have to do it once, and you'll be in a better position to find any particular image again in the future.</p>

[DB_Gallery]

<blockquote>

<p>Should we stop using DSLRs and digital camcorders and go back to analog? </p>

</blockquote>

<p>After using digital for 14 years, yeah, I would love to go back to all film. I like the product and the workflow better. The reality is that I will always have to shoot some digital for work, but I am really making a concerted effort to get away from it..<br>

As for you tossing your negs? I have no advice for you, it is not a thought that has ever crossed my mind to tell you the truth. </p>

<p>If you are really insistent on getting rid of them, why don't you make something out of them instead of destroying them? Be creative, there has to be something you can do besides destroy them. </p>

[John Crowe]

<p>Kelly Flanigan: Thank-you very much for a good laugh.</p>

<p>Dan Ferrel: You got to my answer first. </p>