digital degeneration

[mike_minogue]

<p>There are a number of film-based photographers who claim that one of the chief benefits of using film is that the film negative represents a hard copy of the photograph that can never digitally degenerate.</p>

<p><strong><em>My question is: do digital negatives generally have degenerative tendencies…?</em></strong></p>

<p>For example, about 10 years ago I was shooting with the Nikon D100. As I look at some of the photographs today, and while I realize that this digital camera was indeed produced a decade ago, it seems that some of these TIFF and JPEG files have indeed degenerated.</p>

<p>What I mean by this is simply the fact that I cannot believe that with regard to a number of the landscape photos, for example, the original digital negatives were ever this… well, degenerated. They seem to have a ton more noise; additionally, there seems to be far less sharpness, even though I remember sharper images. It is as though they are going “dull.”</p>

<p>(By the way, I no longer have any of the raw digital files from the D100; unfortunately, they were lost as a result of a hard drive crash several years ago. I still have the TIFF and JPEG files, fortunately.)</p>

<p>I'm now shooting with the 1D-Mark IV. I would hate to think that in 5-10 years time I'm going to look back upon these photographs and see some form of degeneration.</p>

<p>I realize that I may be imagining things with regard to the Nikon camera noted above. I would welcome any and all confirmations and/or refutations.</p>

[jean_yves_mead]

Digital images don't degenerate as such. I suspect that time, experience, and your ever-improving image-

capturing and -processing technology, have trained your eye to be more discerning in the intervening

years, and are now noticing original flaws that you once mentally glossed over.

[jim_momary]

<p>I recollect that I used to be taller, more handsome, smarter, richer and much more funny. Damn this degeneration commie pinko plot. It's in the water!</p>

<p>As Jean said, I think you have changed more over the years, along with expectations and skill from the more 'primitive' digital days. It's called maturation in real life.</p>

<p>Oh, the Nikon D100 was introduced on Feb. 21, 2002 at PMA, it took me a while to get one, not until nearly Nov. 2002. So, technically it's been somewhat short of '10 years ago'.</p>

[dzeanah]

<p>Data is data. If you've still got the file and it wasn't corrupted in some way (and age itself doesn't do this), then it's still identical to what it was before.</p>

<p>Now, you may have a new (larger) monitor, and a better printer, and an eye that's more critical, and such. All of these can lead to the determination that the images you're looking at aren't as good as you remember. But it's not the images themselves.</p>

[vrankin]

<p>I agree with everything posted by Jean, Jim and Derek. In a parallel kind of experience I recently re-read one of my favorite books by photographer Jim Brandenburg. <strong>Looking for the Summer</strong> represented Jim's move from Nikon film to Nikon digital in a 2003 project, illustrated with D100 photos. They now look ...well, "degenerated." It's just that after seeing Jim's later, full frame Canon DSLR output in his Luverne, MN gallery, there's a change in my perception of his earlier work from the technical side. The prints in his 2003 book didn't degenerate. I moved.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Not only do I view my older digital images from a position of higher standards today, I likewise look back at negatives I've created over the last 30+ years and I notice that: I frequently had no idea what the hell I was doing. Regardless of the medium, it's apparent that I've moved on from "absolutely rudderless" in my decisions about exposure all the way up to "I know what I want, even if I rarely get there." Progress!</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Not even jpgs "degenerate" unless you open and save them back on themselves a bunch of times. TIFFs are essentially lossless. As said above, it's not the pictures that "degenerate", it is ourselves.</p>

<p>From the title I was sort of hoping for a discussion of degenerate art (not the entartete Kunst kind :).</p>

<p>Oh, negatives and slides -- they physically degenerate from age, dye fading, mold, scratches and dirt, and many other causes. Even platinum prints on archival paper can burn up or get soiled.</p>

[steve m smith]

<p>There is no recording media for any type of artistic expression which will last forever.</p>

[lachaine]

<p>I think this refers more to how you can easily lose digital files over time if you don't keep backing them up and then backing up the backups. No CD, DVD or external hard drive is every guaranteed to last forever. If you only have some images backed up on one CD, 10 years from now, you could want to look at them and find the CD has errors. With slides or negatives, you have the original to fall back on... as long as you've stored them reasonably well, and your house hasn't burned down.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>There is a factor that might not be accounted for in this discussion, and that is the technology that was then and that which is now.</p>

<p>I don't know that I will explain this correctly, but I have prints from files made 10 or more years ago--from film scans mostly--that are still incredibly beautiful and rich. The rub, when I open the file, it looks totally different. I found this happening several years ago, when I opened some of these older files, maybe only 5 or so years old at the time. What I surmised was that the whole field of color management (and my knowledge of it) had changed/grown significantly. Files created in Photoshop's early versions, like PS4, just didn't look the same when opened in say CS1. The prints I have look right, but the files couldn't be opened to look as they had when I created them and the print.</p>

[Greg M]

<p>The main "degeneration" I think about shooting digitally is, the long-term storage media. Hard drives, both in-computer and stand-alone, get old and crash from time to time. The original hard drive I used to store my images starting in 2003 is now retired and the files were moved to a new 2 TB hard drive where I am also storing new files. As I process RAW files and create keeper JPEG's, I upload those to my website as an off-site back-up storage as much as to have the ability to share them.</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>There is a factor that might not be accounted for in this discussion, and that is the technology that was then and that which is now.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A bit like the video copies my wife's aunt had made of her 8mm home movies so future generations could watch them. We did actually watch them last year but using the originals with a projector as her video copies were all Betamax.</p>

[charles_stobbs3]

My mirror is degenerating faster than my high school picture.

[jcuknz]

<p>I have recently been copying to digital old film color negatives and there seems to be considerable variation and only my B&W are uniformally good. Film shot 20 to 40 years ago. I also have old B&W prints from probably up to 100 years ago. I wonder if our pre-occupation with color was a good move from a record keeping point of view.</p>

[mike_minogue]

<blockquote>

<p>My mirror is degenerating faster than my high school picture.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>LOL!</p>

<p>Thanks for all the responses -- it has been most illuminating!</p>

[leighb]

<blockquote>

<p>I have recently been copying to digital old film color negatives and there seems to be considerable variation and only my B&W are uniformally good.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The dyes used in color materials, both positives (transparencies) and negatives, will fade with age. The different-colored dyes age at different rates, resulting in an over-all color shift.</p>

<p>The only exception is the now-defunct Kodachrome process.</p>

<p>B&W negatives don't suffer from this problem since the process uses no dyes in the first place.</p>

<p>One possible exception to this statement would be the so-called ?"chromogenic"? B&W films which are developed using the C41 color process. I've never used these so I know nothing about them.</p>

<p>- Leigh</p>

[stevenseelig]

<p>Three types of degenerate are reasonably possible:<br>

1. Date corruption in the original file. This will most likely make the file unreadable, but I would guess the individual bits could corrupt that might still allow for reading. Never experienced the later, but have experienced the former.<br>

2. Repetitive saving of a jpeg file on itself. Each time it is saved, it is compressed a bit more.<br>

3. And as several people noted above, technology advance distortion of our perception of reality.<br>

I am regressing and trying to learn how to shoot film. An enchanting life voyage.</p>

 

[matt_needham]

<p>"...film negative represents a hard copy of the photograph that can never digitally degenerate."</p>

<p>It may not digitally degenerate, but it's extremely fragile, and can be easily damaged and destroyed in many other ways. Digital storage media can be damaged also, but copy files are much easier to make and more accurate to the original than copy negs. </p>

[chris_werner]

<blockquote>

<p>Three types of degenerate are reasonably possible:<br />1. Date corruption in the original file. This will most likely make the file unreadable, but I would guess the individual bits could corrupt that might still allow for reading. Never experienced the later, but have experienced the former.<br />2. Repetitive saving of a jpeg file on itself. Each time it is saved, it is compressed a bit more.<br />3. And as several people noted above, technology advance distortion of our perception of reality.<br />I am regressing and trying to learn how to shoot film. An enchanting life voyage.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I would argue that there is possibly a 4th - digital media haven't been around long enough for us to truly know what their archival properties are. My memory is a bit fuzzy here (so please chime in and correct me if I'm off) but I believe the technology in computer CD/DVD drives is a dye based process, and differs from the commercial burning process - look at the bottom of a burned CD/DVD and you'll see a color change.</p>

<p>In any case, I'm not comfortable putting my digital files "on the shelf" as it were, so digital belt and suspenders for me, 2 hard drive copies plus multiple optical media, moving to new hard drives every few years.</p>