Re: Digital

"d c" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> "Tom Phillips" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> > You may "save" on having to buy film but you "lose" by not having a
> > permanant, bonafide image that can be stored literally ever (i.e., is
> > free from data corruption and media obsolescence.) Nothing is more
> > permanant than putting and storing your images on film.
> 
> Huh?  Then why is the motion picture academy desperatly trying to restore
> all those prints that are rotting in their canisters?  Yes, I know we have
> different chemistry for film than we did in the early 20th Century, but film
> is hardly as permanent ad binary code...

The problem was the base, not the image itself. Older motion picture
film was coated on cellulose nitrate, which spontaneously decomposes.
Since about 1938, cellulose acetate became available, which is much
more stable. Glass plates were used for many 19th century still
images, and were quite durable, but of course fragile. There were so
many glass plates made during the civil war (millions, I believe) that
the negatives were considered of no value, and ended up being used as
glass in hot-houses etc.