Is digital media responsible for the loss of memories?

[T. Erdelyi]

I'm gonna start this here and if the mods see fit, than feel free to move it to where they think it should be.

I've been taken pictures for nearly 40 years, most of that with a Canon AE1, I went digital about 15 years ago and that has been my medium for the most part since.

There was a long learnin' curve here, the easiest part was the hardest thing to deal with, just taken pictures.

I used take my camera, bag and film out for the day, now I had a bad habit in the beginnin', I would shoot massive amounts of film, put 'em in my bag and forget about 'em sometimes for years. Do you know what happens to exposed film that's not developed?

It gets some really funky tints that essentially ruin the pictures, anyone who shot film knows what I'm talkin' about.

I got into digital in the 90s and I thought that this was the solution to my problem of forgettin' to develop film, now I took tons of shots bought lottsa memory cards, I figured I was set, unlimited pictures, I even downloaded it to my hard drive, (figured I was safe, didn't hafta take care of prints or negatives.

No more boxes of pictures and negatives in the basement just my computer with thousands of pictures on my hard drive.

Well a few years ago when we had the big flood from one of the last hurricanes that came through our neck of the woods here all my thousands of photos and negatives got ruined when my basement flooded, well at least I still had the last 15 years on my hard drive.

Now this is where my point comes in fast forward to about a year ago she I accidentally put a 9mm slug into my laptop, lucky for me I missed the screen, unfortunately I hit the hard drive,15 years of photos lost because I didn't back up my pics to another spot, (back up drive or online storage site.

How many of you have gone digital and have only 1 copy of your pics, go out right now and buy a backup hard drive or sign up on line for memory storage site like Cobalt or someone similar and takes some time to insure your memory I especially are protected and safe.

I believe we as a society will lose many memories because there are many people from my generation that grew up with prints and slides and with these tangible things stored in boxes in our basement, closets and attics or memories were safe.

Now all the people like me who didn't back up their digital memories and lost their source files have essentially lost their memories.

Now since then I've gotten smarter and have since bought a backup hard drive and periodically backup my source files, no more memory loss for this old man.

Folks,if you're from my generation and grew up with film and have by necessity converted to the digital format spend the money and buy a 1 terrabite backup hard drive and start savin' your memories now.

 

[Insipid Moniker]

Most of the people I know pretty quickly throw photos onto sites like facebook or photobucket, so I'm not sure how much of a concern it really is. Heck, you can even just attach the photos and email them to yourself and that gives a vastly more permanent copy than any previous media was capable of.

 

[T. Erdelyi]

Most of the people I know pretty quickly throw photos onto sites like facebook or photobucket, so I'm not sure how much of a concern it really is. Heck, you can even just attach the photos and email them to yourself and that gives a vastly more permanent copy than any previous media was capable of.

Yea but back in the day we had boxes of pics, mostly in one place either loose or in photo albums, FB and other social media sites rarely save full-size pics,even Photobucket and most free image hosting sites don't save full size images unless you pay for bandwidth.

Add to that my distrust for online storage sites that make your pics accessible to third party users who use your pics without your permission or giving you credit for the pic.

Lastly, I had one site that was in beta testing and went offline for repairs to the server and never came back online takin' with it 3,000+ pictures.

 

[Gollnick]

You have made an excellent point. Digital has the huge disadvantage of allowing terabytes of data -- tens of thousands of photos -- to accumulate in a device about the size of a deck of playing cards, a device that is all to vulnerable to all sorts of hazards, not just misplaced bullets. On the other hand, digital has the advantage of allowing those terabytes to be exactly copied very quickly and inexpensively.

Most people don't even need to buy anything except an inexpensive stack of blank DVDs. When you get home at the end of the day and download all those memory cards to your hard-drive, immediately burn them onto DVDs. This is a simple process. Then jot the date into the DVD with a Sharpie marker and toss that DVD into your media safe. When you sit down and pick out your best shots of the day (photographic shots, not bullets through your computer) and edit those and make a nice project out of them, write the finished products to CDs or DVDs and toss those into the safe.

Do not think that Flash-Memory-Based storage devices such as memory cards or "thumb drives" are acceptible for long-term storage. They are not long-term reliable.

The external backup drives you mentioned which can be purchased for less that $100 are excellent. I have one for my PC which is not much bigger than a deck of cards. On Sunday afternoon, I make a habbit of taking it out of the safe and plugging it into my PC's USB port. Once it is plugged in, everything is automatic. It automatically backs up any new or altered files. It can run while I do other stuff. Then, a few hours later, I disconnect it and toss it back in the safe.

Whatever method you choose to use, it is vital to back up your stuff.