Popular Photography has a nice editorial that underlines many of the challenges facing us as we rush into the digital world. Could the transition to digital photo eventually leave us with fewer photos? What happens when you loose that CD, the newest software does not read your old RAW files? A power spike?
A recent study of the digicam crowd by InfoTrends Research Group, Inc., showed that 72% of the respondents store their images on hard drives. That's down just 4 percentage points from a survey conducted two years ago. Obviously, word hasn't gotten out about the risks of relying on a hard drive.
The study showed that other methods are being used, too—CDs (40%), floppies (21%), prints (24%), online photo services (10%), DVDs (8%), zip disks (6%), and even memory cards (15%).
Sounds like the backup systems used by most digital camera owners are a hodgepodge, at best. And I'd guess that many digital shooters don't have a system or any backup at all.
The sponsor of the InfoTrends study, Fuji Photo Film USA, says the research shows we're facing "a generation of lost images."
Fuji's solution: Get prints. After all, prints "will never become technologically incompatible, and are guaranteed to last generations if stored properly."
1. Hmmm, print pictures for a backup... Today I've taken about 120 pictures that I'd like to keep out of the 180 pictures I've shot (multiple shots of trees, the lake, shadows, to capture the sense of "wind").
My local 'hobby grade' printing service costs $0.99 (Canadian) for a 5x7, $3.99 for 8x10. Lets pick 5x7 for all but the top 5%. So that is $0.99 * 114 pictures + $3.99 * 7 pictures = $140 + 15% tax = $160
I don't think so. I guess I'll copy my data CDs onto DVDs, then transfer them across to memory cards when then drop just a bit more in price, then onto some holographic sugar cube thing after that...
Posted at 6:25AM on Dec 19th 2005 by David Sky