Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/22

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Subject: [Leica] Digital Leica
From: John Bohner <johnbohner@earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 19:52:15 -0700

I give up, I'm uninterested as to if or when Leica may or not develop/clone
a digital product of quality sufficient to challenge the M or R systems.  I
have no control over their decision.

Perhaps we should ask a slightly different question.
Under what conditions would you be willing to save your prized images in a
digital format ONLY?

In my home office there are Kodachromes over 25 years old that still are as
good as the day they came out of the soup. I also have a silver print of my
Great Great Grandfather taken in 1884 (thats 117 years folks). 
It can now be seen via the digital revolution at 
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/b/o/h/John-Bohner/PHOTO/0001photo
.html?Welcome=995856738
but don't expect me to throw out the original print anytime soon.
I also admit to having some Ektachromes that are not storing as well.
Surely, a digital image will
out last film! 

I don't think we can say that, yet.  Digital storage may be among the least
permanent forms 
of storage.  I have had a home computer since the 70's and I've seen lots
of change and some of that
change has been unrecoverable.

Let us consider those wonderful 320X240 sixteen color images on 8 inch
disks.  
Let us find a 5 inch floopy disk drive, they are already hard to find and
we aren't talking 25 years yet.
Let us consider that floopy disk media does not have an archival storage
potential.
Oh, we can go to CDs you argue.  You are as much at risk from media and
software obsolesence from
them as any other media.  Anyone remember "WORM" write once read many
optical disks?
FWIW the US National Archive is already struggeling with how to recast and
resave digital data.

Then there are those aspects of digital that we don't want to think about.
Do you want to trust your family history pictures to CPM/DOS/MS-DOS/MS
Windows 3.0/95/NT/98/98ME/2000/XP?  What about the Amiga, Osborn and other
wonders?
How many of you have done what I have done already, unrecoverably erased
images you truly miss?
Never suffered a catastophic meltdown? Hard drive failure/FAT
corruption/?Then you must be running UNIX.

No my friends, going digital means more than megapixels, quantum efficiency
and electron noise.
It means being at the mercy of a technology which is at once both wonderful
and wicked.

John Bohner


I follow the digest and so any necessary response may be slow.
Feel free to email me direct at johnbohner@earthlink.net
I feel free to not answer every question leveled.
You may feel free to visit my leica paw page at: 
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnbohner/analog/paw/index.htm
or look at my computer generated alternate realities at
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnbohner/dtg/dtgtop.html
or not.