Images stored for the future: Scan old slides before it is too late

How to make sure digital files are kept safe for the future hit the headlines last week. Some commentators compared the permanence of film photography with the difficult problem of ensuring that digital files prepared using particular pieces of software and stored on a particular digital medium would be accessible hundreds of years in the future. However, film photography is not necessarily that permanent, with a number of colour films showing serious signs of deterioration with age.

Two years ago I described how I scanned 4 x 4 cm Super Slides from 127 size film taken in a 'Baby Grey' Rolleiflex and how some Agfacolor CT18 films had deteriorated after 50 years while others were hardly affected.

The other day, I was wondering if I could get a better quality scan of a very small area of one the CT18 transparencies. On rescanning, I found that the rate of deterioration in the slides from that particular film seems to have increased. The colours had faded more and the magenta tinge that was spreading from each edge of the original length of film was deeper.

I do not know why Agfacolor CT18 films have been so variable in their keeping quality. Was it a property of variability in manufacturing, or some problem with poor processing?

Whatever the reason, my advice to anybody having Agfacolor CT18 slides: scan them now before it is too late.

I see 127 rolls of very outdated CT18 are still advertised on eBay but I have no idea who can still process CT18 or if such old film will produce an image at all.

Has Trek-Tech, makers of the TrekPod, gone?

My TrekPod XL has been envied wherever I have taken it in the world. For those not familiar with the TrekPod system, it acts as a trekking pole and tripod with a quick-release magnetic ball and socket head.  It breaks down into sections for packing (the XL is carbon fibre and came with a case as well a separate table tripod) and it is the bottom section that can easily be splayed out to form a tripod. For video it is perfect since any kind of support is better than no support.

When I bought it a few years ago, the British agents were Johnson-Photopia. I was concerned that it might be a poor trekking pole and a poor substitute for a proper tripod. That proved not to be so and I was very pleased with it from day one. It proved its robustness as a trekking pole in the Simien mountains of Ethiopia; I really put some pressure on it both uphill and downhill. The MagMount system for the Sony camcorder is excellent and although pans and tilts would be difficult, a steady shot is assured, especially when using longer focal lengths for wildlife.

I then saw that the advertisements for the system had disappeared from the British photographic press; then from the range of products for which Johnson-Photopia are agents. A look at the Trek-Tech website showed that nothing had been updated since about 2008; similarly, the company's page on Flickr held nothing beyond early 2010. I found this ominous notice on the website: To our customers: Trek-Tech is working through some corporate restructuring. Please be patient while we work through this process. And that's the way the website has stayed.

I suppose the rise of stabilised cameras has reduced the potential customer base for this type of product but nothing else quite fills the bill. The current crop of video monopods with fold-out feet are not suitable as trekking poles and even the lightest tripods are less convenient to carry and slower to set up than the Trek-Pod. For lighter CSC and bridge cameras it is also excellent.

Whether Trek-Tech will ever be back in some form I do not know. I could have sold a number to photographers, wildlife watchers and travellers impressed after seeing one in action. It would be a pity if the innovative technology disappeared forever.

A Digiscoping Dilemma

My present ‘standard’ digiscoping set up with the Leica apo-Televid 77 is: a B32 WW eyepiece on the scope and a Digilux 1-Televid adapter connected via a 49-46 stepping ring to a Panasonic Lumix LX5 camera. To fill the frame and minimise vignetting with this set-up the camera has to be on maximum zoom (19 mm). This gives me a 35 mm full-frame camera equivalent focal length of 2675 mm. I use an attachment made by Richard Franiec that fits into accessory shoe of the camera and allows a standard cable release to be used to press the shutter button.

Panasonic Lumix LX5 with Digilux 1 adapter
stepping ring attached to 32 WW eyepiece on
apo-Televid 77

However, the LX5, introduced in 2010, does not take full HD video and the whole set-up with so many glass surfaces is inclined to flare. Travelling abroad means having to carry another camera, charger and the Digilux/stepping ring adapter. For most distant shots my superzoom Nikon bridge camera (1000 mm full-frame equivalent) is fine. It is only for the really distant shots that the digiscope offers an advantage.

I have been trying the Phone Skope system for digiscoping with my iPhone 6 to see if that would be a better bet for carrying when travelling. The dedicated phone case (only just available in UK from Newpro) and special adapter for the Leica 32 WW eyepiece work very well. The video from the iPhone 6 with its Sony sensor is of high quality and, of course, full HD. The disadvantage of the set-up is the maximum effective focal length that can be obtained: 960 mm and effectively the same as my Nikon superzoom camera. (For incorporating stills into full HD video, I do of course, have the option of only using 1920 x 1080 of 3264 x 2448 pixels of the i-Phone image, thereby gaining extra magnification by what is a ‘digital zoom’.) However, I can see occasions where I shall use the Phone Skope set-up. If the scope and tripod are locked on a bird then it is a matter of moments to attach the Phone Skope, and start the video or take a still using a remote release or the volume control on the ear-phones.

iPhone 6 in Phone Skope case and adapter for 32 WW eyepiece

Without my Lumix LX5 set-up I would lose the capability to go beyond 1000 mm full-frame equivalent focal length. Should I get a new superzoom camera with an even greater maximum focal length which could take raw stills and full HD video, and ditch the LX5 and Digilux adapter, its lack of hull HD now being a major disadvantage? The gain in optical quality and greater depth-of-field might offset that loss of focal length that my present digiscoping set-up can achieve. For travelling abroad that might be the best bet, with the iPhone (which goes abroad with me anyway) and very light Phone Skope to latch onto the Televid if necessary.

Decisions have to me made…

Photograph Taken: Then What?

The photographic press appears to have deserted output. By output I mean the means by which a photograph is displayed and viewed. It is clear that very few photographs are printed, hence the lack of real information on printers in the photographic magazines. But then there is a blank. Just what is the best device for viewing a photograph? A Mac with retina display? A tablet, if so which one? A television, if so what sort of television?

A key element apart from definition is dynamic range. There is a good tutorial on dynamic range, together with information on cameras, scanners  and output devices, from Cambridge in Colour here. My understanding is that televisions were restricted by what was possible on a cathode ray tube. But how do present-day and emerging technologies compare? What improvements are on the way? And do they match the output from the best of still and video cameras?

Output for all the magazines appears to stop with Lightroom. Shouldn't they be providing us with this sort of information by including output to replace some of the endless reviews of cameras introduced with tiny changes from the last model? Oh, but then camera sellers, on whom they rely for advertising income, do not usually sell output devices like televisions and tablets.

Advanced Photographer Magazine

Of all the editors of photographic magazines published in Britain, William Cheung has long been my favourite. He made a very good job of Practical Photography (now sadly dumbed down) in the early days and with Advanced Photographer he has reached 51 issues which at one per month is something over four years.

In the difficult world of amateur photographic magazines, Advanced Photographer is noted for being non-luddite (Amateur Photographer judging by the letters section is the home of both, and perhaps only, the rank beginner and the entrenched luddite) but along with all the magazines it really cannot get to grips with video at a time when all the creative advances are occurring with moving pictures. Filling a monthly magazine (let alone the weekly Amateur Photographer) must be very difficult, but Will Cheung has done a pretty good job over the four years. Yes, there has been an overemphasis on studio lighting which is of no interest to me but overall it is a better read than the numerous magazines in the crowded market. Again, achieving that cannot be easy on what must be a relatively small budget.

Canon PowerShot SX60 HS for Birding?

Lots of birders use the Canon SX50 superzoom bridge camera. However, its replacement, the SX60 is not getting a good reception from birders (who want the long focal length) or the amateur photographic press which doesn't have a clue what birders or other wildlife photographers want a superzoom bridge camera for. The 1365 mm focal length, in 35 mm terms, is tempting since it is length that birders crave. One of the problems is that noise is evident at low ISO settings and that the resolution is relatively low. More pixels have been crammed on the small sensor, (although the sensor is now a CMOS type) so it is not surprising there are problems with noise. Users have reported problems with the image stabiliser and very slow focusing in poor light at longer focal lengths.

All these problems are inherent in the design of bridge cameras aimed at a price band in the camera market but so far I have not been able to find a real comparison with the available competition as models come and go at a great rate. Judging from the birders' comments online though, the Canon SX60 is getting the thumbs down on both performance and price.

I still don't know what I would replace by Nikon P510 with. In superzoom terms it is getting long in the tooth and I suspect that another Nikon or perhaps Panasonic would be in the running if I were forced to choose.

ColorMunki Display Software. What a Hassle

I bought a ColorMunki Display from WEX the other week. What a hassle it was to install the software on my iMac. As expected, the software on the cd would not install. Even finding the download version for Yosemite was not easy (the website was out of date and referred to Mavericks being new). After installation, the software did not recognise the usb-connected device and this together with the other problems that arose in trying to get the thing to work were only found by searching the Xrite website. All it needed was a proper set of instructions from the outset with a flow diagram showing what to do if such and such happened. What should have been a simple job turned into a 90-minute saga of trials, complete reboots, crashes, more looking up etc. Xrite are clearly not Xright. They need to get a grip of their software, their updates and their website. Eventually I got the thing installed, and by leaning the iMac back as far it would would go, I got a profile; an excellent final result but what a hassle—a back-to-the-1980s installation job.

I still have not been able to register the device with the manufacturer. The option to do so is greyed out in the software and via the website there is no way of knowing what the code is for the software. Impasse.

I wonder if a Datacolor Spyder might have been a better buy.