Is digital unreliable?
 

I started using digital in the late 1990's. However, I also took selected travel photos using film until 2003. For certain shots, like a tourist attraction, I took many digital pictures and maybe a few film ones.

I don't trust digital. A few pictures have become corrupted, showing only the top half. One computer had a catastrophe but there was a backup. There are online storage sites, like photobucket.

What should I do?

Print a few photos?
Have multiple backups on separate hard drives to reduce the chance file corruption?
Do the above and download them online?

Digital is in no way worse than ordinary film if you do it right. Problem is most people think that just because it's digital, it is indestructible.

For maximum safety, you should use a camera that can write the same image to two different memory cards at once. That should reduce the chance of memory card errors to virtually zero. I only use high quality memory cards from known manufacturers and I've never had a problem so far.

To further ensure that my cards are in tip top shape, I copy images of them on a regular basis while traveling, but don't delete anything from them. This way, I have a secondary copy of all images even while traveling.

Once back home, I move all the images to my file server, which is an enterprise class RAID-5 solution. For additional safety, I also burn images to BluRay discs on regular intervals and store those at my parents place. The last step protects me against disasters such as fires or theft.

While this may seem like a lot of hoops to go thru, it's really not that much. I'm a nerd, so I over-do it quite a bit. The important thing is to keep multiple copies of your images at all times, preferably in different locations. Once you have a routine set up for how you copy images, it is fairly quick to keep up the routine.

No matter what you use, digital, negatives, stone carved tablets, if you have only one copy, you are asking for trouble.

+1

Digital is no more unreliable than film. Use high quality memory cards. Keep multiple copies of your files, in multiple locations. (External hard drives are great until your house burns down... then what?) Taking a few precautions will help you keep your images around for a long time.

And don't forget digital doesn't fade like film. I alwayd copy mine from the camera to my laptop and then a seperate HD. Also when on holiday I swap cards in my camera most days just incase one gets lost.

Years ago my cousin and I decided that we needed a way to archive family photos. So for photos that really mean something(big vacations, family, scans of 80yo photos) I burn them to DVD and send a copy to my cousin in Tennessee. I also keep a copy of his family pics as well. This way we have redundant copies in two distinct areas of the country.

I also have some online as well, but you can only put so many online.

I far prefer digital to film (I'm in a years' long project of scanning all my film negatives to digital). As with any important digital data, maintaining backups is critical. I have my own "cloud" storage at my office, and back up nightly. My primary storage is on a RAID 5 system on my LAN. And, of course, I'm careful about maintaining security.

Since I've been doing this, I haven't lost a single digital photograph. On the other hand, I've physically lost important negatives and slides and, as my scanning project progresses, I am dismayed by the number of negatives that exhibit scratches, dust and spotting. As a result, before I can really use the images on these negatives, I have to do significant manual retouching and spotting.

DVD-Rs are one of the least reliable items in the digital chain. I would save more than 2 copies, or in other forms as well.

And I agree with others. Negatives are much less reliable than digital. A little leak in the camera or the film canister, and you don't even have the pictures to start with.

Multiple backups are a very good idea.

I guess I'm an unsentimental SOB - I can't think of any photo I have that would affect my life if I lost it. One backup is waaaay plenty for me, and I can live with it being at the same site.

+1

DVDs physically degrade over time. Not a good choice for long-term backup.

I'm the complete opposite. I have family photos(actual paper) from the 1930's. About five years ago, I started scanning them after a burst pipe caused a lot of water damage that just missed my photo albums by literally less than one foot..

As said up-posts, back up is good. Multiple backup is better, in RAW, DNG, JPEG and perhaps TIFF.

I don't recommend backing up to jpeg, which is a lossy compression format. RAW and TIFF are better choices. And I think you meant PNG, not DNG (unless there's some format I've never heard of). PNG is also lossless.

Storage is cheap these days -- there's no reason to use a lossy format for backup.

Edited to add:

I see that DNG is Adobe's digital negative format and is also lossless, plus it stores additional information. Whether or not it becomes widely adopted remains to be seen.

DNG [DigitalNeGative] is Adobe's own open RAW format and used by several camera manufactures such as Leica, Ricoh, Samsung, and Pentax as their native RAW format.