I have just returned from a holiday in South Africa with six 36 exposure films from my M6. They have all been processed and stored in a folder in strips of 6. BUT I can honestly say that I only truly rate approx 2 pictures on each film as being worth archiving. Is that a normal ratio ? (Of course some of the pics are holiday snaps but I am referring to good pics worth enlarging and framing etc.)

-- Tony Brookes (gdz00@lineone.net), March 17, 2002

Answers

Sounds quite correct. If you have any more film from that trip, I would advise you to use it at home and not on the next vacation as RADIATION is CUMULATIVE and mounts up fast in the post 911 world.

-- Albert Knapp MD (albertknappmd@mac.com), March 17, 2002.

Sounds about right if you are having them printed by someone else. If you are doing it yourself, probably two pictures from the entire lot is more like it, if you're really good.

-- Wilheem (wmitch3400@hotmail.com), March 17, 2002.

Tony, I shoot B&W and keep all my negatives. I don't necessarily print them all. I have found, that when I look back on those sheets of negatives, I often see images differently and find certain shots originally considered "throwaways" now interesting. Tastes and aesthetics change.

-- Henry Chu (heninden@yahoo.com), March 17, 2002.

even a single keeper on a roll is something to get excied about. if you are just beginning an archive, do yourself a favor: start keeping good records now (including keeping track of where the keepers on each roll are). too many people reach a point where they have boxes with hundreds of strips of negatives with no idea where any of them came from, how they were exposed, and what they contain.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), March 17, 2002.

Tony,

Roger has given the best advice of all. Archive!, and keep them all. I realized it about 20,000 images ago.

On the plus side, paring down that pile of 40,000 unarchived has created many splendid evenings where my wife and I will review a few hundred slides and prints of HS, later our dating days, the kids growing up, vacations, etc., etc. Even running across a few images of my early girl friends draws a smile from her now.

When the pile is down to nothing, I'll probably get a scanner and systematically store them electronically. That type of storage gets cheaper every day.

Best,

Jerry

-- Jerome R. Pfile, Jr. (JerryPfile@msn.com), March 17, 2002.

Tony, I try to purge prints and slides regularly, but keep and file negs. I just stick a label on them and file them away by date. They don't take up that much space.

-- David Killick (dalex@inet.net.nz), March 18, 2002.

I keep everything, a historian or the author who will write my biography will be very happy with it :-)

I now have a film scanner and it's really usefull to check which photo's deserve printing. The nice ones I will print on the computer, the real nice ones I will enlarge and print in the darkroom.

I returned from Istanbul with 21 films (of 36) and 3 120 films (12 6x6) shot in five days. From the 12 films I have processed sofar I have about 40 shots worthwhile to have a closer look at. I will be happy with 8-10 darkroom prints from these 12 and about 15-20 in total. Will be quite a job as I process everything myself.

Reinier

-- ReinierV (rvlaam@xs4all.nl), March 18, 2002.

I agree with Henry. If you have the space save your images. You will be surprised at how they look to you in a couple of years. I toss the obviously bad ones, file the few good ones with my "keepers" and put the rest away in the "for future review" file. I occasionaly find images I am glad I did not toss on the first cull.

Regards Steve

-- Steve Belden (otterpond@adelphia.net), March 18, 2002.