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Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

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Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#91
post #90

On the topic of film, this little short video "Behind the Film - Inside the ILFORD factory" is cool - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXpoALotxf0 They also have a lab that do b&w prints from digital files on photo paper interestingly.

ILFORD is still selling photo paper in rolls with the specific chemicals required for regeneration of baths. It does allow a skilled lab operator to use Durst Lambdas or even a 1hour laser-based minilab like a Noritsu QSS or Fuji Frontier to print on real b&w paper! However, the same skilled operator should be able to calibrate her minilab in order to obtain decent looking b&w prints on color-based paper (RA4 process…

Nice, I hadn't realised that re. minilabs.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a great documentary called "Side by Side" produced by Keanu Reeves where he goes through the history of the movie industry moving from film to digital. There are still a lot of major Hollywoo releases that are made on film. It's producer/director preference a lot of times. In the past, stuff on film meant you could rescan the originals and remaster them in 4K, which you can't do with 1080p digital recordings…

Once you get into 70mm film or 70mm IMAX, you're better off just leaving it alone and projecting it directly. I think 70mm could be scanned to 8K, and I'm not sure there's even a equivalent for 70mm IMAX yet. That's why Nolan still screens his films with 70mm IMAX projectors. He might use digital for effects, but I believe he preserves the analog film in the final prints instead of using a digital intermediate.

I don't see any objective reason for choosing 70 mm analog over 4K digital. Sure, the resolution of 70 mm is higher, but does it really make a difference? A lot of digital cinema is "only" 2048×1080 and you usually don't see the pixels at normal viewing distances. On the other hand, when it comes to linearity and color reproduction, analog film doesn't stand a chance against a digital sensor. 2001: A Space Odyssey might look sharp, but the colors are definitely off.

I guess the real reason why Nolan and Tarantino still use 70 mm is not quality, but personal preference and a bit of self-marketing.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#93
post #80
post #37

How much radiation would it take to flip a bit on an SSD? What about RAM (many people send their laptops through in a suspended-to-RAM state)? I would assume that RAM is more susceptible, since we still store a single bit per RAM cell, while some SSDs now store multiple bits per cell, but I've never tried to do the math on "what would it take to actually make these problems start to appear?" Might be a fun exercise..…

An SSD cell could actually be more susceptible, since it stores multiple bits by using multiple voltage thresholds - it takes much less perturbation to change the value. Cell size might make a big difference though, and I don't know how those compare.

AIUI modern cheap high-density SSDs have loads of noise and only work because of heaps of error correction.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#94

Genuine question: Why do people still use film anymore? I know some big movie studios do sometimes use it (The Hobbit comes to mind), but I don’t understand why anyone would use film when we have DSLRs that can have resolutions over 30 megapixels. EDIT: added “why” at beginning

When switching from film to digital, we took a lot of steps back and are slowly catching up to quality. I guess around the 2010s, theaters started switching to digital projection, which I believe started with 1K (similar to 1080), then 2K, with a small amount of theaters showing 4K projection. Most high-quality 35mm film is equivalent to 4K resolution. Unfortunately, a lot of movies were shot and mastered at 2K or le…

Nitpick: 1920x1080 is approx. 2K, 1K is more like 1024x768. The "4K" resolution syntax refers to horizontal resolution, while the "1080p" syntax refers to vertical resolution.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#95
post #83
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people use hand saws and chisels when powered table saws, compound saws and biscuit joiners are available to us? As someone who shoots film, there are a number of reasons, one being the asthetic you get from film that you can't (even with x hours in Photoshop) get from digital. I shoot large format and there are no (within my budget, at the very least) 8" x 10" digital sensors. Film also more or less forces yo…

An 8" x 10" digital sensor would take a whole silicon wafer. Doubt you'll see one, ever.

Not a single wafer, but the sensor built for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is a ~64x64cm 3.2-gigapixel CCD, made of 189 4x4cm chips on the same sensor bed[0].

I suspect the cost was in the millions of dollars for the one-of-a-kind sensor, but I bet you could get a great deal on a second one since they've already done the R&D!

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_C._Rubin_Observatory#Came...

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#96
post #84

Genuine question: Why do people still use film anymore? I know some big movie studios do sometimes use it (The Hobbit comes to mind), but I don’t understand why anyone would use film when we have DSLRs that can have resolutions over 30 megapixels. EDIT: added “why” at beginning

It's fun and it looks good. Sure, if you only look at the technical specs it's inferior in almost every way, resolution [0], no image stabilisation, poor autofocus, slow shutter speeds, poor high ISO performances, 10 to 36 shots per roll &c. I bought a d3400 to get into photography, never really liked it. One day I visited my parents and my dad showed me an old Nikon FE, the one he used to take my childhood pics with…

You can technically (depending on film) fix a 2 stop underexposure - e.g. with Tri-X there's no problem pushing it to EI 1600. But you can't really do it on a picture-by-picture basis, only for a whole roll.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#97
My first job over a decade ago was managing a photo lab. The x-ray machines would often damage film that people traveled with. Amateur photographers just weren't aware. The damage typically looks like white fuzzy diagonal lines across the image. It's not enough to completely destroy a picture, but it'll ruin it. The most common widespread damage we saw were people that bought like 50 disposable cameras for their Caribbean wedding, then brought them back home to get developed.

The worst overall damage we had at that lab was when high school kids would run customer Tri-X film through the C-41 lab. That would completely wipe the film, no recovery whatsoever possible.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#99

My first job over a decade ago was managing a photo lab. The x-ray machines would often damage film that people traveled with. Amateur photographers just weren't aware. The damage typically looks like white fuzzy diagonal lines across the image. It's not enough to completely destroy a picture, but it'll ruin it. The most common widespread damage we saw were people that bought like 50 disposable cameras for their Cari…

Ever put the fixer in first? That's fun too.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#100
post #8

Genuine question: Why do people still use film anymore? I know some big movie studios do sometimes use it (The Hobbit comes to mind), but I don’t understand why anyone would use film when we have DSLRs that can have resolutions over 30 megapixels. EDIT: added “why” at beginning

I don't know that I believe this is a "genuine question", because it's quite easy to look up that yes, people still use film, and the article itself is a clear indication that Kodak still produces and sells film. As far as not understanding, there are things about film that are different than digital. It's may not necessarily be a technical discussion any more (though others may disagree with me), but artistic choice…

I see the comment I replied to was edited. It originally started off with "Genuine question: do people use film anymore" or a very similar statement. I don't believe that was a genuine question, because it is very well documented that people do.
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