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New scans of old slides and negatives
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In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field. |
As I mentioned previously, I ordered some high-res scans of some of my old lightning negatives and slides for digital archiving purposes. I got those back today - here are the results:
Greentree (Pittsburgh) PA double close lightning strikes - July 24, 1995 (Kodak 100ASA negative):
Click to enlarge
Hurricane, WV lightning and storm clouds at twilight, August 9, 2001 (Fuji Sensia 100 slide):
Click to enlarge
Close lightning with 'ribbon effect' (wind-blown return strokes) over Dunbar HS football field, Dunbar, WV, June 8, 1994 (Kodak 100ASA negative):
Click to enlarge
Cropped closeup:
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Lightning illuminating a hillside in the Windsor Highlands subdivision along Route 136 east of Washington, PA, July 21, 1993 (Kodak 400ASA negative). This was my first true 'chase':
Click to enlarge
This batch was the last of the remaining 'valuable' older shots (at least they are among my favorites) that had not yet been digitally archived - that is, scanned at a high enough resolution that I would never need the actual slide or negative again to get large prints done (or license out to a commercial buyer, in that absolute rarest case). I still have dozens of unscanned negatives/slides (at least not at high-res levels) that I'm on the fence regarding having them done also. They will likely never sell or otherwise recoup the scanning cost, so it's a matter of how bad I want to preserve a digital 'backup' copy should the film ever be lost or degraded.
As I mentioned before, film's drawback is the grain, which becomes rather prominent at higher resolution/DPI scans. My 12MP DSLR vastly outperforms the old film stock when it comes to grain, when comparing two equally-sized images. As a result, there's not much practical reason to go through the trouble of digitizing the rest of the film-based shots - simply because in the past 3 years of shooting digital, I've accumulated enough images similar to the unscanned film ones that, sad to say, are much better in quality all-around. So, if I do go ahead with scanning the old film frames, it will be for primarily 'sentimental' reasons.
Great shots, even better for the age. It's like once you take a valid interest in photography, you kick yourself for missing countless opportunities prior to doing so. If they would just hurry up and develop technology that can print from our brains :)
- Posted by Paul from sillinois | | |
Thanks! I will probably end up scanning the rest of my old negatives, just because there is just something about those older shots. They aren't much from a 'wow' factor standpoint, but they have great memories attached!
- Posted by Dan R. from New Baden, IL | | |
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