3 ms·

oh! the art of dealing with toxic chemicals for the enviroment, having no privacy if you don't have time &/or a laboratory (specially if you want to process col

by luqtas 2y ago

oh! the art of dealing with toxic chemicals for the enviroment, having no privacy if you don't have time &/or a laboratory (specially if you want to process color) & super tidy manipulation that don't have C-z if you screw stuff is so: T.T /s

xattt 2y ago
Nostalgia follows fading mediums. I couldn’t wait until I could use digital formats for music and photography, because of the promise of perfect copies and streamlined editing workflows. However, I also see the flip side. My ham radio instructor (VE3XT, RIP) talked about how tube amps for audio were on the upswing at the time (2000s) because of the “warm” sounds. He was an RF transmission engineer, and it was bizarre for him that people were shelling out money for what was just distortion. A lot of aspects of his life’s work was seeking ways of replicating signal distortion-free, and he saw it going out the window. I’ve come to terms with the fact that every generation will try to connect with a fading medium. This must be human nature. I’ve also realized that my life doesn’t improve when I pass judgement.
- FredPret 2y ago
  It must be that we see the tech from our teen years through rose-tinted glasses. I fondly recall the computers and games from then but all of that objectively sucks today
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    I saw the model railroads of my youth and wondered if someday people would set up recreational computer layouts in their garages. I've lived long enough to see the "homelab" become a thing.
    - npteljes 2y ago
      That was a good guess. Whatever there is, there's a hobby version of it, especially in this age of capitalism.
  - jfengel 2y ago
    As the saying goes... Everything from before our teens is antiquated; everything from our teens and 20s is normal and right; everything invented after we turn 30 is suspect and unnecessary.
    - portaouflop 2y ago
      While I feel this quote now applies to me, I also think it’s bias mostly. There were tons of stupid things invented in my childhood, but we only kept the „good“ ones around. Similarly old stuff seems antiquated because we found better new solutions in many cases. And the majority of new inventions is unnecessary, we'll see in a decade or so which ones are gonna stick
      - npteljes 2y ago
        >While I feel this quote now applies to me, I also think it’s bias mostly. Yes, that's mostly what it is. It's basically how people grow up and react to change. And there are many biases at play, like the recency bias, where the current events seem more impactful than the past events, or the survivorship bias of the old refrigerator of grandma, chugging along all these years, they don't make stuff like this anymore. And the funny thing is that despite bias, there is good information in the experiences as well, because things really do change over time, and certain things really do have certain upsides, which were lost when the thing changed.
- luqtas 2y ago
  yeah & specially film photograph, there's something heck of magical! from being extra mindful on taking shoots, to a slow process at the lab, which is also a trance like experience... tho i think it's totally doable to replicate that in the digital world! i had a friend that used to carry a tiny rectangle, framed the photo & kept walking. i'm also used to just frame shots in my smartphone and let it go without actually shooting it... but the whole part of ruining a possible special moment of your life or just a good photo because messing with contrast in the darkroom can screw your shot forever or mechanical problems in the camera (like light leaking), wrong film etc., is just old tech that should go away
- portaouflop 2y ago
  If you can’t connect to your past you can’t live in the future
armadsen 2y ago
Or you know, if you care about all this stuff, just don’t shoot film! I shoot, process, and scan my own film, both color and B&W, and I don’t have any special facilities. Just a sink and a table… As for environnemental concerns, B&W film is pretty straightforward chemically, and the developer I use is just ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and phenidone. It’s non-toxic. The fixer gets full of silver, but I take that to a lab periodically and they put it through a silver recovery system. I think the environmental impact of the film I shoot is dwarfed by all the other things I do in life (burning fossil fuels, using water in a desert, taking and excreting prescription medicines, etc., etc.)
majormajor 2y ago
The article is about people shooting film but only taking digital copies or prints from the shops that develop the film, so if you were hoping those things weren't happening, well, oops.
throw46365 2y ago
Digital cameras use more (and much worse) toxic chemicals. It’s just that you don’t get involved with them personally. I doubt most digital camera owners ever shoot enough to get to the point where there’s an environmental net benefit compared with film. This is one of the reasons why I only shoot with secondhand digital kit now. ETA to whoever downvoted me: I accept you think I might be talking made-up nonsense! But to get an idea of what I mean, I would urge you to look at why there are so many Superfund sites in Silicon Valley.
- lambdaone 2y ago
  Can you quantify your claim, or provide sources to back it up, or are you just guessing? I'm not saying your claim is necessarily wrong -- it would actually be very interesting if true -- but I think the burden of proof lies on you to provide evidence for this.
  - wolfendin 2y ago
    They’re not guessing: https://www.laits.utexas.edu/~anorman/long.extra/Projects.F97/DAVID/paper.html#:~:text=Through%20the%20process%20of%20heat,in%20to%20the%20silicon%20crystal https://www.laits.utexas.edu/~anorman/long.extra/Projects.F9.... https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Overview-Of-The-Semi-Industry-And-Its-Approach-To-Chem-Mgmt-and-EHS.pdf https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Ov...
  - throw46365 2y ago
    TBH I cannot, which is why I talked of doubt in the quantity comparison, and it’s a fair point to pull me up on. My broader point was that people associate film with chemicals often because they have been within sniffing distance of a darkroom or developed film at school. They do not associate consumer electronics with chemicals, when silicon chip manufacturing involves some true nasties that you would not be able to safely go near to with gloves and tongs like a fixer. It’s just my instinct based on what I know of the processes involved in manufacturing the main bits that are different between even a late era film SLR and a contemporary mirrorless camera —- displays, high density batteries, sensors, additional microcontrollers and usually two powerful CPUs. The nastiest bit is the sensors, which are very large chips. But given the sheer amount of electronics in it and what we know of the impacts of toxic waste pollution in Taiwan and other silicon manufacturing centres, and even just CO2 emissions, it seems likely to me that the contents of a digital camera are likely worth hundreds of rolls of film and their prints in terms of pollution impact once you consider all the processes that are involved in controlling that pollution. The average secondhand consumer digital camera in my experience has shot in the low thousands, where that data is easily found still; it’s getting harder to find shutter activation data and it may not really be a useful guide anymore. But in the DSLR era it was normal to find secondhand kit with use equivalent to 50 to 80 rolls of film at the very most. This is why secondhand camera companies and hire shops are so important, because they extend the useful life of what is otherwise e-waste. And I think there's a lot of delayed e-waste out there; people who own DSLRs but haven't chucked them because they are occasionally still better than their phones.

by luqtas 2y ago

xattt 2y ago

Nostalgia follows fading mediums. I couldn’t wait until I could use digital formats for music and photography, because of the promise of perfect copies and streamlined editing workflows. However, I also see the flip side. My ham radio instructor (VE3XT, RIP) talked about how tube amps for audio were on the upswing at the time (2000s) because of the “warm” sounds. He was an RF transmission engineer, and it was bizarre for him that people were shelling out money for what was just distortion. A lot of aspects of his life’s work was seeking ways of replicating signal distortion-free, and he saw it going out the window. I’ve come to terms with the fact that every generation will try to connect with a fading medium. This must be human nature. I’ve also realized that my life doesn’t improve when I pass judgement.

FredPret 2y ago
It must be that we see the tech from our teen years through rose-tinted glasses. I fondly recall the computers and games from then but all of that objectively sucks today
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  I saw the model railroads of my youth and wondered if someday people would set up recreational computer layouts in their garages. I've lived long enough to see the "homelab" become a thing.
  - npteljes 2y ago
    That was a good guess. Whatever there is, there's a hobby version of it, especially in this age of capitalism.
- jfengel 2y ago
  As the saying goes... Everything from before our teens is antiquated; everything from our teens and 20s is normal and right; everything invented after we turn 30 is suspect and unnecessary.
  - portaouflop 2y ago
    While I feel this quote now applies to me, I also think it’s bias mostly. There were tons of stupid things invented in my childhood, but we only kept the „good“ ones around. Similarly old stuff seems antiquated because we found better new solutions in many cases. And the majority of new inventions is unnecessary, we'll see in a decade or so which ones are gonna stick
    - npteljes 2y ago
      >While I feel this quote now applies to me, I also think it’s bias mostly. Yes, that's mostly what it is. It's basically how people grow up and react to change. And there are many biases at play, like the recency bias, where the current events seem more impactful than the past events, or the survivorship bias of the old refrigerator of grandma, chugging along all these years, they don't make stuff like this anymore. And the funny thing is that despite bias, there is good information in the experiences as well, because things really do change over time, and certain things really do have certain upsides, which were lost when the thing changed.
luqtas 2y ago
yeah & specially film photograph, there's something heck of magical! from being extra mindful on taking shoots, to a slow process at the lab, which is also a trance like experience... tho i think it's totally doable to replicate that in the digital world! i had a friend that used to carry a tiny rectangle, framed the photo & kept walking. i'm also used to just frame shots in my smartphone and let it go without actually shooting it... but the whole part of ruining a possible special moment of your life or just a good photo because messing with contrast in the darkroom can screw your shot forever or mechanical problems in the camera (like light leaking), wrong film etc., is just old tech that should go away
portaouflop 2y ago
If you can’t connect to your past you can’t live in the future

armadsen 2y ago

Or you know, if you care about all this stuff, just don’t shoot film! I shoot, process, and scan my own film, both color and B&W, and I don’t have any special facilities. Just a sink and a table… As for environnemental concerns, B&W film is pretty straightforward chemically, and the developer I use is just ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and phenidone. It’s non-toxic. The fixer gets full of silver, but I take that to a lab periodically and they put it through a silver recovery system. I think the environmental impact of the film I shoot is dwarfed by all the other things I do in life (burning fossil fuels, using water in a desert, taking and excreting prescription medicines, etc., etc.)

majormajor 2y ago

The article is about people shooting film but only taking digital copies or prints from the shops that develop the film, so if you were hoping those things weren't happening, well, oops.

throw46365 2y ago

Digital cameras use more (and much worse) toxic chemicals. It’s just that you don’t get involved with them personally. I doubt most digital camera owners ever shoot enough to get to the point where there’s an environmental net benefit compared with film. This is one of the reasons why I only shoot with secondhand digital kit now. ETA to whoever downvoted me: I accept you think I might be talking made-up nonsense! But to get an idea of what I mean, I would urge you to look at why there are so many Superfund sites in Silicon Valley.

lambdaone 2y ago
Can you quantify your claim, or provide sources to back it up, or are you just guessing? I'm not saying your claim is necessarily wrong -- it would actually be very interesting if true -- but I think the burden of proof lies on you to provide evidence for this.
- wolfendin 2y ago
  They’re not guessing: https://www.laits.utexas.edu/~anorman/long.extra/Projects.F97/DAVID/paper.html#:~:text=Through%20the%20process%20of%20heat,in%20to%20the%20silicon%20crystal https://www.laits.utexas.edu/~anorman/long.extra/Projects.F9.... https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Overview-Of-The-Semi-Industry-And-Its-Approach-To-Chem-Mgmt-and-EHS.pdf https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Ov...
- throw46365 2y ago
  TBH I cannot, which is why I talked of doubt in the quantity comparison, and it’s a fair point to pull me up on. My broader point was that people associate film with chemicals often because they have been within sniffing distance of a darkroom or developed film at school. They do not associate consumer electronics with chemicals, when silicon chip manufacturing involves some true nasties that you would not be able to safely go near to with gloves and tongs like a fixer. It’s just my instinct based on what I know of the processes involved in manufacturing the main bits that are different between even a late era film SLR and a contemporary mirrorless camera —- displays, high density batteries, sensors, additional microcontrollers and usually two powerful CPUs. The nastiest bit is the sensors, which are very large chips. But given the sheer amount of electronics in it and what we know of the impacts of toxic waste pollution in Taiwan and other silicon manufacturing centres, and even just CO2 emissions, it seems likely to me that the contents of a digital camera are likely worth hundreds of rolls of film and their prints in terms of pollution impact once you consider all the processes that are involved in controlling that pollution. The average secondhand consumer digital camera in my experience has shot in the low thousands, where that data is easily found still; it’s getting harder to find shutter activation data and it may not really be a useful guide anymore. But in the DSLR era it was normal to find secondhand kit with use equivalent to 50 to 80 rolls of film at the very most. This is why secondhand camera companies and hire shops are so important, because they extend the useful life of what is otherwise e-waste. And I think there's a lot of delayed e-waste out there; people who own DSLRs but haven't chucked them because they are occasionally still better than their phones.