Over the years, I’ve taken a “buncha” pictures. I also go to the various on-line libraries to check out other people’s. So, it seems like maybe it’s time to share mine. I’m wondering at people’s experiences and their advice on the matter.
Typically, I’ve gone to Fallen Flags, rrpicturearchives, railcarphotos, and railpictures for my visits. Most of what I’m talking about is rolling stock shots, so I suspect railpictures wouldn’t be appropriate.
I have noted that railcarphotos wanted full non-exclusive rights. That makes me hesitate using that site because they can then do ANYTHING with my photo. And yet they’re getting it for free?
Anyway, I do solicit people’s opinions on how to handle this. Some of these pictures go back to the sixties, and I do believe they should be shared.
Thanks, Ed
PS: I did do a search on the forum for a discussion of this and found nothing. My apologies if I picked the wrong search terms, and I do then ask for direction to the topic.
Be patient, especially if your pic has to be ‘approved’ by moderators before being added to the mix. Expect rejections if your pictures don’t meet expectations or guidelines.
Yeah, I ran into the “approval” concept when I checked out the sites a bit. Having been a geek in high school, I’m familiar with the rejection concept. I can handle it.
I should also mention that also prompting this idea is that a bunch of my Ektachrome slides are tending towards a pale pinkishness, so I’m scanning them before some of them totally evaporate. The Kodachrome’s are still perfection, of course.
There’s always Flickr from Yahoo! if you want to share things that may get rejected. I was all worried (for a while) about getting things on some of those sites…then I realized that I was taking the pictures for me and not some moderator’s “fit in the box” specs. I use Flickr almost exclusively now. Not that any of the sites mentioned are bad, but this way I control what I post/share more directly and can control (to the extent that you can) the copyright thing.
Hi Ed, It would help to know your goals with the project. My goal was to defend my print & slide collection from disaster, like a house fire or other catastrophic destruction of my collection. I was a 35mm hold out because my trusty Canon eos-elan was still rock solid reliable after 12-14 years of use. Tward the end of my useing it I would only have the photos scanned and burned to CD, and not printed, thus saveing some $$$ (and haveing to scan later), but the cost advantage was too much to ignore.
Fortunately one of our fellow forum members, Copcar Chris, offered to sell me his Canon d60 when we hooked up in Wyoming about 4 years ago (he was looking to change brands or buy more lenses or something, who knows with that camera / photo / fast glass junkie [;)]) . The key selling point was that all my accessories for the Elos could be used with the D60.
BTW- Thanks again Chris, still one of the best purchase decisions of my life [8D].
Any, about the old stuff. At the point I decided to scan my collection I had about 3,500 prints (only counting those worthy of scanning) and about 4000 slides. I tried a couplehand me down scanners, but they were more hassles then they were worth to get going. So when I got serious I went to Best Buy and spent about $120 on a 8x10 scanner (epson I believe) with trays for scanning slides 3 at a time, as well as 3 4x5s at a time also. Even with that relatively fast scanner, between the loading, scanning, saveing, and any editing & organizing the results it took about 3 hours to scan 24 exps worth of whatever type. And that doesn’t include the learning curve of the scanner software.
But I was commited so I spent at least 3 hours every weekday after work for about 6 months scanning and sorting. At first I tried to scan every print unless it had a major technical flaw. Tward the end I skipped a lot of similar but slightly different shots (unless there was a reason too). And after scanning about 95% of what I did
You mention organizing pictures Chad, and that’s an excellent point. Most sites now offer ‘batch’ or group creation/editing for the purpose of editing. To me, that’s one really nice thing about Flickr: you can make galleries,sets and collections so you can really organize things.
Hi Dan, Thinking about it, I posted more pictures for the ‘western where is its’ then for any other reason. Sometimes ‘shoot and post’ is the way to go [;)]
Oh…another one. I too have a Canon eos-elan with a 28 to 200 mm lens, all like new, and has been in my camera equipment drawer for about 2 years now…Gathering dust…What a waste.
I was one that didn’t see the overtake with digital so quick or would have waited a bit longer for that system…
Hi Q, I am in San Diego today getting my stuff from storage (that’s been here since I left 3 years ago) and was looking at the eos body (which is the only part of my original canon gear that I don’t use since I bought Chris’s D60 body) and was thinking about what great shape it’s in still in. And that body lived a rough life when it was my primary. It’s been up many mountaintops and trails (and even a few hitchikeing trips) in my backpack, rode the dashboard of all my vehicles and work rigs, has been on many mineshaft and lava cave spelunking trips (vary hard on gear),ect. . In 12 + years I shot about 5-6000 exposures worth. Really the only noticable sign of age is the icons on the main thumbwheel are worn off and I can’t see what’s what (since I shot it on the aprature priority setting 99% of the time that wasn’t really a problem for me though). Chances are I’ll never use it again but I can’t let such a good thing go so easily. If the D60 is half as good as the EOS, it should last me the rest of my life.
Agreat big [tup] to Canon quality. And thanks again Chris [8D]
Thanks for the advice and comments. Right now, I’m leaning towards rrpicturesarchives. I’ll note that what I want to post is roster shots, detail shots, studies of rolling stock–mostly the kind of stuff modelers are interested in–like where’s the horn and how many rungs on the ladder and were ALL the doors painted red?.
Hi Ed, Sounds like you are intrested in posting specific shots (roster). That should make organization as simple as it gets. So I’m guessing that you want the corresponding data to be complete enough for complete and accurate cross referencing, thus makeing it a good modelers referance. You should check out the various sites before you commit, to find what suits your needs. I know that entering all the data on rrpicarchive can be fusterateing, especially when it comes to location, because if the local doesn’t match an existing location in there data base (for X country, and X state / providence) then you either have to compromise the location for one existing or submit the local to the mods to add to the acceptable selections.
If you do not have an RRPIctureArchives account already, I wanted to warn you that getting one can be a bit of a hill to climb.
They are much more likely to grant you an account if you can show an example of solid older work (as they have lots of members posting stuff that they took yesterday already).
Once you get the account, you can upload as many images as you want, but getting the account itself is still a waiting process (and from what I have been told, recently that has been a long wait).
Chad, thanks much for that very informative and helpful dissertation. [tup] I might be a little less dissatisfied now that not so many of my older film shots were all that good . . . [:-^]
" . . . who knows with that camera / photo / fast glass junkie ) ." [(-D]
But geez, he does such nice work with it all, doesn’t he !
I’m the same… I’m sure I’ve got all these great images that I remember… but when I scan them up, there’s always a fence in front of the pilot, or sun flare, or I cut off the great mountain or fantastic station that was almost right there in frame.
Scanning my old images is thus a combination of an adventure and a disappointment. Part of it is railfanning those places and times again, but the other part of it is realizing that “Killer Shot” I thought I have of Conrail’s last F7 leading a train through the snow, is actually an overexposed, badly tilted slide in which I pushed the shooter way too soon.
) ." [(-D]