
100-year-old negatives discovered in Antarctic (2013) - voidlogic
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/12/27/on-ice-100-year-old-negative-discovered-in-antarctic-ice
======
owenversteeg
Actual source: [http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/12/27/on-
ice-100-y...](http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/12/27/on-ice-100-year-
old-negative-discovered-in-antarctic-ice)

If you'd like to see the images as large as they are (warning: SWF):
[http://www.nzaht.org/assets/gallery6/flash/slideshow.swf?r=8...](http://www.nzaht.org/assets/gallery6/flash/slideshow.swf?r=8279&xmlFileName=gallery_24&index=1&webroot=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nzaht.org%2F&playOnLoad=true)

~~~
anigbrowl
Wow, what's with the awful low resolution scans? As public domain historical
material, I thought they'd want to offer them at the best resolution possible.

~~~
maxerickson
I guess they were resized for the flash widget:

[http://www.nzaht.org/](http://www.nzaht.org/)

From the press release about the images:

 _Background to the conservation process

The photographs found in Captain Scott’s expedition base at Cape Evans,
Antarctica required specialist conservation treatment. The Antarctic Heritage
Trust (NZ) engaged Photographic Conservator Mark Strange to undertake the
painstaking task of separating, cleaning (including removing mould) and
consolidating the cellulose nitrate image layers. Twenty-two separate sheets
were revealed and sent to New Zealand Micrographic Services for scanning using
a Lanovia pre-press scanner. The digital scans were converted to digital
positives._

So it at least sounds like they would have captured most of the available
detail.

~~~
anigbrowl
Ah, I shouldn't have said scans. What I meant was why are they only serving
these crappy low-resolution images to the public, rather than making the
originals available. I hope this was inadvertent rather than deliberate.

------
bouk
Uploaded all of the images in the highest quality to imgur:
[http://imgur.com/a/zlGL8](http://imgur.com/a/zlGL8)

Also added descriptions that I found in
[http://www.nzaht.org//content/plugins/gallery6/xml/gallery_2...](http://www.nzaht.org//content/plugins/gallery6/xml/gallery_24.xml?x=1402031857015)

~~~
dingdingdang
Thanks, appreciated, can't believe they wrapped them in flash on primary
site?!

------
daveslash
That's it: I'm going to go find Douglas Mawson's camera! All joking put aside,
it's a really amazing, but sad, story. However, it would appear that his
camera and film are still out there.
[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/125-mawson-
trek/ro...](http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/125-mawson-trek/roberts-
text)

------
Aloha
How many of our photos from today will be view able in 100 years? I worry we
are entering into the start of a digital black hole as far as our history.
We've done a wonderful job in ensuring that we can digitize everything, but
not so good with reformatting it all as the march of technology moves on. Film
and Silver prints, are quite durable comparatively.

~~~
farnsworth
Digital data is easy to copy around as long as you keep up with it, but people
don't realize that most media will definitely not last 100 years stuck in a
closet. Especially those CD backups you burned in 2005. You might have trouble
getting even 10 years out of those. Even your hard drives will crap out sooner
or later. Keeping data in a name-brand cloud service might be the best low-
maintenance solution for now, as long as you move it if they ever go out of
business. But what if the person with the password gets hit by a bus?

When I die, all my pictures and thoughts and work will be lost on my personal
laptop. It isn't encrypted, but my family wouldn't know how to get past the OS
password. The age of perusing the belongings of dead people is past, for
better or worse.

And how about letters? We have tons of letters from famous people pre-2000,
but now their thoughts and communications will be lost locked up on email
servers unless either party goes out of their way to save them. Privacy is
good, but losing data of historical value is unfortunate.

~~~
mrgriscom
I actually put a lot of thought into these issues.
[http://mrgris.com/blog/2013-03-27-survivorship-in-the-
digita...](http://mrgris.com/blog/2013-03-27-survivorship-in-the-digital-
age/). My solution is way too complex for a lay-person, though.

~~~
devb
> My solution is way too complex for _practical use_ , though.

------
ShardPhoenix
Amusing how modern the guy in the last image looks - demonstrates the (partly)
cyclical nature of fashion.

~~~
devb
I guess there are only so many ways to arrange a piece of cloth with some
holes in it.

~~~
bashinator
Also the beard. He'd look like a weirdo in the 80s or 90s, but fit in just
fine right now.

------
mongol
Reminds me of the photos from the ill-fated arctic balloon expedition in 1897
to the North Pole. Those negatives were found after 30 years and restorated in
the 1930s.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._A._Andr%C3%A9e's_Arctic_Ba...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._A._Andr%C3%A9e's_Arctic_Balloon_Expedition_of_1897)
.

------
contingencies
I definitely saw a bunch of these at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Tarlton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Tarlton)
acquarium in Auckland back in January.

------
philosophus
Are there better quality images anywhere? On the Antartic Heritage Trust site
it's just a crappy Flash slide show. Would be nice to see high res JPEGs.

~~~
owenversteeg
In my comment
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7855893](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7855893))
I linked to the SWF file by itself, but it seems like even the images in that
are low-res.

------
cskau
Aw darn, I read 'natives' at first. Photos turning out not nearly as exciting
as I had expected..

------
Sonicmouse
Old news: 100-Year-Old Negatives Discovered in Block of Ice in Antarctica

Posted by katie hosmer on December 30, 2013 at 10:00am

~~~
mkoryak
Your post would have been better if it read:

Old news:

Negatives Discovered in Block of Ice in Antarctica Posted by katie hosmer on
December 30, 1913 at 10:00am

~~~
Sonicmouse
What I get down-voted because this was posted on HN 6 months ago and I was
just letting everyone know?

Maybe I should start posting news stories that Steve Jobs has just passed
away.

C'mon HN.

~~~
logicallee
you could have linked the original and done us a service instead of just
bitching.

That said your comment on it's own is not that out of line. However as a user
with no prior karma (-4) you are not really adding to the conversation.

I would start with more constructive posts and comments and then feel free to
post certain neutral ones like this later.

~~~
Gravityloss
What does the karma have to do with the post content?

I agree about the link though.

