Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "John Moody" 
<moodymz3@y...> wrote:
>
> "I still have the old analog negative to fall back on"
> Unless there is a fire, or they are stolen....  Once experienced, a
> significant building fire will change the way you think about a 
number of
> things.
> 

An insigificantly small but smokey fire will destroy everything. The 
smoke gets everywhere, and is very corrosive! Though I will admit 
that hard drives did live on for a time, and those drives were on and 
turning until the power went out. Drives that are running pump air 
through a series of filters to do things like keep the heads from 
touching the platters, and cooling the motor. I had drives that were 
covered in soot, but at the air outlet were nice and clean! Where do 
you think all the soot went? The longest lived of that bunch went 
another 18-24 months, some only went days. All the other electronics 
were destroyed, cameras gone. CD (burned and factory) and DVD 
(factory) disks survived very well, just clean them off and go make a 
copy to be safe. None of the CD's show any signs of damage.

The only camera to survive was an old Mamiya 645 1000s and a couple 
of lenses.