Recovering Family Photos from Film

Recovering Family Photos from Film

Film Scanner

Recently, I borrowed some old photo albums from my mom. These photos were captured either on negative film or Polaroid instant film.  For posterity sake, I am converting these old photos to digital.

For either negative film or slide film, a computer accessory to scan film can still be purchased today, but I had an old Nikon scanner collecting dust. This scanner is more than a decade old and the interface to a computer is Firewire, not USB. As Firewire has fallen out of favor, most computers do not have a Firewire port. However, my aging laptop does have a Firewire port. Yet I had to overcome two problems. First, having upgraded the laptop to Windows 10 last year, Win10 does not include a driver for Firewire. Second, the port on the laptop is a different size than the cable from the scanner.

With some difficulty, I eventually did install a legacy Firewire driver. And a bit of research online told me that Firewire connectors can be 4-pin, 6-pin, or 8-pin.  Purchasing a 4-pin to -6pin adapter (which can be seen in the photo here) allowed connecting the scanner to the computer.

Nikon no longer supports this scanner and the last software release was intended for Windows Vista (a short-lived version of the OS in between Windows XP and Windows 7).  After considerable research and effort, I could not get this software to function on Windows 10. However, in the past, I had also used a third-party application called VueScan and I found that I still had that 10-yr-old software installer.  After installing that and configuring it to run in Windows-7 Compatibility Mode, I was able to successfully operate the scanner.

If you don’t have a film scanner, you can buy a new or used scanner … or send your film to a lab that provides scanning services.  While I was still struggling to get my old scanner operational, I looked online and saw a used Epson V600 for less than $100.  This was my backup plan, which I now do not need.  The important feature here is that the V600 can scan both 35mm and medium-format films, which is important to me but may not be important to you.

Many labs provide scanning services; just search online.  I have done this in the past with good results. The resulting digital photos may be provided to you via internet download or on a CD-ROM.  (Be aware that labs may charge you a fee for each physical disk, perhaps $5.)

Two services can convert still-photo film, motion-picture movie film, and VHS videotape:  LegacyBox and Kodak Digitizing Box (yes, Kodak, an old trusted name in photography). But I have not personally tried either of these services. If you only need to digitize 35mm negatives or 35mm color transparency film, other service providers may be less expensive.

Personally, I don’t want to digitize ALL the old film photos because most of them are discardable snapshots that do not show important memories. It makes sense to extract the few negatives or slides, scan them, and then return the original to where I found it. For this reason, I chose to do the scans myself rather than send it out to a scanning service.

A smaller number of photos were shot on Polaroid instant film. This is outside the capability of a film scanner.  However, these can be scanned using a flatbed scanner or an all-in-one computer printer (printer, fax machine, scanner all in one). It just so happens that I acquired a new all-in-one last year and I have found that this is adequate to scan the Polaroid photos.

Hypothetically, let’s say you’ve just scanned a photo of somebody’s 18th birthday. (My mom was very careful to annotate each photo with the date and subject, usually written on the backside of the photo.)  You’ll want to save that descriptive information with the photo.  The final step in scanning an image is to rescue the “metadata” – the descriptive information.  The digital photo will be either a JPEG or TIFF file. Both these formats include metadata and you will need some sort of software application that allows you to write that information, notably a particular item called “Description”.  I personally used Adobe Bridge but there are numerous other alternatives.

How to share your mobile device (smartphone, tablet) video/audio to a TV screen

How to share your mobile device (smartphone, tablet) video/audio to a TV screen

Many devices today support sharing video and audio to a separate device. Getting it to function can sometimes be simple and sometimes be difficult, depending upon the specific devices.  Sharing from an Apple iPhone (or iPad) to Apple TV should be easy to setup.  Sharing from a Samsung smartphone/tablet to a Samsung smart TV should also be easy to setup.  But the word “should” doesn’t always mean much.

Wired connection using an HDMI cable

Regardless of whether the TV is a “smart TV” or not, you may be able to connect the mobile device to the TV via an HDMI cable, set your TV to use the HDMI input rather than television. However not every smartphone or tablet supports this. For example, Motorola smartphones apparently do not support it.

Current iPhone models have a Lightning port and you will need a Lightning-to-Digital-AV-Adapter.  (Rumor suggests that upcoming new iPhone models will instead have a USB-C port.)

An Android phone probably has a USB port. (Specifically, newer models within the past 18 months will have USB-C.) You will need a USB-to-HDMI adapter … or possibly an MHL cable, but most devices do not support MHL.

Wirelessly connect a smartphone/tablet/computer to a television

If a TV is not a smart TV but does have HDMI input ports, you can attach an external device to the TV which effectively adds “smart” to your dumb TV. Common external devices that support wireless sharing include:
Google Chromecast, EZCast, Apple TV, Samsung AllShare, Amazon Firestick, and Roku.

Using your smartphone/tablet/computer as the sending device and your smart TV as the receiving device, there are two basic requirements:

  • The two devices must be on the same local network (e.g. your home wi-fi).
  • The two must utilize the same stream-casting protocol.

The three dominant protocols today are:  Miracast, Airplay 2, and Google Cast (a.k.a. Chromecast built-in) .  Samsung’s Smart View is based upon Miracast.

Chromecast will not function without an internet connection; this is not true for Miracast and Airplay 2. Miracast is built upon a standard called “Wi-Fi Direct”, allowing two devices to communicate directly rather than over a network. (AirPlay is proprietary, specific to Apple.)

I have an Android tablet that has successfully connected with two different smart TVs, Amazon Firestick, and an audio amplifier; but my smartphone can only connect to one of those four.  The phone supports only Chromecast while three of the other devices support only Miracast. The following table attempts to show such compatibilities and incompatibilities.

Casting

Stream “casting” and “screen mirroring” are two forms of wirelessly sending media (video and/or audio) from one device to another. Although they are different, the term casting may sometimes be loosely misused.

Technically, casting (a.k.a. stream casting) is a feature of a specific application, with support from the mobile device. YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and iHeartRadio are a few of the apps that support casting.  [Note to some friends using the Zoom videoconferencing app: this does Not support casting but you can certainly use screen mirroring; keep reading.]

Example: On an Android device supporting Chromecast, go to the settings (swipe down from the top of the screen).  Enable: Cast.  That should present a list of available destinations (e.g. a TV). The mobile device will send an invitation to the destination and may display the animated icon (illustrated above).  Then launching the mobile YouTube app, it shows the connected icon (illustrated above) in the title bar at the top of the app.  Upon launching any video within the app, the video and audio are wirelessly cast to the TV.

In the case of a video&audio app such as YouTube, casting to an audio-only device, the video plays on the mobile device as normal while the audio plays from the audio device. I don’t recommend this, as the audio is delayed and no longer synchronized with the video.

Display Mirroring

Display mirroring (a.k.a. screen mirroring) is a feature of your mobile device that wirelessly replicates your local device display on a remote screen (e.g. television).  As this mirrors your entire screen, you can use ANY applications and those apps need not include any special features. (Possibly, you may also be able to use your TV as the source and mirror that to another device, but I cannot think of a scenario where that would be useful.)

The following photo shows the activation of mirroring on a particular model of LG smart TV.  As you can see, the TV has identified that a Galaxy Tablet is nearby and enabled for casting/mirroring.  The tablet may then prompt to authorize the connection, shown in the next photo.

The next photo shows the activation of Screen Mirroring on Amazon Firestick.

Samsung

Smart View is Samsung’s brand of Miracast.  Smart Things is Samsung’s home automation, with the ability to control many smart home devices, including smart TVs.

In the TV on-screen menu, go to Connection Guide and enable screen sharing (screen mirroring).

In the tablet settings, enable SmartView, which should then present a list of available destinations, including the nearby smart TV.  Easy peasy.

In one particular instance, I easily established mirroring from a Samsung tablet to a Samsung smart TV … but it eventually ceased for an entirely unknown reason and would not reactivate. I rebooted the tablet but that did not resolve the problem.  Restarting the TV also did not resolve the problem.  Seeing no resolution, I searched online to see if anyone else had encountered this problem and perhaps offered a solution.

In online discussion forums, a couple of separate people reported difficulty with S6 or S8 smartphones wherein the problem was solved by using the Samsung Smart View app instead of the phone’s built-in settings. However, the Android app store included a note suggesting a different app for connecting with newer model TVs – Samsung  Smart  Things. I installed that and tried it. Although this was also unsuccessful, it did report a useful help message: try unplugging the TV power (and then plug in again). To my surprise, that did resolve the problem.

 

Other protocols

  • Amazon Fling is very similar to Google Cast but never achieved wide acceptance
  • DLNA may be available in older products but not used in newer products
  • Intel WiDi (Wireless Display) was officially discontinued in 2016
  • DIAL (DIscovery And Launch)
Memory Cards – What Speed Do I Need?

Memory Cards – What Speed Do I Need?

CF, SD, and micro SD memory cards
CF, SD, and micro SD memory cards

The photo here shows some of the memory cards I have used in my digital cameras.  The oldest is the SD card at center, rated at 20MB/sec.  The newest and fastest is at the top (SanDisk, CF card), rated at a maximum speed of 120 MB/sec.

Historically, CF cards have supported faster data transfer (read and write) than SD cards.  The reason is simple – a CF card can transfer 16 bits all at once, whereas a SD card can only transfer 4 bits at once.  Count the electrical contacts on an SD card – there are 9 pins.  Count the pin holes on a CF card – there are 50 pins.

SD-class-symbolsStandard SD cards (SDHC, SDXC) are deemed UHS class I.  A recent evolution of the SD card format has introduced SDXC UHS class 3.  These cards have 7 additional electrical contacts and allow faster data transfer up to a theoretical limit of 300 MB/sec (equal to the limit for CF cards).  These cards should be backward compatible with older cameras that support only the 9-pin UHS-I interface, but you will not see the speed advantage of the faster interface.

For historical reasons, the maximum speed of a memory card may be shown as a multiplier, such as 100x, 266x, etc.  The baseline is 150 KB/sec.  So 300x means 45 MB/sec (45,000 KB/sec).

Instead of an”x” rating, CF cards will typically be labelled with a simple speed rating in MB/sec.  For SD cards, a speed class rating is newer than the old “x” rating .  Class 6 means that the card can support at least 6 MB/sec.  Class 10 means 10 MB/sec or more.

The speed class rating has been supplanted by the UHS speed class rating (Ultra High Speed).  UHS Class 1 means the card will support a write speed of 10 MB/sec or better.  UHS Class 3 (a.k.a. U3) means the card will support a write speed of 30 MB/sec or better.

 How fast does a memory card need to be?

Writing to the card and reading from the card are really two different considerations.  If you’re capturing 1080 HD compressed video, a momentary burst up to 30 MB/s is possible, but the sustained data rate is not that high.  You need a Class 10 card.  For 4K ultra-HD video recording, you need UHS Class 3.  If your card can’t quite keep up, your camera will likely abort recording.

If you are a sports photographer, capturing ten images per second may amount to 300 MB/sec but this speed need not be maintained constantly.  If your card cannot keep up, your camera will report “busy” for a second or two, during which new images cannot be captured.

At the end of the day, you need to upload the photos and video to a computer.  That’s when you want to have the fastest speed reading from a card.

 Card Readers

For years, photographers relied upon Rob Galbraith (http://robgalbraith.com) for his work measuring the read/write speeds of both memory cards and card readers.  Then Rob moved to a full-time job and could no longer maintain the database.  Recently there has been an update, seen here by PhotoShelter:

http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/10/photoshelter-card-reader-database-why-you-should-upgrade/

Three tables are presented.  The first shows data transfer rate when reading from memory cards to a 2013 Mac Pro.  The second is the same, but using a 2014 Macbook Pro.  The third table regards XQD cards, which are new and relatively uncommon (notably, the Nikon D4 supports XQD cards).  Higher number means faster data copy – the numbers are MB/sec.

The fastest card readers for (SD and CF cards) are:

The best speed requires that you connect the card reader to a USB 3.0 port on your computer.  USB 2.0 is limited to 50 MB/sec, while USB 3.0 is limited to 145 MB/sec.

“You’re wasting time and not using your expensive gear to its full potential if you haven’t upgraded your cards and readers in the past two years or so.”
(Photoshelter, Allen Murabayashi)

I don’t entirely agree with Mr. Murabayashi.  If you haven’t upgraded your cameras, then you probably don’t need to update your cards and readers.  My general practice is to always buy new cards when I buy a new camera.

 

Infinite storage for photos and video

Maybe you are running out of storage space on your computer … because of video or fat megapixel photos.  Or maybe you need to backup your files, for safety (in case your computer storage drive should die).  You might save to optical disk (CD, DVD, or BluRay disc) but the storage capacity is quite limited.   A standard DVD will store less than 5GB.  A BluRay disc stores up to 25GB and a dual-layer BluRay disc will store 50GB. But that is still not enough.

You may be contemplating adding a disk drive with larger capacity.  But sooner or later, you will fill up that amount and still need more. Cramming bigger disk drives into your computer is only a temporary solution.  External disk drives provide a long-term solution of unlimited storage. 

Let me suggest a relatively low-cost option called an external hard drive dock.  A dock is basically an adapter that allows you to use internal type drives externally.  Why? Because internal type drives simply cost less than external drives. If you divide the price by the number of gigabytes, external drives range from 6 – 20 cents per gigabyte, while internal disk drives range from 4 – 14 cents per gigabyte. Removing a drive from the dock, then inserting another drive, requires mere seconds.

How does an external disk drive or dock connect to your computer?  Here is a quick survey of available interfaces.
USB 2.0 : up to 480 megabit/sec
USB 3.0 : up to 4.8 gigabit/sec
eSATA II : up to 3 gigabit/sec 
eSATA III : up to 6 gigabit/sec
1394a FireWire 400 : up to 400 megabit/sec
1394b FireWire 800 : up to 800 megabit/sec
1394d Firewire 6400 : up to 6.4 gigabit/sec
Thunderbolt : up to 10 gigabit/sec

Strangely, these interfaces are typically rated for throughput in units of Mb/sec (megabits per second), while disk drives are rated in terms of MB/sec (megabytes per second).  The difference is simply a factor of eight.

Inside your computer, long-term data storage devices are typically based upon SATA. 
SATA II (a.k.a. SATA 3Gbps) provides data transfer capability much faster than most disk drives.  (A SATA II disk drive will typically move data to-and-from your computer at a rate less than 700 megabit/sec.)  SATA III was introduced to support solid-state drives (300 to 500 megabyte/sec).  External SATA (eSATA) allows external devices to connect directly into your SATA storage system.  This is ideal for connecting external storage, but most computers do not include any eSATA ports.

Firewire has some interesting technical features, but current products do not offer speeds above 800. Thunderbolt is very new, currently available only with the new 2011 Apple MacBook Pro. (Just within the past couple months, there has been a rumor that Sony will soon offer Thunderbolt on an upcoming Vaio laptop computer.) 

In 2011, USB 3.0 seems to be the clear winner.  Simplistic speed ratings suggest that USB 3.0 is faster than eSATA II, but some tests have reported that this is not necessarily true for currently available USB 3.0 products.  While USB 3.0 usually outperforms eSATA when reading data, eSATA may have a slight advantage when writing data.

If you already have an eSATA interface, you can buy an adapter that converts between eSATA and USB 3.0. (available from Bytecc, Addonics, and NewerTech.)  Cost is about $35 – $40.  But for a bit less money ($30), you can buy an expansion card that adds USB 3.0 ports easily to your existing computer (if you have an available PCIe expansion slot). 

If you are buying a new computer in 2011, read the specifications carefully to make sure you get USB 3.0.  While you can connect a USB 3.0 devices to a USB 2.0 device, they will communicate at the lower speed.

If you are looking for a high-capacity disk drive, here is a 2010 comparison of 2TB drives:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Definitive-2TB-Hard-Drive-Roundup

Windows vs Mac -and- Nikon vs Canon

Windows 7 will be available later this year and most reports agree that it is the operating system that Windows Vista should have been.

Considering Mac OS X and Windows 7, some people dare to say that the culture war between Mac and PC has now become somewhat moot. Feature-for-feature, Mac and PC are now entirely comparable. It’s akin to the culture war between Nikon and Canon cameras. Those people who maintain extreme brand loyalty usually do so because of experiences 10 years ago and not because of objective comparison.

If you’re looking to buy a new SLR camera, and you already have some Nikon lenses, you will likely buy a Nikon. Same goes for Canon.

f you’re looking to buy a new computer, and you already have a software and accessories for Mac, you will likely buy a Mac. Same goes for PC.