Before I get to the topic in question i thought i give a brief idea what i do. I do a lot of local research using RAF aerial photos taken around the UK of all camps and military land at the end of WW2. Sometimes i am lucky in that some photos taken are wartime, like 1941 or 42. I have discovered many long lost features of certain areas i would have never known like my best find the Conford range at Longmoor, a Canadian coaxial machine gun moving target range for tank gunnery. All my photo prints i order are usually 10 x 10 high resolution, which come from Historic England archive. When investigating an area of interest, i find the grid reference number and ask for aerial photos taken in that area and the time frame ie 1939 - 1950. I then receive a list of Photos taken, which show date hight etc. Any photos that are of interest, i request a low res photo copy of the photo in question. If the photo copy is suitable for my needs and possible features i am interested in, i order a photo print, quite expensive at £24 a print but worth the money as i couldn't do with out them. Covid put a stop to that and Historic England basically shut down all its services over the duration ie nearly two years. Now the service has changed, they no longer do photographic prints only digital, the price for digital copies has gone up to £36 and they no longer do low res photocopies so i dont have an idea what i am ordering, especially at that price. My Topic question is, will i still get high resolution photo in digital over a photographic print. Is digital better? Its important that i get the detail which so far with photographic prints has worked out well. I am now very disappointed with the service of Historic England, it seems the price keeps going up plus they dropped the photo copying. Is there any other archives about that hold the same RAF wartime camp photos that offer a better service as i will give them a try.
