If all goes to plan, I will have my air fare/car rental to Iceland booked next month for a 15 day trip in October. I will be camping/sleeping in car the whole time. More fun that way
There is a good possibility that I won't have a laptop with me. The camera has dual slots, so I could "back up" that way (write same image to both cards). In my searches, I came across THIS INTERESTING solution. I would obviously test this extensively to see how safe it is.
So any suggestions on what to do? I would just hate for something to go wrong with a card. A cheap laptop probably the best way to go?
I just purchased a Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA2 enclosure and went to Best Buy for a 500GB hard drive to put in it. It was easy to install and works great. I liked this option as it takes both CF and SDHC cards without the need for a computer or power source. My plan is to purchase some extras cards so that I don't have to reuse any. I usually like to have 3 copies of my images, but without bringing my laptop I will have to be happy with only 2 copies. I will be going to New Zealand for 2 weeks in April so I wanted to travel light. It isn't exactly a cheap option, but it does have a screen that you can review images on and possibly do some quick culling.
Hi neighbor…Leah, I also use the Hyperdrive. I have two that I back up with on trips. Even if you bring a laptop you can still view images as a external drive. Still the best way to see how you are doing with exposure and sharpness and to correct any problems. I buy the hard drive less bare unit also and go buy a 1 tb from Newegg. Very cheap way to go. I have enough cards to shoot up to 25,000 or so images and still have three backups before reusing cards.
I'm traveling to Spain next April, and hoping to pack light. My strategy (unless someone talks me out of it), is to write my Canon 5D3 images to both CF and SD cards, and my Fuji X100S to SD (its only card), and then back up the SD cards to a new iPad Mini I'm getting. My primary reason to do this is to be able to show my images to the folks I'm traveling with (a high school choir on a performance tour), but the added benefit of having another copy (if only in iPhoto) will provide some additional comfort in case something goes south.
I'd just get extra cards and backup in camera. When you're ready to head home, take one set and ship them back home and put the other set in your coat pocket for the flight.
Josh
Jan 08, 2014 at 12:34 AM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Extra cards and backup in your camera. It's the best and most safe way. And it also takes les space/weight than any ther solution. I do it all the time. Even when travelling for a few months.
What does 'back up in (your) camera' mean? Don't you mean write to two cards?
JoshI wrote:
When you're ready to head home, take one set and ship them back home and put the other set in your coat pocket for the flight.
Each to his own. I wouldn't bother about separating cards and posting copies home - sounds like a great way to lose cards and your privacy. Unless you are leaking things...
Yes, a reliable and enough HD space laptop is way to go.
For me, I plan my travel (light or heavy) to ALWAYS include my laptop. Being able to evaluate your photos on a 13" size screen for sharpness, shooting technique, settings, exposures, problem detection, etc... is invaluable, especially to destinations you might not ever get back to.
Paul Mo wrote:
What does 'back up in (your) camera' mean? Don't you mean write to two cards?
Yes, set the camera to backup to the second card slot. I've seen Dustin post in the Nikon forum and I know he's probably taking a D600 with him. The menu option on a D600 for "Role played by card in Slot 2" set to "backup" will result in a backup of each image made in the camera. I'm not sure what I said that was difficult to comprehend, but I apologize if my wording was confusing.
Each to his own. I wouldn't bother about separating cards and posting copies home - sounds like a great way to lose cards and your privacy. Unless you are leaking things...
It's easy to feel that way until you lose an entire trip or assignment's worth of images because of theft or a lost bag.
I trust an international shipping service like DHL or FedEx a great deal more than I trust baggage handlers at airports. I've never lost a single item to FedEx, but I can't say the same thing about the airlines. I used to carry my memory cards in a carry-on bag until a few years ago when a regional jet i was flying on was full and the airline forced me to gate check my bag. That bag never made its way back to me and lost with it was most of my camera gear and all of the shots from that trip. Insurance replaced the gear, but there's no getting the shots back.
Travel enough with your gear and you will lose something or have it stolen from you. That's why I have insurance on my equipment and that's why I send copies of my images home via a trusted shipping service, just in case. I know that if I was spending my hard-earned money to travel to Iceland and sleeping in a car for 15 days, I'd sure as hell make sure I got something out of it.
Great advice everyone, I appreciate it! I was thinking of getting extra cards for the trip. If my wife or I happen to get a laptop before hand, then that would come in handy. If not, money to spend on other stuff
And yes it will most likely be a D600 I will have.
I spent 15 days in Africa, where a lot of my trip was hiking.
I considered something like an external drive such as the Hyperdrive, but I didn't want to add another thing to carry, another set of batteries to keep track of/charge, and something else that could break.
I tried the "Backup" mode on the camera, which sounded good in theory. Immediate copies of everything. In practice, though, I was deleting a lot of images each day to make the best use of my cards, and "Backup" mode meant that I needed to delete images twice unless I wanted to waste space.
What I settled on is doing a card-to-card copy a couple times per day during downtime (e.g. lunch, at the campsite at night). That meant I could delete images during the day, pop in my backup card, and do the copy. It also meant that the backup card wasn't in the camera all the time, ensuring that a camera tumbling down a cliff didn't make me lose all the data. I kept enough cards so that I never had to re-use, and brought along two card holders; one to hold the cards I had filled, and one to hold the backups I had created.
If I had to do over again, I'd do it the same way but probably buy a couple giant 128+ GB cards, instead of having to manage so many smaller cards for my backup.
I don't complicate things when I travel. Elaborate rigs that involve phones and external hard drives and wires are a lot of moving parts, batteries, and slowness. I'd either go with a Hyperdrive, or back up in camera.
Jan 08, 2014 at 10:02 AM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
JoshI wrote:
Yes, set the camera to backup to the second card slot. I've seen Dustin post in the Nikon forum and I know he's probably taking a D600 with him. The menu option on a D600 for "Role played by card in Slot 2" set to "backup" will result in a backup of each image made in the camera. I'm not sure what I said that was difficult to comprehend, but I apologize if my wording was confusing.
It's easy to feel that way until you lose an entire trip or assignment's worth of images because of theft or a lost bag.
I trust an international shipping service like DHL or FedEx a great deal more than I trust baggage handlers at airports. I've never lost a single item to FedEx, but I can't say the same thing about the airlines. I used to carry my memory cards in a carry-on bag until a few years ago when a regional jet i was flying on was full and the airline forced me to gate check my bag. That bag never made its way back to me and lost with it was most of my camera gear and all of the shots from that trip. Insurance replaced the gear, but there's no getting the shots back.
Travel enough with your gear and you will lose something or have it stolen from you. That's why I have insurance on my equipment and that's why I send copies of my images home via a trusted shipping service, just in case. I know that if I was spending my hard-earned money to travel to Iceland and sleeping in a car for 15 days, I'd sure as hell make sure I got something out of it.
Even if they force you to check your carry-on bag, you can just take out the cards and put them in your pocket. It's not like they force you to check in your CF or SD cards
Lars Johnsson wrote:
Even if they force you to check your carry-on bag, you can just take out the cards and put them in your pocket. It's not like they force you to check in your CF or SD cards
That's very true, but having your bag gate-checked standing on the plane isn't the most relaxed and calming experience. I know when it happened to me I fortunately remembered to pull my keys and passport out of the bag before they took it. I'm sure everyone else is much smarter than I and that would never happen to them, but I suggest avoiding the whole experience just in case your stupid like me.
Dustin, if you bring a small number of cards and "back them up" each night and then delete or reformat the cards, you really aren't backing up anything. Your backup device becomes a single point of failure and if it is made with a hard drive, the chance of failure is higher than had the images stayed on the cards. Just get lots of cards. They are very reliable, durable, and take up almost no space. And put a number on each card and use them in order. In the very unlikely event that a card dies, you've only lost a small percentage of your trip (and most of the images might be recoverable with software later anyway). Go with lots of cards even if you take a laptop.
Redundancy is the key to any back up. Lots of cards and back those up on an external drive like a Hyperdrive is my choice.
As far as being gate checked, wear a photo vest and stuff your important gear in that, as a part of your clothing they would be very hard pressed to make you disrobe in order to get on the plane. I use a vest anyway just so my photo backpack meets the weight restrictions, arrive early and get on the plane as soon as you can, less chance of your bag getting the boot.
Here is a way to interface your ipad to an external hard drive. You can view and cull on the ipad and back up to a hard drive. That way you aren't limited to the 64 or 128G size of the ipad.
JoshI wrote:
That's very true, but having your bag gate-checked standing on the plane isn't the most relaxed and calming experience. I know when it happened to me I fortunately remembered to pull my keys and passport out of the bag before they took it. I'm sure everyone else is much smarter than I and that would never happen to them, but I suggest avoiding the whole experience just in case your stupid like me.
Dustin Gent wrote:
If all goes to plan, I will have my air fare/car rental to Iceland booked next month for a 15 day trip in October. I will be camping/sleeping in car the whole time. More fun that way
There is a good possibility that I won't have a laptop with me. The camera has dual slots, so I could "back up" that way (write same image to both cards). In my searches, I came across THIS INTERESTING solution. I would obviously test this extensively to see how safe it is.
So any suggestions on what to do? I would just hate for something to go wrong with a card. A cheap laptop probably the best way to go?
All that gear vs an additional memory card? Not me! I use either 64gb or 128gb cards in the other slot and write to both. Simple, safe and if I put the 128 in, I'm good to go for many days.
Unless you are doing a type of photography you do a lot of in a familiar situation, I'd take something that would allow me to review images at night at a greater size and resolution than what you have on the back of a camera. Backpacking situations, I can understand and there I use two cards in the camera each for the in camera backup already discussed. I do not edit in camera and carry enough batteries and flash cards to last until I get back to civilization. Normally I have 3 copies. One in checked baggage, one in my Think Tank UD-60 with a body, 24-105, and 100-400, 13" laptop and any other absolutely essential items which is never plane sided checked and a third in my think tank international roll on that does at times get gate checked.
