p.1 #1 · What’s the future of photography and videography when storage is getting insanely expensive?
Lately I’ve been wondering where this hobby/profession is headed. Cameras keep getting better every year, higher resolution photos, 6K/8K video, RAW video, higher bitrates etc. But the cost of actually storing all this data seems to be exploding.
A few years ago a couple of hard drives felt like plenty. Now a serious photo library plus video projects can easily become tens of terabytes and that’s before backups. Add memory cards, external SSDs and replacement drives every few years and the storage side can start costing almost as much as camera gear.
For those of you who shoot a lot, especially video -
Have you changed how much you shoot because of storage costs? I am asking you Nikon ZR shooters!
Are you culling more aggressively than before? I am asking stacked sensor shooters!
Do you still keep all your RAW files or only selects?
Has anyone moved away from video because of the data burden?
Do you think future cameras will rely more on compression?
Could photography remain relatively affordable while videography becomes a much more expensive hobby?
I’m particularly curious about hobbyists, not just full-time professionals. It feels like we’re reaching a point where capture technology is advancing faster than affordable long-term storage.
Interested to hear how everyone is dealing with this and whether you think storage costs will eventually become one of the biggest factors shaping the future of photography and videography.
I was lucky to buy some V60 512GB SD cards and 1TB CFE-B cards before the price hikes, what about you?
p.1 #2 · What’s the future of photography and videography when storage is getting insanely expensive?
Personally, I’m not worried.
I don’t see a need to buy cameras with resolution higher than what I use now, especially since I’m picky in when I use my high-res cameras. When I still shot a ton of images during my bird photography years, I could in principle easily delete the thousands of burst shots that weren’t the perfect ones.
I’m not big on video.
Storage is expensive now because the planned AI data centers are buying up most of the supply, driving up prices. Yet, the storage manufacturers aren’t increasing their production capacity to cater to the increased demand, because they’re not sure these AI companies are still going to need that demand five years from now. The manufacturers will either decide that the capacity will be needed long term and increase production, leading to lower prices, or they will be right and many data centers will never actually be built, thus lowering demand and driving prices down.
p.1 #3 · What’s the future of photography and videography when storage is getting insanely expensive?
Yup, we're all in a big waiting game. Everybody is content selling their capacity at max profit levels. Nobody knows if current demand will continue and until there are definite signs of change the pricing level won't move.
p.1 #4 · What’s the future of photography and videography when storage is getting insanely expensive?
Outstanding wrote:
Lately I’ve been wondering where this hobby/profession is headed. Cameras keep getting better every year, higher resolution photos, 6K/8K video, RAW video, higher bitrates etc. But the cost of actually storing all this data seems to be exploding.
A few years ago a couple of hard drives felt like plenty. Now a serious photo library plus video projects can easily become tens of terabytes and that’s before backups. Add memory cards, external SSDs and replacement drives every few years and the storage side can start costing almost as much as camera gear.
For those of you who shoot a lot, especially video -
Have you changed how much you shoot because of storage costs? I am asking you Nikon ZR shooters!
Are you culling more aggressively than before? I am asking stacked sensor shooters!
Do you still keep all your RAW files or only selects?
Has anyone moved away from video because of the data burden?
Do you think future cameras will rely more on compression?
Could photography remain relatively affordable while videography becomes a much more expensive hobby?
I’m particularly curious about hobbyists, not just full-time professionals. It feels like we’re reaching a point where capture technology is advancing faster than affordable long-term storage.
Interested to hear how everyone is dealing with this and whether you think storage costs will eventually become one of the biggest factors shaping the future of photography and videography.
I was lucky to buy some V60 512GB SD cards and 1TB CFE-B cards before the price hikes, what about you?...Show more →
So long as you have enough cards for capture, then you would move that to fast SSD storage in the computer to work on it. I'm not sure how large your projects are, but ~30.72-61.44 TB of internal SSDs hold all my work in progress. Then the finished work goes to hundreds of TB of data on disc and with backups/replicates per 3-2-1 rule 1-2 PB of HDD storage is not all that unusual.
I am usually a bit ahead on storage, so in better shape than some people, but will be editing projects down to the final output and deleting WIP more frequently to save space. Obviously you have to decide on budgets for cards/working storage/final storage, just like equipment purchase, rentals, travel, etc. If you are doing commercially then it's part of your business model. If personally then you may have to change some plans. Overall costs are way up for everything anyway and storage is not nearly the largest percentage of expenses.
p.1 #6 · What’s the future of photography and videography when storage is getting insanely expensive?
Outstanding wrote:
Lately I’ve been wondering where this hobby/profession is headed. Cameras keep getting better every year, higher resolution photos, 6K/8K video, RAW video, higher bitrates etc. But the cost of actually storing all this data seems to be exploding.
Storage costs are “exploding” right now primarily due to the demands of AI-driven data-center construction. That’s an anomaly that manufacturers will eventually deal with. The long term cost trajectory for storage has been and will almost certainly be to increase capacity and speed and decrease cost.
So don’t mistake the current anomaly for “how it will be.”
In inflation-adjusted terms, the costs of storage have plummeted over the years and will continue to do so. Even with the current demand-induced spike in prices, they are still lower per unit of storage than they were years ago.
To be fair, at various times during the “digital revolution” we’ve all been momentarily taken aback by what storage can cost, especially if you need a lot of it! (In inflation-adjusted terms, the cost of an early 5 MEGAbyte hard drive would shock you! I _think_ I actually remember paying something like $400 for a 20 MEGAbyte hard drive in the previous millennium!)
p.1 #7 · What’s the future of photography and videography when storage is getting insanely expensive?
Outstanding wrote:
Lately I’ve been wondering where this hobby/profession is headed. Cameras keep getting better every year, higher resolution photos, 6K/8K video, RAW video, higher bitrates etc. But the cost of actually storing all this data seems to be exploding.
A few years ago a couple of hard drives felt like plenty. Now a serious photo library plus video projects can easily become tens of terabytes and that’s before backups. Add memory cards, external SSDs and replacement drives every few years and the storage side can start costing almost as much as camera gear.
For those of you who shoot a lot, especially video -
Have you changed how much you shoot because of storage costs? I am asking you Nikon ZR shooters!
Are you culling more aggressively than before? I am asking stacked sensor shooters!
Do you still keep all your RAW files or only selects?
Has anyone moved away from video because of the data burden?
Do you think future cameras will rely more on compression?
Could photography remain relatively affordable while videography becomes a much more expensive hobby?
I’m particularly curious about hobbyists, not just full-time professionals. It feels like we’re reaching a point where capture technology is advancing faster than affordable long-term storage.
Interested to hear how everyone is dealing with this and whether you think storage costs will eventually become one of the biggest factors shaping the future of photography and videography.
I was lucky to buy some V60 512GB SD cards and 1TB CFE-B cards before the price hikes, what about you?...Show more →
Compared to the film days, today’s cost and management of images is pretty cheap.
p.1 #8 · What’s the future of photography and videography when storage is getting insanely expensive?
I found the opposite. Digital was many tens of thousands, maybe 100K or more costly than film ever was. It's probably 5x as much. Obviously starting now it would be different.
