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My cameras all use dual CF cards, and I have enough 16GB cards to put two in each of them. Generally that allows for something like 600-700 shots per card. Previously, with dual 8 GB cards there actually were times when I'd fill up both cards and need a third before I could dump what I had to a computer. But I've been using these 16 GB cards for over a year now and can't recall ever needing more than two.
But that also brings up disk storage on the computer too, which also becomes a significant requirement. External USB/eSATA/Firewire drives in 500Gb, and 1 or 2 TB sizes are all pretty cheap these days, at about $100/TB. The eSATA interface is the fastest, and USB is the slowest, so choose accordingly if your computer can do something other than USB.
Even an older laptop, with an inexpensive 500GB USB drive, works well when traveling too!
Just keep in mind that disk drives fail, and the safe way to store images is to buy two of whatever disk drive is used, and always write a copy of everything to both drives as soon as possible. Some people prefer to travel light and just have a whole pocket full of CF or SD cards for the camera, and wait until the end of an extended trip away from their home computer to deal with putting everything on disk. That makes me too nervous though, as I want duplicate backups as soon as possible.
Okay. Something you should know is that I've already experienced failure of one external hard drive (and had NOT backed up many of my photos). A friend in Chicago who's a disaster recovery expert and computer geek smashed it open and was able to rescue ALL my files and saved them to his hard drive. He then bought the components and put together a new one for me. It's even better than the kind you can buy because the drive is meant for heavy duty use in a computer, not just for back up, and it has both the eSATA and the 3.0 USB. He enclosed it in a metal casing that screws together and which can be reused. I like it especially because, unlike my last one, it has an on/off switch. Unfortunately, it's already over half full. I will likely ask him to build me one with more capacity.
Having learned my lesson, I will now back up my work more than one way. I probably won't want to be shooting everything in RAW plus JPEG and ntot everything at 16 megs either.
I am traveling in three weeks, and here's my plan. I'm not even going to count the SD cards I already have that I will use with my Canon. When I got the DSLR, I bought two Class 10 Sandisk Extreme SDHC cards as they stated they were good for HD video (which I thought I might experiment with while away). My intention was to buy one or two 16 GB ones also, but money may not allow. We'll see. An extra battery is more important to me at the moment.
Since I put most of my photos on my external drive, I still have plenty of room on the hard drive of my desktop compouter, and the laptop I bought that I will be taking on the trip is brand new and has hardly any files on it. It has more than enough memory between the computer and the 8 GB flash drives I have, but I'm contemplating picking up one of those small external drives that are like 4x6 or 5x7 or something like that. I won't need a lot of memory cards as I will likely be clearing them off most every day, and chances are, I won't be going on extensive photo shoots every day anyway.
I think I'm covered. My BIGGEST concern right now is being able to figure out where everything is on the Nikon D5100 and get comfortable enough to easily adjust the settings. I'm not one to just leave it on Auto, though I do like to leave it on Program sometimes.
Having learned my lesson, I will now back up my work more than one way. I probably won't want to be shooting everything in RAW plus JPEG and ntot everything at 16 megs either.
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Does that sound like a good plan?
All except that not shooting everything in RAW plus JPEG. Especially you, given the looks of the photography you post here, are the kind of person who should shoot everything in RAW!
Today you take a hundred shots, and select the best given the type of processing you had the camera set for before you clicked the shutter. But sometimes the camera's JPEG conversion just isn't the right thing for a given scene, or maybe the White Balance, as an example, is not right. Who knows. Also who knows what you'll see in a given image a year or a decade from now!
But the biggest thing is that at some time in the future you will know a lot more about how to process raw sensor data, and when you've gone through that same hundred shots and custom processed half of them, it may be that the selected 10 best will be a very different set of 10 than the original selection without custom processing. It makes huge difference!
But you can't do it ten years from now if you don't have the NEF file now.
Okay, Floyd, I see your point. It just seems like a lot more work to me. I'll tell you what. I'll shoot both RAW and JPEG and save my originals, but when I'm processing my hundreds of vacation pics that I'm only going to post on the Internet, I'll do it my way. For the ones I really like and want to do something special with, I'll work with the RAW files.
And this week, if I manage to find some spare time, I'll sit down with the camera and the longer version of the manual and see how quickly I can get up to speed. I did have the foresight to upload the manual off the DVD that came with the camera kit to both my desktop and laptop computers, along with the other Nikon software. I MIGHT even try to get it onto my Kindle so I can review it on the plane!
Okay, Floyd, I see your point. It just seems like a lot more work to me. I'll tell you what. I'll shoot both RAW and JPEG and save my originals, but when I'm processing my hundreds of vacation pics that I'm only going to post on the Internet, I'll do it my way. For the ones I really like and want to do something special with, I'll work with the RAW files.
Yes! That's exactly the way to do it. Because "my way" will always be changing as you learn more and better ways to process images. No matter how good you are today, in a year you'll be doing it "better", and a little differently.
It can actually be a lot of fun to go back and reprocess images from years ago.
Quote:
And this week, if I manage to find some spare time, I'll sit down with the camera and the longer version of the manual and see how quickly I can get up to speed. I did have the foresight to upload the manual off the DVD that came with the camera kit to both my desktop and laptop computers, along with the other Nikon software. I MIGHT even try to get it onto my Kindle so I can review it on the plane!
All of Nikon's camera manuals are available for download as PDF's from their web site. I've got a D5100 manual on my computer here, along with several others too. I do keep a copy of the manuals for the cameras I use on my laptop too. I leave the paper manuals at home for fear of losing them. (I'm not sure the consumer cameras even have a paper manual anymore?)
All except that not shooting everything in RAW plus JPEG. Especially you, given the looks of the photography you post here, are the kind of person who should shoot everything in RAW!
Today you take a hundred shots, and select the best given the type of processing you had the camera set for before you clicked the shutter. But sometimes the camera's JPEG conversion just isn't the right thing for a given scene, or maybe the White Balance, as an example, is not right. Who knows. Also who knows what you'll see in a given image a year or a decade from now!
But the biggest thing is that at some time in the future you will know a lot more about how to process raw sensor data, and when you've gone through that same hundred shots and custom processed half of them, it may be that the selected 10 best will be a very different set of 10 than the original selection without custom processing. It makes huge difference!
But you can't do it ten years from now if you don't have the NEF file now.
This is definitely something to think about. A while back I was going through a bunch of old pictures I had backed up on CDs and transferring them to my new computer. I always saved all but my absolute worst images, so I have a ton of shots that at the time I didn't really care for or perhaps I didn't see any potential in them. Looking at them now I see quite a few that I think have potential but at the time I just skipped past them to focus on others. My taste has changed some I suppose, and so I'm attracted to a wider range of photos now. None of those images were shot in RAW, but if they had been editing them now would be considerably easier and better. Still, at least I have them. I shudder to think of many I probably deleted years ago that I might like now!
(On the other hand, back then I only had two 256mb memory cards, so I'm not sure how many RAW shots I would have gotten!)
Edit: I've also learned the hard way that after editing an image a certain way, to save it as a separate file and keep the original, unedited photo as well. In the past I'd process an image according to my taste at the time, assume I would always like it the same way, and thus click "save" instead of "save as". Now I really, really wish I hadn't done that.
Edit: I've also learned the hard way that after editing an image a certain way, to save it as a separate file and keep the original, unedited photo as well. In the past I'd process an image according to my taste at the time, assume I would always like it the same way, and thus click "save" instead of "save as". Now I really, really wish I hadn't done that.
I have learned that lesson too, Lamplight. I edited photos and saved them, instead of "saving as." I still don't know a lot, but I know a lot more than I did, and I continue to learn more every day. I totally understand the benefit in shooting in RAW and JPEG -- even if I am only saving those RAW files for some time in the future.
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