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| Out of the Fog, Venice |
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| Tiber Steps, Rome |
I
have been running about trying to catch whatever is left of this year’s
disappointing fall foliage. I’ve found glimpses of nice late color, but I
missed the first half of the season. I have no right to complain since,
while everyone was wondering whether the color would ever come, I was enjoying
a perfect three weeks exploring the beauty and history of Italy. As I
struggle to decide whether I should spend my time editing images from our trip
or from my increasing pile of foliage pictures, I thought I would take a break
and share a little about the challenges of backing up my precious images while
on a long trip away from the comforts of my trusty home desktop.
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| One Dome, St. Peter's, Vatican City |
On
trips such as our Italian tour, it is my pictures that are my primary souvenirs
of the experience. I also routinely try to collect one coffee mug, a
baseball cap. From Italy, I brought home the mug, but I couldn’t find an
appropriate cap. I observed that Italians don’t generally wear hats, and
definitely not baseball caps. This put extra importance on the pictures.
I’d like to share some of the steps I take to protect (i.e. Back-up) my
images, and some of the lessons I continue to learn. It all starts with
the camera(s)
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Backup the
Camera
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| Susan on the Wall, San Gimignano |
You
will have no pictures to backup if you can’t capture the images in the first
place. One of my firsts step in preparing for a photography trip (ok, every
trip is a photography trip), is to decide how I will back-up my cameras.
I don’t want to be left shooting the coliseum with my iPhone, although
many do. For this trip I backed up my Canon 5D Mark IV with my Mark II
body. This seemed to be a good plan. If my Mark IV suffered a sudden
mechanical failure. All my lenses would work just fine and I would still
be shooting full frame. Time for my
first lesson.
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| Grayson and Cuyler, Cupano Vineyard, Tuscany |
Lesson
One : Theives don’t just steal camera bodies.
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| Sunset Together, Tuscany |
At
some point while walking the dark narrow streets of Florence, it occurred to
that my camera might get stolen, and I thought it unlikely that the thief would
remove my workhorse 24-105 lens and place it next to my unconscious, bleeding
body. On this trip, I brought my 16-35mm and my old 70-300mm, but neither
would be best for the majority of the pictures that I captured. Throughout
Italy, 91% of my images were taken with my 24-105mm. In case of theft. I would
still have my Mark II, and although it is always an interesting challenge to
shoot with limited lenses, for many situations, the camera would still be
severely crippled. I wouldn’t be totally lost since my second backup was my
little Canon G11. I usually bring the G11 to use in situations where the
my massive DSLR might be too clumsy or conspicuous to carry. The image
quality doesn’t come close to my Mark IV or II, but in a pinch, it would serve.
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| New Light, Tuscan Villa |
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| Asinelli Tower, Bologna |
My
lesson from this revelation was to plan to equip my backup camera with a
capable backup lens. As it turns out, I am lucky to have a second 24-105
lens. It’s the one that I drop into a stream a few years back.
Canon did not judge the lens to be repairable, but over time the water
has dried leaving only a few imperceptible stains, and happily no mold.
It works well and from now on I will attach it to my 5D Mark II before I
throw it into my bag. Obviously, not everyone will have the good fortune
of dropping their camera into a brook, but there are plenty of used and
off-brand lenses out there that might be worth considering. Alternatively, small carry around camera is a
good solution.
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| Street Produce, Bologna |
Oh,
and I keep the Mark II in my suitcase away from my other gear.
Am
I paranoid? ABSOLUTELY, but the point is that you should anticipate the
possible disasters and plan for their inevitable occurrence. Of course,
if you are ok with recording your once-in-a-lifetime journey with pictures on
your smart phone, then you have nothing to worry about.
Image Backup,
No
Image Exists Unless It is in Three Places
The
old “Three Place” rule is especially important on “Once in a Lifetime Trips”.
For Italy, I backed up twice to memory cards, and then both to a laptop
and an external hard drive. It just occurred to me that five thousand
images in four places means I actually came home with twenty thousand images!
It’s all good.
Memory
Cards
Lesson
Two : Bring Enough
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| Lake Como Chop, Como |
Memory
cards have become increasingly cheap and reliable. I’m happy that Canon
has finally placed two card slots in their newer 5D models and on the trip I
saved each image simultaneously to two cards in the camera. I had enough
CF and SD cards to continue this redundancy until I finally had to go to a
single card for the last couple of days. The lesson here is that, although
memory cards have become extremely reliable, they still could fail, and, if
possible, dual recording is a great safety measure. My personal lesson,
is to bring enough cards to get through the entire trip.
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| Lake Como, Brunate |
Laptop
Lesson
3 : Organize your trip images in a separate Lightroom Catalog
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| Santa Maria della Salute, Venice |
I
love to review my pictures as I go along on the trip, but the main reason to
lug a laptop is to manage the backup to the computer and an external hard
drive. Now that I am a devote Lightroom user, I have learned that my task
of moving my images to my desktop at home is made much easier by creating a
separate Lightroom Catalog on the trip to organize the images. At home
all I need to do is merge the trip catalog with my main catalog and then, from
within Lightroom, move the images over to my desktop storage. Of course, if you are not using Lightroom,
you should structure your backup to work best with you own image management
program.
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| Grand canal Sunset, Venice |
External
Hard Drive
Lesson
4: Store the Catalog and the Images on the External Hard Drive
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| Floor Mosaic, Vatican Museum |
Getting Home
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| Towers of San Gimignano, Tuscany |
While
on a trip I usual split my treasures to avoid the chance that a single
disaster; lost luggage, stolen camera bag or pick-pocket, could take
everything. I typically store my external drive sandwiched among the soft
clothing in my suitcase. The memory cards are in my camera bag and Susan
guards the laptop in her backpack.
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| One of Many Porticos of Bologna |
By
now you are certain that I am certifiably paranoid, but think about what you
bring back from that once in a lifetime trip. Besides wonderful memories
and that pesky yeast infection, the most important tangible souvenirs will
likely be your photographs. Bring them home safely so that your only
physical remembrance won’t be that lonely little coffee mug.
