Tag: backup

Is cloud storage a viable solution for a photography business?

 Gavin   Equipment
Cloud storage for a photography business

Cloud storage — is it viable for a photography business?

I’ve looked into cloud storage as an off-site backup solution several times in the past. On face value storing images in the cloud seems the perfect solution technically:

  • you have access on the go
  • off-site backup
  • high availability and no maintenance

there are several show stopper reasons why it’s not viable (for me at least).

Continue reading Is cloud storage a viable solution for a photography business? »

Backups – The Persistence of media or How safe are your memories?

 Gavin   Journey, Musings, Techniques, Tips

I was prompted to write this post following a conversation I had with a colleague over lunch yesterday. We were discussing how to keep electronic images safe over time. In particular long periods of time such as years or even decades. It’s not just about taking regular bakups either. In the longer term and archive strategy that works and stands the test of time is imperative.

We are slowly evolving into a hardcopy-less society. Prints, as indeed film slides and negatives before them, are becoming increasingly rare. In their wake stand the ever popular “electronic” files, the JPGs, the MP3s, the AVIs and a whole host of others. Continue reading Backups – The Persistence of media or How safe are your memories? »

Backup, backup, backup… Part 3

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Equipment, Lightroom, Techniques, Workflow

Following on fom my previous posts here and here about in-field backup and in particular the solution I have opted for, today I had the opportunity of testing it out in anger.

As I write this post, I’ve just returned from a day shooting Big Cats in deepest, dakest Kent. And I really do mean “deepest” and “darkest” owing to the weather.

With freshly charged NiMH batteries, a stack of compactflash cards and two bodies I proceeded to put the device through its paces. After each shooting session I swapped the cards and backed them up onto the drive. It isn’t the fastest solution but it worked admirably, even when I went out for the final session of the day and had the unit backing up whilst in my pocket. The cards from the final shoot I backed up in the car during the journey home. It performed faultlessly throughout the day.

I did discover one unforeseen benefit of using this device, and that is the ease by which the images can be loaded into Lightroom. Plugging thebackup drive into the PC allowsall the images from the day to be imported and processed in one go rather than having to swap out the media cards.

This suits my workflow very well as I rely on the import processing capabilities of Lightroom quite heavily…

  • Copy the image to the local hard disk
  • Rename the image according to the shoot date and theme
  • Apply my standard metadata settings (e.g. copyright notice, contact details, global keywords etc)
  • Keywording withe client/shoot details
  • Apply capture presets
  • Backup to the NAS.

Getting back to the topic of this post, I would say that today has proved a great success. I’m still a little nervous of losing battery power but I can work around that and with two drives the risk if a total failure is somewhat mitigated.