How to keep your photos safe: Backup routines!

As photographers, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to take the most beautiful photos ever. Do you spend enough time keeping them safe?

How often do you back up your photos? If you have to think for more than a fraction of a second to answer that question, the real answer is 'not often enough'

There are a few important steps to creating a backup strategy.

Choose what to back up

This is the easiest bit. Think about this: What do you want to back up? The answer, here, is probably either 'my photos', or 'my photos and lots of other stuff'.

I do both - but I go out of my way to take better, more frequent, and more redundant backups of my photos, because they're more valuable and important to me.

Choose how to back it up

Automatic back-up at home - Until recently, I was using an Apple Time Capsule; but I've had two of the damn things fail on me within a year (and I've written a separate rant about that elsewhere). So I've upgraded to a Drobo FS instead (Amazon US / UK) - Firewire 800 and fully-redundant RAID means that even if one of the drives kick the bucket, I don't lose any of my precious files.

Along the same trait is Automatic back-up over the internet - In addition to my Drobo, I use a service called Mozy, which is an online backup service (for more about why, see 'store the backup' below). It's pretty clever, actually, for about $5 per month you get unlimited storage, and it takes backups in the background, all over the internet. By having your back-ups off-site, your stuff is still safe even if someone steals everything in your house, there is a fire, or similar horribleness. I signed up for a 2-year subscription, set it up, and haven't looked at it since (apart from checking if it's still backing up every now and then. It is. I'm impressed.)

If you don't like Mozy - or if you're looking beyond just backups - there's always Dropbox, which is a bloody good solution, too; very well integrated, includes some clever sharing features, and is tightly integrated with your computer OS - you can even use it to keep folders synced between your different computers, and they have a clever online file browser, too.

Right: That's 50,000 photographs just waiting to be destroyed because someone opened the hard drive enclosure to take a photo...

Consider RAID...

... Over a network: RAID solutions can work in many different ways - you can do them over a network (Check out 'Network Attached Storage' on Amazon (.co.uk or .com)).

... Hooked up directly to your PC or Mac: As far as stand-alone RAID goes, you can buy ready-built solutions (Like the G-Tech G-Raid 3TB FireWire 800 / Hi-Speed USB solution available from Amazon.com, or the WD MyBook 2GB solution from Amazon.co.uk) - but there are loads of other options available, too.

If you're feeling thrifty and a bit DIY-tastic, you can build your own RAID solution by getting two big harddisks. I'm rather fond of Western Digital Caviar Green drives; they are reliable, quiet, and cheap-tastic: Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com. In addition, you'll need an enclosure. The Drobo seems to be the gold standard, but you don't have to spend that much money; Look for Firewire 800 enclosures if your computer supports it - if not, USB2 or FireWire should do the trick.

Check your backup integrity

I was kicking myself when I thought I might have lost this photo - turns out that I did have a backup of it, despite deleting the folder by accident. Phew! Click for bigger version on Flickr

Remember that you have to be sure that what you are backing up is actually working: There's no good in taking a backup of a corrupted file. Obviously, you can't check every file for integrity every time, but what you can do is to ensure that you keep older backups, too.

Only recently, I discovered that I had deleted a folder of pictures by accident several months ago. If I had only kept a recent snapshot of my pictures folder (as it were, pun fully intended), I'd have been buggered. Luckily (or rather: due to having a sane backup strategy), I was able to dig out an older backup of my photos folder, which still contained the deleted folder, and I was able to restore my photos. Phew!

For important shoots, I immediately burn them to DVD - that way, I know I have a backup somewhere which isn't being touched.

Think about where you store your backups

Okay, so perhaps this bank vault is a bit over-kill, but if your photos are valuable to you (say, if you're a commercial photographer, or if you can't stand the thought of losing them), you might want to consider renting a deposit box, and keep a backup of your photos on an external harddrive there. You only need a tiny bank box, so it shouldn't cost the world.

It's important to think about how you are storing your backups. Remember that you're backing up for all sorts of reasons: If your computer breaks, and external harddrive is handy. But what if someone breaks into your house? It's no good having a full set of backups on external harddrives if the thieves can just take them with them, too. House fires, floods, etc - there are lots of reasons why keeping your backups in your house is a good idea (they're easily available), but there are risks, too.

If you do have to keep your backup harddrive in your house, you can't do much better than ioSafe's brand new Solo G3 backup solutions. They are fire and water-proof (so likely to survive a house fire, and subsequent fire department rescue operation. They aren't exactly good for travelling (the unit sitting under my desk weighs approximately a billion tonnes), but the flipside of that is that they're also practically bullet-proof. In the beforementioned housefire, that's a very good thing: If you can find your ioSafe Solo in the remaining rubble, it's probably there, hugging your data gently.

Personally, I keep the harddrive connected to the network hidden away in the attic. That way, a casual thief is unlikely to run off with it, so even if my computer is stolen, I don't lose my photos.

In addition, I keep a backup on an external drive which I leave at my parent's house - it's low-tech, and the backups are generally about 2 months old every time I swap the drive over, but it's better than not having it handy.

Finally, I have the Mozy backups - although they would be a pain int he arse to restore: I'd have to download hundreds of GB of data. There's an alternative way, too: ordering DVDs or an external harddrive with your data, but that, too, is a pain... In short, Mozy is my absolute last resort.

And finally... Try recovering the backup

The best thing that might happen to you is that you go your entire life without ever having to restore a back-up. Nonetheless, it is an extremely good idea to try it anyway.

If you're unable to restore your backups (perhaps there's a problem with the backups? Maybe the restore feature of your favourite backup package isn't working?), you may as well not bother with the hassle of backups at all: they're only useful if you can use them if the worst happens.

The bank vault and harddrive photos are from iStockPhoto.

Anything you'd like to know about Lightroom 3?

When I was writing our review of Lightroom 3, I realised that I was amassing a list as long as an elephant’s trunk of questions that I’d like to put to the team who developed it. You know: ‘What was your starting point?’ ‘What’s your favourite feature in the programme?’ ‘What snack-food sustained you when you were up against a deadline?’ All the important things about a piece of software. Lo and behold, when I asked them, the lovely people at Adobe said that I could put my bizarre and possibly mundane series of questions to Tom, who worked on Lightroom 3.

Now of course I’m slightly worried that my obsession with snack-foods and other banalities might drive the poor guy to distraction or the entire exercise will descend into a debate on the superiority of peanut M&Ms over chocolate ones. But I think I have a solution! If you’re the people reading the interview, what is it that you’d like to know? If there’s something about Lightroom that you’ve never been able to figure out or something you’ve always wanted to understand the theory behind, now’s your chance! Drop your question in a comment (before Wednesday 13 October), and I’ll do my best to put it to Tom.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to ask your specific question, but unless you ask, you’ll never know! Over to you…

The Canons of Navarone

Something interesting has happened in the world of photography: Canon currently have two cameras on the market, at basically exactly the same price point. The Canon 550D (EOS Rebel T2i) costs £705 in the UK and $799 in the US, whilst the Canon EOS 50D costs £726 / $850.

Shop around further afield than Amazon, and the prices are so similar that they are practically identically priced. Which is a curious and interesting situation. The question, then, is as follows: You will buy one of them, but which one would you choose?  

Comparing the specs

When you compare the specifications side by side (made a lot easier by using dpreview’s fantastic side-by-side comparison tool of the two cameras), there ain’t much between them. The 50D is slightly faster, the 550D has a slightly better screen and higher resolution.

Some would argue that the 550D makes more sense because I have the memory cards already (HD/SD), but the 550D generates massive files, and I probably have to buy new, bigger memory cards anyway, so that point is moot.

In favour of the 550D

A very tasty camera indeed.

The 550D has a full-HD movie mode, which isn’t something I generally look for in a stills camera, but I have seen some beautiful results, and I’m tempted to give it a go.

The 50D doesn’t have particularly good high-ISO results in some tests, which is a downer, while the 550D appears to have inherited the absolutely epic low-light skills from the 7D camera.

Resolution means nothing, and the difference between 15 or 18 megapixels is practically non-existent. Having said that, having a little bit higher resolution can’t harm, but the key thing is that imaging chips in general are slowly getting better – seeing what the 7D has been able to do with a ‘very similar’ imaging chip, I’m leaning towards the 550D based on its innards

In favour of the 50D

A very tasty camera indeed.

I’ve owned many cameras in the xxD series in the past – the 60D, 10D, 20D, 30D, and 40D have all been in my possession at some point, and I trust Canon to do a good job on it. They’re a lot more solidly built than the xxxD series, so that’s a huge advantage if you mistreat your camera (which I generally don’t).

The 50D is also faster in general: It starts faster, it takes photos in continuous mode faster, etc.

What would you do?

n

So, the 550D and the 50D cost practically the same, and have different advantages. Which one would you buy?

• Canon EOS 50D
• Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i)
• I don't know, honestly!

View Results

It’s an interesting (and fiercely difficult) choice to have to make; choosing between these two, very similar-yet-different cameras. I know which one I am leaning towards, but I’m very curious to hear what you would choose – and why. Vote above, comment below, make it good!

---

Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic

© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.

What's in your kit bag, and why?

On Photocritic, I don’t generally bother talking too much about equipment, unless I’m particularly excited about something. My approach towards photography is that a good photographer can take good pictures with bad equipment. A bad photographer can only take mediocre photos with good equipment. In other words: If your technical skills and photographic insight aren’t up to scratch, you’ve already lost the game: No amount of equipment can save you.

Nevertheless, I often get comments and e-mails asking about what type of equipment I use. It’s an interesting question, but asked wrongly. My equipment list is boring. The argumentation for choosing each of these pieces of equipment is what is interesting, because it might help you pick which lens or gadget you buy next!  

Throughout my photographic history, I’ve had a lot of different cameras. I started with a Canon A-1 SLR (which I still have!), and then went through a series of exciting cameras. I had a Canon RS, which used to be the fastest camera Canon ever made. I had a Canon EOS 1Nhs, which was pretty damn quick as well. Then I went digital, and had a D60, 10D, 20D, 300D, and now I’m on a 30D. Why such a quick succession? Well, I used to work as a photographer, and cameras get used a lot. They get bumped into things, they get dropped, and the shutter mechanism gets slack after taking tens of thousands of photos. Also, I’m a gadgets nut, and I love playing with a new camera. Sure, there are no massive differences between the D60, 10D, 20D and 30D, but for every upgrade, there was a little bit more speed, a few new toys, and they just got better and better.

So why do I use a 30D now, rather than, say, a 400D or a 5D? The simple answer is cost and timing. I love the fact that Canon brought out the 300/350/400 cameras, because they bring photography to the masses. I genuinely believe that every aspiring photographer should be able to afford a digital SLR, because it’s the single best purchase you can make. It doesn’t matter if it’s Canon, Nikon, or one of the other brands. It doesn’t matter if it’s the bottom of the line model. By their very nature, dSLR cameras are unlikely to be the bottleneck of your photography skills. Lenses, flash guns, studio equipment, and all that might be, but especially as you’re first starting out, it doesn’t really matter.

Personally, I’m a right clumsy git, so I decided to invest a little bit more money to get the 30D. When I was in the market for a camera again around the same time as when my book deal came through, the 30D just started to become available. I like its bigger screen than the 20D, and I like the fact that it’s sturdy, rugged, and looks like it can take a battering. Because I no longer work as a professional photographer, I take a lot fewer photos (and my stuff is no longer insured against any damage, so I take better care of it too), so in retrospect the 30D is probably a bit over-kill: I could have easily done with a 400D. My main argument for it now isn’t that it’s stronger and faster, but that it’s heavier. I’ve got huge hands and I’m not very good at holding stuff still, so a heavier camera is rather useful in that respect.

The first lens I bought for my kit was the 28-105 f/3.5 zoom from Canon. It is a decent lens, but in retrospect, I regretted buying it. I quickly replaced it with the 28-135 f/3.5 image stabilized lens. When I go travelling and have to pick a single lens, is the lens that gets to go on adventure with me. It’s wide enough to be useful for most landscape stuff, and zooms in far enough to be good for portraiture, wildlife, and all that. It’s also a macro lens, and it works surprisingly well at taking photos up close, too. It’s not a cheap lens, and it’s not all that sharp either, but it has a special place in my heart nonetheless…

The next lens I bought was a 70-200 f/2.8 EX APO lens from Sigma. It’s bloody expensive, but it’s also one of the best lenses I own. Because it stays at f/2.8 throughout its zoom range (in general, zoom lenses that have the same aperture throughout their zoom range are of better quality for reasons that are slightly beyond this write-up, I’ll do that one as a separate article some day), you get a long lens that’s perfect for concert photography. Which, incidentally, is why I bought it. (more about concert photography here and here). The lens is quite heavy, but it’s really sharp, handles well, has a fantastic bokeh, and is great for all sorts of sneaky photography.

For work, I started doing a great deal of interior photography, and needed to go wider than the 28mm afforded by my other lenses. With my recent success with the Sigma lens, I decided to go with the Sigma 17-35mm f/2.8-4.0 lens. It’s a peach, what else can I say.

Other stuff in my kit bag is the Lensbaby lens, which I’ve fallen completely in love with (as explained at great length here), a 50mm f/1.8 mk1 prime (as rambled about here), my home-made macro extension tube, and a Canon 135mm f/2.8 Soft Focus lens, which I to this date haven’t quite figured out how to use. Sure, it’s a great prime lens, but the soft focus bit is an absolute mystery to me.

For parties, going out, and all that sort of stuff, I keep a nifty little Canon Digital Elph S500 handy, too. The battery life of it is absolutely amazing, and the lens is spot-on. Sharp and reasonably fast. The camera itself is virtually indestructable, too (I’ve dropped it more often than I care to remember, but its metal casing really holds its own), and it’s small enough to carry around everywhere.

My final gadgets are a Slik tripod, a standard Canon Speedlite 420 flash gun (my 550s kept breaking or getting stolen, it seems as if the 420 agrees with me better — knock on wood), and a LowePro Stealth Tracker photography backpack to lug it all around.

The last piece of kit worth mentioning is my Apple dual G5 2.0 Ghz with a 19″ Eizo flatscreen TFT monitor and Photoshop CS2. It’s not strictly photo gear, but I couldn’t be a photographer without it, so it obviously belongs in this list :)

So, where do I go from here? I’m currently drooling over the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens, as based on my experiences, and those of many of my friends, it’s supposedly one of the sharpest and best prime lenses out there. The fact that it’s a perfect focal length for portraiture, the fact that it’s a magnificent macro lens, and the fact that it’s not actually that expensive for what you’re getting, means that I have to fight hard to keep my credit card in my pocket. Must… save… up… money…

So, enough about me. What’s in your kit bag? Why? And what is your next purchase?

---

Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic

© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.