Backup solution for the light-traveling tourist

[Diapositivo]

I'm going to Paris for a couple weeks next month. I plan to walk a lot, and to take a lot of pictures. I could either bring my film gear, but that's heavy, or choose a lighter approach: my digital camera (which covers 24-120mm equivalent in a small and light package), a very light Bessa-L (film) with the 15mm, flash, lightmeter, that's all (apart the tripod for the evening). That would allow me to be much more "productive".

This second, lighter approach, has a problem. My Sony DSC-R1 takes 20MB per raw frame (no compression available). That's 50 frames per GB. Raw is a must I am not considering shooting in JPEG. If the weather is good and I get out taking pictures morning, afternoon and maybe evening, it's easy to go around 6 GB per day (that would be coherent with 6 rolls per day or so, with digital I tend to shoot a bit more copiously). Until now, when I went somewhere with my digital, I also brought with me my old notebook: every evening I would copy all images from the flash cards to the notebook.

This time I fly and I don't want to bring the notebook with me for various reasons. I'm looking for a different solution.

I think I have two possible alternatives in front of me:

1) Buy several cheap 8GB compact flash cards. That might turn out expensive, not as expensive as film, but expensive. If the whether assists me and the force with me is, in two weeks I can expect to shoot more than 60 GB of raw files, possibly 80 GB. Ten cheap cards would cost around €100. I would have no backup. If one card fails, all its content is lost.

[Side question: do I risk anything at airports? Some kind of magnetic check which could erase the flash memory content?]

2) Buy some sort of portable hard disk or other mass storage device where I could pour the pictures every time I go home. Two would be better, as I would have two copies in case of a hard disk failure. The problem with this solution is that I don't know where to look for solutions that do not require having a computer with me. The contraption should either be able to suck the files directly from my camera, or be able to suck them directly from a Compact Flash card. Also, this solution makes sense if I can buy two units. If I buy only one, the risk of putting all eggs in one basket is unacceptable and I would prefer solution 1.

So the questions are:

How risky is solution 1? I have never had a flash card fail so far, but I only had three.

What options do I have for solution 2? Would I find some hard-disks able to connect directly to the camera, or flash memory, with around 60 or 80 GB of storage? At which costs? I would be grateful for pointers somewhere.

Thanks
Fabrizio

 

[jeffreyg]

I have never had a problem at an airport with either film or digital. The last time I was in Paris they would not hand check my film and I didn't have time or the desire to fuss. There was no damage from the x-ray. Personally, I am partial to film (120) and that's what I travel with. I take two Hasselblad bodies and usually a 50mm, 150mm and 2x in a backpack with a light meter and a few other accessories plus a carbon fiber tripod. I pack a small daypack so when out and about in a city I just take one of the bodies, both lenses and light meter and sometimes the tripod but at least the other equipment is available should I need it.

You could take a card reader and portable hard drive and possibly your hotel will have a computer available so you could backup on to another card or the hard drive I have a 500G/7200rpm Hitachi portable drive that is 5 1/2 x3 1/4 x 1 inch(s) with a fire wire connection.

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[R Shaffer]

1600 images in two weeks seems a bit ambitious.

I like to bring a lap top with me to down load images to every night. I lost a 4gig card ( electronically damaged ) from a trip to CA Lost Coast a bit over a year ago that cost me about 100 images. I did not know the card was corrupted until I got home, it really broke my heart and it was a difficult place to get to. Since then I use 2 gig cards and download every night. That way the most I can loose is 50 images and have a chance to reshoot.

 

[resummerfield]

If you plan on downloading the CF card to a storage device and then re-using or overwriting the CF card, you should have at least dual backups. That would mean a notebook computer and an external drive. Personally, I would have 2 external drives, for a triple backup.

For traveling light and fast (which sounds like your situation), I would buy 10 or 12 high quality CF cards. CF cards do fail, but from all the reports I have been reading the higher quality cards seem less likely to fail. Ive been using Sandisk 8GB cards, and in over 4 years of use Ive never had a failure.

 

[Diapositivo]

For solution 1), I was thinking about "cheap" Kingstone cards. I would hope cheap means slow, not necessarily unreliable. Found 4 GB to cost less than €10. I might buy a bunch, and buy some more on the spot if I see the need (I might actually shoot much less than 60GB, I just don't want to be limited by storage).

For solution 2), I should find something like that:
Amazon.com: Flashpoint 500GB Portable Picture & Data Storage Hard Drive with USB Interface & Memory Card Reader: Electronics

but I don't know how much would something like this cost, especially if I have to buy two. They are small, and they do read CF cards directly. If price and availability wasn't a problem, that would be the perfect solution.

 

[Diapositivo]

Solution 2) would be something like this, Digital Foci Photo Safe II.

MarkIT.it

But it's not really cheap. 120,00 + 20% VAT = 144. And I should have two to sleep well. Considering I'm using film more and more, and digital less and less, spending 288 + shipping at the moment it is something I would avoid.

I think I will buy a bunch of cheap CF cards. I will reformat all of them in my camera, and test all of them before the trip. I will just fill them and keep them filled at home. No backup but several baskets at least.

 

[2F/2F]

60 to 80 GB in two weeks? Really? Wow. That is a lot. But I suppose I have done the same, or similar. On a three week road trip across the U.S. and back a few years ago, I shot 60 rolls of 35mm and about 10 rolls of medium format, for a total of 2,260 pictures...and that's with most of the days consisting of at least 12 hours of driving and shooting. It would have added up to about 45 GB if I had been shooting your camera. (Though if shooting digital, I likely would have shot significantly fewer frames.) I would just bring the laptop if you really will shoot that much. There is no point in buying a bunch of cards that you will likely use very little in the future. I think a better investment than cards would be one of those image "banks." They are not too much more money than you would spend on 10 eight GB cards, and it will be more useful to you in the future than the cards.

 

[Eric Rose]

During my 3 week trip to Turkey I shot 2000 images with my D700. All RAW. What I did was take an HP Netbook which fit into my camera bag plus a 500Gig external backup drive. Each day I would download my 8gig CF cards to the Netbook and the external drive. Quality internet access is not always available so using an online storage solution might not be all that practical.

BTW I did the entire 3 weeks with only carry on. During the day I would leave the netbook and external drive at the hotel. To cut down weight I only took my 16mm, 28-70 zoom and 70-300 zoom. Normally I only shoot primes. I would ditch the film camera for this trip unless the WA on it is the only real reason you are taking it.

 

[Diapositivo]

I've considered options but, in the end, I've just yesterday ordered 12 cheap 4gb CF cards. Considering that I already own 1 CF 8GB and 1 memorystick 1GB, that's 57 GB. I can consider the daily "consumption" and if I really see that they are not going to last (unlikely, but possible) I will buy another 8GB card at the usual price for tourists

A solution would be to carry my laptop and buy two USB external discs. I gave this up because I don't want to check-in the laptop. Bringing it with me would take too much available carry-on space if I want to carry with me also some film cameras, tripod etc. Besides, I cannot make a decent total backup of my old Mac until I buy a Firewire external unit (USB external units are not bootable with my Mac). And without a proper total backup, I am not going to move my portable. So I should buy an external firewire unit, make the backup, leave it home, buy two "photographic" units and go with the portable and two hard disks. But that would limit the carry-on luggage a bit too much. I might put the tripod in the checked luggage, but that is a bit of a risk (steal and damage).

The external "image safe" solutions would have been nice, but in the end two of them would have been expensive.

The many 4GB cards allow a certain fragmentation of risk, are almost cheap if compared with other solutions, and somehow I will be able to reuse the cards in future trips. I will format all cards in my camera before use, and check correct functioning as soon as I receive them.

The film camera with the 15mm is not just a very very wide angle but is also very small and light (Voigtlnder Bessa-L, doesn't even have a viewfinder, I use the external viewfinder which comes with the lens).

I might bring with me some film camera but the idea is to walk light. The typical walk-around configuration would be digital + Bessa. An alternative configuration would be my Minolta X-700 with the 28-85mm plus Bessa, or plus flash. That would be to use some film as well especially in high contrast situation (if I get out near noon and know that I will be back during the afternoon, I might prefer negative film, if I get out for many hours I will just bring the digital with me).

I don't want to pass airport checks with tenths of film cartridges because I don't want to have problem with the occasional idiot at the gate. Some of this film would be 800 ISO and two-pass of X-ray might veil it (unlikely, but possible). And a full bag of film might induce X-ray operators into some sort of suspect, check the film at higher power, who knows. Again, that also would take carry-on volume.

I also want to carry a flash, an external lightmeter, possibly an external spot-lightmeter for nocturne film pictures with tripod. When I packaged everything I will see when too much is too much. Maybe I'll just simplify things a lot and go with only digital and tripod.

Thanks to all
Fabrizio