On The Road - Keep Your Images Safe | Lifestyle

by WendyAdams

Having moved from film to digital, we have lost some challenges and replaced them with new ones. Whereas once we would have worried about being able to buy the film we wanted and store it properly whilst travelling, now we worry about storing our digital files safely. Imagine you are off for a 4 week trip to Africa.

Thus for 4 weeks you will be struck dumb from dawn until dusk with a myriad of sights, sounds and smells (especially those!) that are so far outside your normal life experience that you may well find yourself almost rendered inert by sensory overload. As a photographer, your camera will be in your hand many times a day and will record all that you stand witness to as you journey through this new part of the world.

You will of course be shooting in RAW format - why risk loosing image information by allowing your camera to interpret it, save some of it as a JPEG and then delete the rest forever? The downside to that is the fact that RAW files are very big. A Nikon D3, for example, will save over 5,800 basic Jpeg files to a 16Gb card - but only 640 files on a 16Gb card if you shoot RAW.

For most shooters, this means that you are likely to need an empty 16Gb card every 2 or 3 days - and perhaps daily from time to time on a really busy day. For our hypothetical 4 week trip, this would be equal to say 30 days of travel, 16Gb every 2 days - or 240Gb total. You must add in some additional margin for safety, so I would say that at least 300Gb is more appropriate. Add video as well and you can double that!

Most laptops are not shipped with 30Gb hard drives - much less 600Gb ones, so whilst you might well travel with one for editing or other tasks along the way, it won't solve your storage needs.

My preferred solution is to travel with an Adata Sport A10 external HDD. This is a 640Gb drive that has been tested to US Mil Spec for transit in terms of being dropped and splashed with liquid. The unit has the USB cord built in and takes power from the laptop when connected. It is covered with a soft rubber compound that makes handling safe and stops it slipping on car bonnets, tailgates etc when working in the wild. 500Gb and 320Gb versions are also available.

The tests inflicted on the Adata Sport apparently include full immersion in water for 30 minutes and various drops onto hard surfaces. I do not recommend testing the claims personally! Nevertheless it is a tough unit that should be well able to withstand the rigours of baggage handlers, public transport, donkey packs and so on!

I also take a stack of blank DVD's with me and burn back ups to those as well when in a quiet hotel room or other undisturbed location. (CD's are no use for this - their data capacity is far to small) The DVD's can also be burned twice and you can keep one set in a different bag from the drive and mail one home when convenient if the trip is a very long one.

DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice.

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