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Author Topic: Backing up away from home  (Read 2256 times)

jaker

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Backing up away from home
« on: January 07, 2013, 08:42:44 am »

I am off shortly on a lifetime safari trip to Africa and was wondering about backing up images.

Is there a way to back up raw images on CF card direct to a hard drive ( Lacie rugged) without having to use a computer? At present I use two cards one which send low res jpegs to my ipad (using eyefi card) which is a great way to review your work. Don't possess a lap top and to buy would be  a needless expense.

Any suggestions?

James Kerr

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JAKER

Tim Gray

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2013, 09:08:47 am »

I'm going to Botswana in July, and I'm not bringing a laptop.  SD cards are so inexpensive and I already have about 200 gig - I'll get 3 or 4 more 32 gig cards and I'll be set.  I was in Europe in October and for backup I used a Hyperdrive http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-s/119.htm  That worked reliably and I'll use the same in Africa.  One note - on the site there is a claim that with an additional connector kit you can connect a second portable hard drive to the Hyperdrive so you are backing up on 2 separate hard drives - I was never able to get that to work.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2013, 10:21:40 am »

For several years now I have used a pair of Hyperdrives to back up my main memory card each evening. I also have spare cards in case I'm not near power in the evening or if one of the Hyperdrives fails. And yes, one of mine did fail once a few years ago, so on one trip I ended up with only one set of images on the good hard drive and a second set on the spare cards (which almost ran out, but didn't).

I never like to haul anything (non-photographic) as big as a laptop on a trip, but the Hyperdrives are just fine.

Whatever you do, have redundancy!
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-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

jaker

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2013, 12:48:20 pm »

thanks for info - hyperdrive looks the answer unless any one has any other suggestions
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David Sutton

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2013, 03:37:41 pm »

Hyperdrives have always worked well for me. I buy the case and drop 750 gig drives in them.
However for important trips I always take a lightweight laptop to carefully check the files every day or so. Apart from getting big gobs of crud on the sensor, things go wrong with digital cameras and lenses. I don''t want to get home and find I've lost images due to focus failure or problems with the shutter.
Or something really stupid (I'm embarrassed to say) like finding I haven't fitted a lens hood correctly.
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stever

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2013, 06:03:39 pm »

Hyperdrive will back up to a usb hard drive with the adapter kit, however the drive must be configured as FAT.  the commands are not exactly obvious and it took me a conversation with Hyperdrive to figure it out. 

if you buy a Hyperdrive, buy only the case and buy the drive separately to save yourself $100 or so.

however, i always take a laptop and have never yet had to use the Hyperdrive other than as a usb backup drive to the computer (since i've spent the money on the Hyperdrive the computer won't fail).  I feel very uncomfortable if i can't review images at least every couple days and preliminary sorting, editing, keywording, captions on the trip save me a lot of time when i get back.  i also need a computer to add location from my GPS logger.

on a short trip a bunch of CF cards might be okay (as long as you don't loose some), but it there's any action, i can easily fill a 32gb card with 5D3 images in a day
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mcbroomf

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2013, 06:47:29 pm »

+1 for each of these suggestions;

  • Laptop for download and daily review
  • Hyperdrive for backup, and card-to-drive download if the laptop dies or goes missing
  • Enough cards so that you don't need to re-use any if the hyperdrive and laptop die or go missing

It may seem like overkill but you won't regret it.
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JeanMichel

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2013, 07:00:26 pm »

Hi,
I use an Epson P-7000 (160 gb) and an 80 gb PhotoSafe. On trips we take both and backup to both each evening.
The PhotoSafe (Digital Foci) is just a hard drive, it is small and works well. It is quite inexpensive and worth having two units in case one croaks or gets lost.
The Epson is allows for viewing your images, assuming that the files are supported for viewing. The Epson displays my Canon 5d2 raw files but does not display my Leica's DNG files or my spouses's GH2's raw files -- if I want to see the images the simple thing to do is to set the camera to save both RAW and a JPG.
Of course, it means carrying that many more chargers! But I guess that those take less space than the bricks of film we had to carry in film days.
Jean-Michel
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RFPhotography

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2013, 07:15:18 pm »

If you want to make the kit a little more compact, you could consider a tablet and one of the wireless hard drive solutions available.  The camera connects to the tablet and you then transfer to the wifi hdd.  The tablet can be used to review/delete images before transfer to the external drive.  There are Android apps available to view raw files on a tablet so I'm sure there are Apple apps as well.
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Colorado David

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Re: Backing up away from home
« Reply #9 on: January 07, 2013, 09:44:12 pm »


    • Enough cards so that you don't need to re-use any if the hyperdrive and laptop die or go missing

    It may seem like overkill but you won't regret it.

    I was shooting in Denali during the moose rut a few years ago.  If you've ever been there during the rut, you know there are crowds working the moose.  One day with a very cooperative bull, a woman came around to everyone asking if anyone had a CF card for sale.  No one did.
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