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Thank you for all the replies and discussion! I think I'm probably going to do a version of what I already do: recent imports (6 months or so, until space is gone) kept on both my desktop and laptop. I'm going to grab a 1 drive usb 3.1 hdd bay, find a reliable archive drive, and backup there. Keep them in an archival box with some silica beads, labelling each drive with dates of included content. I'll keep a smaller jpeg library of keepers on my computers for use on socials and sending to friends, etc. Maybe one day if google fiber or something comes to my city and I get a chance at proper high speed internet I'll look into the cloud again, but until then it just doesn't make sense with my 20 Mb down / 5 Mb up. I'm going to look into print services too, I've been thinking about old family albums for a while and miss the tactile experience. Paring down my 30000 photos into a couple hundred for a book or two will be the real challenge here, definitely a lesson on staying on top of triaging photos on first import :rolleyes: > edited for spelling

I wasn't thinking at all about filetypes so thanks for pointing that out! I usually import raw into lightroom, work with the file, and export in whatever form the situation calls for. I've never used dng conversion although I always wonder about it when I import - maybe a question for an entirely different thread but do you lose anything by going to dng?

Hi folks, Recently bought an a7riii and I'm very quickly learning just how much space 80+ MB photos can take up. I have been using a separate internal 1TB hdd in my desktop, backing up with all the rest of my files (3 other various internal hdd/ssds) to an external 4TB backup drive. When I was using my old Rebel, 1TB was by far and away enough space for 10s of thousands of photos. With the addition of some 4k video and huge raw files, that's no longer the case. I'm looking into other long term storage options. So far I'm aware of: Simple external backup drives, housings that can have drives added and expanded upon, using either of these in RAID, or buying larger hdds for my pc. There's also the cloud, but that feels very expensive over time. Does anyone have any particularly good (or honestly bad, good to know what to avoid) experiences with data storage? What are your preferred methods?

Super happy I found this site because y'all have a ton of useful insight! I popped by my friendly neighborhood camera store to try things in the hand and I've gotta say, everything feels awful clunky in the hand - maybe I'm just too used to the simplified Canon models I've used but the a7 series seems like hell to get the hang of just in the way of interface navigation. I looked at the new(ish) Nikon Z7 and Z6 too, which seems slightly easier to use but not by a ton. Even the Canon R is a huge difference. I actually liked the Z7 the most in hand, but maybe the Alphas would be reasonably improved with a grip. An issue for both seems to be lens availability, the Z mount has a whopping 3 native lenses and the E mount isn't a whole lot better, though they do have what I need right now. All that said, I think I'm leaning toward the a7iii and a real sharp 16-35 lens to start, and a 35 or 50 pancake down the road. Realistically I don't think I'll be printing large enough frequently enough to justify the expense for the extra resolution, and the point about lower resolution equalling larger photoreceptors is well taken. Anyone jump from Canon to Sony? How'd you feel about the interface on the camera? The physical feel of it? Would you buy it again?

Only just now getting to look at the camera you're talking about, Leica T would go for $1000 new, 500-1000 used. It doesn't come with a viewfinder which personal preference I would like to have. It's also a crop sensor, so I'll need to buy extra extra wide lenses for landscape shots, meaning I either get lots of distortion with a cheaper lens or have to buy a real nice one. Smaller sensor also means lots more noise, which will turn my blue and white astro shot into a fuzz of green and magenta, especially with the max ISO at 12500 compared to just over 100k. I appreciate the perspective and fully agree that the newest thing is not ever necessarily the best thing, but that particular camera is definitely not for me. As someone who shoots primarily film, and does so on cheaper cameras from the 70s, I get it. Detached from the actual content of the question, I'm not sure where the 'my mate Ed (Edward to his mates ) .... ' line comes from and it makes me think you're here just to be contradictory? (Edit: spelling corrections)

Honestly the sheer detail in that little insert might be what sells me on that a7r3. Guess it'll come down to how kind the us government is with my tax returns :D

Hi all, This year I have a lot of travel on the books - so far a trip to iceland and another to ireland, with a US cross country road trip in the works. I don't get the chance to travel much, and I want to get some more professional gear in preparation. I'm mostly a film photographer these days because I just love everything about film, but also because I absolutely hate digital noise. I currently have a Canon Rebel t6i with a 28-135 f3.5 USM which sees little to no use aside from when I have a high volume project that I know will be well lit. I need digital because I'm the sort of person to take way too many photos and film would be exorbitantly expensive, so I may as well invest in digital. I want to get setup which will allow me to minimize noise and get great detail for wide landscape shots but which will sustain general street photography and low light portraiture, which my canon struggles with deeply. Most of that is the lenses ofc, but in my brain that also means better, bigger full frame sensor. I'm a little enamored right now by the Sony a7Rii, and I was curious if anyone had any strong opinions about it. I know about the star eater issue affecting shots over 4 seconds exposure and don't think it will affect the type of astro photos I'm looking for. I also know the battery life is not great, which is a concern in travel scenarios. I don't have any desire to be charging and carrying 5 batteries at a time. I know the a7Riii has the same sensor, are the other upgrades that come with it worth the extra $1000 to you? It definitely sits on the edge of what's affordable for me. I feel it makes more sense to get the ii and put the extra $ into a better lens. The other options on the table are continuing with Canon DSLRs and getting a 6D Mark ii or a 5D mark iii. I'm feeling very much spoiled for choice and right now any advice, especially anecdotal, would be amazingly useful. Thanks!

I'm amazed at the sheer volume of great help here, thank you all! Ended up buying a proper light box so I could see better, getting some new xacto blades, using the sprocket measuring from frames I could find along with matching against strips from other rolls through the same cameras and being willing to cut less than the full 5 frame strips my files use I was able to get through a handful of problematic rolls. My FTN and K1000 have super variable distances between frames which made life difficult but I got there in the end. Or at least I think I have, we'll see what happens when I go back to scan them... Thanks again!

I've had my 35mm negatives stored in full strips in the canisters the lab I use ships them back in for years now, and I'm working on cutting and sleeving them for more archival storage and easier scanning. I have more than a few rolls of very thin film from night shoots, concerts, etc. where I cannot tell by naked eye where each frame ends and another starts. I know there's detail in the frame because the scans show it, but looking through the 50mm lens I'm using as a loupe over/under bright light and a white paper background I cannot for the life of me see where the frames separate. I want to avoid storing these strips rolled up because I know that eventually they won't want to unroll, and be harder to scan. Is there a decent way better than guesstimation to cut these strips accurately?