Empty Digital Cameras!

I had several new SDHC cards arrive yesterday. Put them in the cameras they were bought for, used one to make a new trip card to run in the digital frame, switched around a few cards and formatted the cards in every digital camera I own. Spent the rest of the day doing Winter prep tasks. Of course, I still have all of the photos, on the computer, but a strange feeling to have empty cameras. Have you ever done anything similar?

I download the photos from my cards at the end of each shoot or at least on a pretty regular basis. When I download the photos to my computer, I then backup to an external hard disk as well. Once I've double-checked that the files have been copied, I erase the card in camera. I rarely reformat the cards. Generally speaking, when I go out to shoot, I do it with an empty card in the camera and some empty cards along for the ride.

I do what The Shadow does but with more backup drives. I like to start with number one every day. I know some photographer just bank a filled card and start over with a new one.

I will periodically clear my cards by reformatting, hopefully after saving the images. Embarrassed to admit I've lost some images in this process. I'm now much more careful and conservative in my backups than I used to be.

I can never understand how people keep tons of pictures on their camera memory cards. My camera only takes 8G flash cards... I keep 3 handy in my bag so I dont have to worry about running out of memory or just in case one drops dead in the field.

 

After every shoot I dump everything to my tablet while on site so we can see what we got. When I get home, I dump it again on my computer's HD. Out of habbit, just before a shoot I format the card(s) so Im starting fresh. It just seems such a disorganized mess trying to figure out whats what on a card full of images from previous shoots. Besides leaving so much on a card, is asking for disaster sooner or later.

 

habbits are the way to go after a certain age... also talking to myself is one of my favorite pass times, great company too n he's never wrong.

I format my main cards as soon as I have transferred the images to the computer and have created a backup. I keep the backup cards in the camera and reformat those as needed.

I download the photos from my cards at the end of each shoot or at least on a pretty regular basis. When I download the photos to my computer, I then backup to an external hard disk as well. Once I've double-checked that the files have been copied, I erase the card in camera. I rarely reformat the cards. Generally speaking, when I go out to shoot, I do it with an empty card in the camera and some empty cards along for the ride.

Exactly what I do!

I transfer and reformat. The files go to two separate drives through Lightroom.

A friend of mine, who doesn't do much shooting anymore due to age afflictions, has never reused a memory card! He saves all of them. I wonder if he has some type of filing system?

I usually process via Lightroom as soon as possible/I have the inclination to, but generally don't delete my cards at the time.

 

About once a month, I sit down with an external drive and copy all my cards verbatim to that...carefully archived as to the date and what the contents of the card are. I will generally then sit there with a camera or two handy, and format the cards in that camera before they get filed back in a wallet for future use. Out of habit, even though it's probably not necessary, I usually format the card in the camera I'm going to use it in. Of course, I usually use my D800 to format cards when I'm "cleaning" them, and it's also my biggest consumer of cards, so I skip this step if the card was previously formatted in that camera.

 

The main cameras I use are two slot cameras, and I have them set-up for RAW+JPEG. I almost never touch the JPEG card and have never filled it up in any of my cameras(my D600 and D800 have identical 64gb Sandisk Extreme Pro SD cards for their back-up cards, and that's also what I use as the primary card in the D600). Still, though, every few months I'll also copy the full contents of the back-up card to the external and format it also. The back up card ALWAYS gets formatted in its "home" camera.

I know some photographers just bank a filled card and start over with a new one.

 

As I have said before (and received some very minor flames from - much appreciated in this colder weather !), this is my practice too - when I shoot film, I keep the negatives, so it makes sense to me to do similar with digital. I do of course back up vigorously, to two drives at home, one in computer, one kept separate, plus off-site storage as well. New cards (and I always carry a few with me) are always formatted in the camera in which they will be used.

 

One thing I have not seen mentioned is the practice of setting 'Write Protect' on each card before inserting it in the computer's card reader. I do this in case a computer writes data to the card, treating it as a satellite disk, thus running the risk of corrupting the card in such a way that the camera cannot continue to use it.

I shoot SD cards for jpeg and CD cards for RAW images simultaneously on my Canon 5D IV. I download the cards regularly on my home computer, but keep the images on the cards until I make a trip to our cabin in the woods, where I download the images on a separate computer. If I have taken additional photos on the drive to the cabin, I wait until my return home to download images a second time and, finally, erase the cards. This cycle can last anywhere from a couple of days to a month. Edited December 1, 2018 by Glenn McCreery

I guess what I was unable to express adequately is that it was a strange feeling to have all or my digital cameras "empty" at the same time. I always start a major shoot or trip with freshly formatted cards. As to back up, I have some SDHCs with important events stored, the rest on the computer or printed. Recently saw a 4T compact back up Western Digital 4TB My Passport External Hard Drive that tempts me @$110, will likely get one. In actual fact, I guess I'm not as worried about past photos as future photos. I'm not a photographer of legend and I can always make more.

I usually process via Lightroom as soon as possible/I have the inclination to, but generally don't delete my cards at the time.

 

About once a month, I sit down with an external drive and copy all my cards verbatim to that...carefully archived as to the date and what the contents of the card are. I will generally then sit there with a camera or two handy, and format the cards in that camera before they get filed back in a wallet for future use. Out of habit, even though it's probably not necessary, I usually format the card in the camera I'm going to use it in. Of course, I usually use my D800 to format cards when I'm "cleaning" them, and it's also my biggest consumer of cards, so I skip this step if the card was previously formatted in that camera.

 

The main cameras I use are two slot cameras, and I have them set-up for RAW+JPEG. I almost never touch the JPEG card and have never filled it up in any of my cameras(my D600 and D800 have identical 64gb Sandisk Extreme Pro SD cards for their back-up cards, and that's also what I use as the primary card in the D600). Still, though, every few months I'll also copy the full contents of the back-up card to the external and format it also. The back up card ALWAYS gets formatted in its "home" camera.

 

 

Like Ben I keep enough cards for a busy month; and there's a monthly task of organizing; archiving; and backing-up offsite. Once that's done I format the cards and put them back into duty. Formatting a card before the end of the month creeps me out, I keep waiting for the disaster to happen.

My method is unique but it works for the way my brain is wired. I import all my photos in to LR, save copies on two external hard drives and save all my SD cards. After downloading I go through the card and delete duplicates and bad images. I use the same card until it is filled with images I want to keep. Once the card is filled with images I like, I retire it and place it in a container with bins to be organized. I pop in a new card and do the same thing again. I view the SD card as a storage device that, in my anecdotal experience, is less likely to fail than any hard drive or cloud storage. I have over a hundred SD cards (I buy Sansdisk from a reliable seller) and have not a had a failure yet. I just received five new 16GB cards that I paid $36 for. I don't care about the write speed because I don't do much action shots. At $7.00 a card, I view that as another cheap and safe way to store my raw files. Most of the young and hip people I often shoot with think it's a little nuts but I think it's quite brilliant. If I had a camera like the D850 and had to buy the expensive cards they require (and the huge files that take up more space) my brilliant scheme would not be practical.

I don't shoot as much as I used to but have taken to using 4GB cards in a D7000. When it/they get full, it's a reminder to backup and all fits perfectly on a DVD-R, which I still have a big stack of!

 

Eric Sande

I'm I'm not a photographer of legend and I can always make more.

I’m guessing most here who practice good backup procedures aren’t legends either and aren’t trying to be. :)

 

I am careful about backups because I don’t want to lose stuff. I like having my collection of photos because I often go through finding images that didn’t mean much to me at the time but do so now. I take a lot of family stuff that I like looking through now and then and would miss them if I were to lose them. I care for them like I care for most things of importance to me. I still have family albums from when I was a kid and from my parents’ early days. My family is not legend. But it is mine.

As I have said before (and received some very minor flames from - much appreciated in this colder weather !), this is my practice too - when I shoot film, I keep the negatives, so it makes sense to me to do similar with digital. I do of course back up vigorously, to two drives at home, one in computer, one kept separate, plus off-site storage as well. New cards (and I always carry a few with me) are always formatted in the camera in which they will be used.

 

I mostly do JPEG, so the cards don't fill all that fast. Compared to the cost of a roll of film, they are darn cheap.

 

FLASH does have a limit on the number of cycles, though it should be large enough for normal erase/reuse use.

 

One thing I have not seen mentioned is the practice of setting 'Write Protect' on each card before inserting it in the computer's card reader. I do this in case a computer writes data to the card, treating it as a satellite disk, thus running the risk of corrupting the card in such a way that the camera cannot continue to use it.

 

Some view programs like to write thumbnails into the directories with the pictures. That should be fine, but it might be that some depend on directory features that aren't updated appropriately. I usually copy and then view the copy, but still write protect seems a good idea.

 

But CF doesn't have a write protect. I can mount them RO on some systems.

I do pretty much what the Shadow do.

OK, time to insert Felis domesticus amongst the Columbidae (cat among the pigeons ).

 

Multiple backups for our own use are great - but when we're gone, who is going to be interested in them ? It's hard enough now to get people to look at the d*mn things - give them enough wine to make them mellow, and they soon drop off to sleep. All that will happen to our carefully nurtured images, over which we have expended so much time, thought, emotion and care, is that someone will say 'Oh, these are just Grandad's (or Grandma's) old photos - she/he was mad on photography. No, just chuck them in the skip with the rest of the rubbish'.

 

The memories will mean nothing to them - in fact, probably the only people who would appreciate them are other photographers. Maybe each national government could be prevailed upon to establish a secure archive to which the backup discs could be sent when the time comes, and where they could be treated with the same care and attention lavished on all other national treasures and items of importance. After all, they have nothing else to do with their time and money at present, do they ?

Reminds me, that in the early days of glass plate photography, glass plates were expensive, and would be reused if a shot was less than perfect.

 

Maybe reused after making prints.

 

With 32GB cards, I can count the card itself as one copy of the backup.

I assume you mean wet plates ?

You all appear to have safety procedures, which is important. As a timely reminder I've just had my internal back-up HDD fail, fortunately nothing lost. But it has been awhile since I last transferred files to my external drive which is residing in the shed.

On the theme of what Tony was saying I'm the only person who would really care If I had lost any files.

 

Edited December 2, 2018 by Gerald Cafferty

The problem with keeping memory cards (in the same way we kept negatives, which many in my family irritatingly did NOT do :() is finding what you want afterward. With negatives, when I was shooting all film and was more organized, I actually made tiny "contact sheet" like thumbnails from my scanned negatives so I could go through the binder quickly and find what I wanted. Alternately, you could make an actual contact print OR you could take out each sheet on a light box (slower but doable). But with a card, what do you do?

 

I guess it's possible to have a computer program that can make a contact sheet from a set of files, but I don't know of one. How could you set that up to make it possible to find the image you might be looking for? On the other hand, if you had some kind of photo frame that could actually handle raw files, maybe that would actually be pretty cool.

 

Being worried about having all those cameras empty reminded me of a podcast I listened to by the Northrups. They apparently frequently buy a whole bunch of cheap SD cards and just leave them in various places, like their car and camera bag and when they invariably go off without cards (or enough of them) there is always SOME usable card chucked in there somewhere. ;)

The problem with keeping memory cards (in the same way we kept negatives, which many in my family irritatingly did NOT do :() is finding what you want afterward.

Though I don't keep a lot, I use a sharpie razor point to write the event or dates in the space SanDisk provides. I keep the cards in a miniature Tundra case that was actually designed to protect cigars when traveling. Waterproof, within reason crush proof, and large enough not to get lost in the clutter of the camera cabinet.

I number my SD cards using a label printer, with the camera name and a sequence number 001 - 999 (assuming I live that long !). Then, when I copy the folders to the HDD, they go in the appropriate CAMERA\FORMAT (raw or jpg)\CARD NUMBER\DATE folder, this being sorted by the date of the folder, helpfully placed there by Pentax. I also add a brief note stating the contents of the folder, as thus : 007-100_1509 - 1940s 02.

So, this gives us Card 007, first folder on card (100), Date (1509 - 9th September) and subject (NNR 1940s weekend, day 2).

 

Then, at a later date, I go through each sub-folder and re-name each image with the Card Number-Date as a prefix, so each image has an unique identifier,

such as : 007-100_1509 - TONY0001.DNG.

 

This helps when searching for images in Irfanview, as I am already in the right area to begin with. Each card, when full, is placed in a portable card safe, kept off-site with my off-site backup disk.

 

HTIOI