Digital Backup while traveling

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I'll be traveling to Japan for two weeks - probably a once in a life time trip - in May in visit my son who is living there for a year in Okayama. We plan to travel around the country, especially Kyoto and Hiroshima. I was wondering about the best way to back up my photos to make sure I have a spare copy in case of accidents or loss of my SD cards. I'll be using an intermediate Pentax DSLR, while others will have smaller P&S cameras.<br>

All of us are reasonably computer literate and willing to navigate various equipment/systems, although we all prefer Macs.<br>

Any suggestions?<br>

Also, any suggestions of places to visit/photograph or things to do are welcome.<br>

Thanks for your help,</p>

<p>Rene</p>

 

<p>I always travel with a laptop and card reader, put the photos on the laptop at night, every couple days burn a CD/DVD and send it home.</p>

<p>I have used flashdrives for this...sort of like a traveling hard disk. It's been a couple of years though...but they did the job. There also used to be a product out which you could plug into your camera and it automatically transferred your pix to a mini-hard drive with a 2inch screen, but I think it has been superceded by more recent technology.</p>

<p>I use a Wolverine portable hard drive. It has slots for the various memory cards to plug directly into it, and it will copy the card without needing a computer. Some have a nice color LCD for viewing photos, too, but not mine (they're too expensive and I'm too cheap). Check the online retailers - there are other brands, too. You need to estimate how much you might shoot on your trip and get something with enough capacity. A 250 gb drive runs about $125-130US, and 250 gb is more than I'd shoot in 2 weeks shooting raw+jpg storage. I have an older 80 gb unit, and it held the 44 gb of files I shot on a 12 day trip to Alaska a couple of years ago. That 44 gb was a stretch for my old laptop, but not the portable drive. Nowadys, 120 gb is the smallest you'll find and 250's cost so little more than the smallest that they seem an obvious choice to me.</p>

<p>I'm somewhat paranoid about losing data, so I also travel with a laptop and use a common card reader to copy my cards every day to the laptop in addition to copying to the portable drive - duplicate storage is a wonderful thing! If you have enough memory card capacity to shoot and keep everything for a 2 week trip, then a portable drive would be the duplicate storage device.</p>

<p>I use two aging Hyperdrives to back up to, but have recently bought a smaller Asus laptop & external CD/DVD writer as well and may switch over to that.</p>

<p>I second Jeff's recommendations. I also do the same. Backup to a laptop, burn a DVD and mail that home.</p>

<p>Danny</p>

 

<p>When on "trips of a lifetime," you just can't compromise on backing up your photographs. Whether traveling to islands in the waters off northern Alaska, exploring the remote Westfjords of Iceland, lava hunting on Hawaii, or on work-related journeys through Malawi, backing up is something I can't compromise on. I used:</p>

<ul>

<li>An Asus netbook--very small computer good for limited demands of travel ($450)</li>

<li>A Wolverine portable drive/card reader--only 80GB because its a few years old ($125 for current 250GB model: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/706779-REG/Wolverine_7625_PicPac_II_250GB_Digital.html)</li>

<li>An Epson portable drive/card reader that has a brilliant display but is a serious indulgence--it was a gift several years ago ($500 for the latest P-6000 80GB model: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/573863-REG/Epson_B31B191002_P_6000_Multimedia_Photo_Viewer.html)</li>

</ul>

<p>I also bring quite a few CF and SD cards (my cameras use both) and back up everyday. Rather than reformat the card right away, I pop in a fresh one for the next day and do not "recycle" the cards until I run out of blank ones which provides a little additional security. Finally, I try to separate at least one back up from where I'm keeping the others. </p>

<p>Netbook.</p>

<p>You may consider a good belt-bag, along with a good zipper bag to hold your SD cards on your travels in Japan. Does your son have a computer? If he does, you may find it much easier to backup your images with his computer. Traveling via air means less weight to pack generally. [if I were going, I would take two Pentax bodies...and maybe three lenses. One body for backup. And a battery charger and at least two batteries for the cameras.]</p>

<p>You can Google</p>

<p>Japan Travel Bureau</p>

<p>and get a lot of information for the area in Japan you are going to be visiting. Kyoto can be seen in four or five days: numerous temples and shrines. Also, in May - Japan has a four-day (?) holiday called Golden Week...you may want to plan ahead for lodging.</p>

<p>Enjoy your trip!</p>

<p>I have used the Epson P-2000 and P 3000 at different times and enjoyed using them. You can review pictures taken during the day and (if you are that way inclined) delete the absolute dogs, though I know some will ask why bother deleting anything.<br>

If you are really paranoid you can then use the viewer to write files to a memory stick to give another backup.</p>

<p>I usually have two mini external drives with identical copies. One to always carry with me, the other kept in the hotel.</p>

<p>Bad things can happen: For the first time I lost a laptop (stolen), about 2 months ago - actually it was my new netbook that had a copy of images shot in Vietnam. Fortunately I did have a backup on an external drive. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I lost a laptop (stolen), about 2 months ago</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is why I send photos home on discs. No matter what you have with you, you are traveling and it can disappear. If a trip is longer than two days, there should always be some sort of remote backup. If you don't have a device that records to discs and there are no local internet cafes, sending lower resolution to a web server is another strategy.</p>

<p>Jeff, your method appears not to be very practical, well, at least for people who travel abroad. Usually I barely had the time to backup on a tour -- one to two 8gb cards per day of RAW+JPG -- not to mention going to the post office, etc.<br>

<br /> Besides, not everywhere have internet access, or even a post office. And, would I want to spend extra time to convert every image to low-res for storage, after shooting RAW?<br>

<br /> I believe having two copies (or 3 if one still does not feel secure), is good enough. The mini drives are very inexpensive these days. I picked up a beautiful 500gb drive in HK a week ago for only about $50.</p>

<p>I agree with Jeff that it's a very good idea to make copies and send photos home. Although crime is relatively rare in Japan, it does occur sometimes, like anywhere else. You said you prefer Macs, but they are often more costly than other solutions, and I don't know your budget. My wife recently purchased the new Macbook Air, the small one, weighs a little over two pounds, and a SuperDrive. She likes it very much, but it is expensive unless you will have other uses for it after your trip. There are netbooks that have internal SD readers (although an external one adds little bulk and weight) but you need to make sure that they can handle external DVD drives, if that's what you plan to use. I've never explored the possibility of sending home USB flash drives, but these days (with increasing flash drive capacity and decreasing cost) they might be an alternative. You can copy to them from a Macbook or netbook, and they are less fussy than CD or DVD drives.</p>

<p>As to any difficulty in shipping, it's been a while since my trips to Japan, but "Black Cat Shipping" (they have a logo of a black cat) had offices everywhere. On some trips combining work and vacation, when I was done with work, I would ship all my suits to the airport from which I was departing Japan, and pick them up before getting on the airplane home. Your hotel can direct you to "Black Cat" offices or the post office.</p>

<p>I believe you'll love Kyoto, but if you have time, don't neglect the nearby cities, particular Nara. We loved Nara Park, with its nice people and rude deer. When my wife and I visited Hiroshima, we didn't stay, just took the bullet train there in the morning and returned in the evening. It was a very comfortable two-hour trip, easier than moving with all our stuff. The Peace Park is very moving, and disturbing.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>+1 for what Jeff said - I've been doing that for years. Survived a laptop failure and the disappearance of some camera equipment with almost all photos intact. If you are carrying it with you away from home, always assume stuff can disappear. It takes 5 or 10 minutes every other day to drop by the post office - and once you've done it once in a particular country you'll know the drill. Carry pre-addressed, lined envelopes to pop the CD's (or better DVD's if you can burn them - lots more room for RAW); put postage on them and send it off. And in the usual event that you get to keep your laptop/mac/netbook for the whole trip it makes a marvelous way to do some pre-editing and review if you are so inclined, and you get home with less of that stuff to do.</p>

<p>I used to travel with a Wolverine. Now I just have enough CF/SD cards to cover for me for that time. If I run into trouble, I'll hit an internet cafe, burn a CD, verify it and send it home. Then again, that means I've shot 56GB of shots...way too much to deal with.</p>

<p><em>"Then again, that means I've shot 56GB of shots...way too much to deal with."</em></p>

<p>This is why I travel with a laptop. There is usually down time on a trip. Usually it is when I am back at the hotel room winding down for bedtime. I use the time to review what I have shot. The obviously bad shots get deleted. The stand out shots get flagged. I make some attempt to organize the shots. As a result when I get home, I know what shots should get worked on first and which I can delay and even just file away in the "just in case" folder without any serious processing. Waiting until I get home and trying to process everything as one big lump is way too much to deal with.</p>

<p>Danny</p>

 

<p>What do you laptop users do with the machine? Do you leave it in a hotel room for example ? I'd guess that most laptops won't fit in most hotel room safes. Or do you carry it with you all the time- which I'd find a considerable pain but maybe you don't? </p>

<p>I can see that a small data storage device- which looks less desirable, and more easily hidden, is easily manageable on a trip albeit that it doesn't access emails, write dvds or whatever. I know other people do it but I can't see myself carrying a computer , cables etc around for a couple of weeks, or even carrying a bag big enough to hold a laptop. </p>

<p><em>"What do you laptop users do with the machine? Do you leave it in a hotel room for example ? I'd guess that most laptops won't fit in most hotel room safes. Or do you carry it with you all the time- which I'd find a considerable pain but maybe you don't?"</em></p>

<p>I leave the laptop in my room but not in plain sight. I unplug it and put it and all cables and cords in a drawer. However I also make it a point to stay in hotels that are considered to be of good quality and that includes good security. If you do not trust your hotel maids, you could put it in luggage and check it with the bellhop when you leave for the day. Of course after a while that could be a signal that you have something valuable in the luggage. Hotels also have a main safe which is often a large secure room with lockboxes. You could drop off the laptop there if you are really paranoic.</p>

<p>However the bottom line is if you travel, your stuff may get stolen. That is why a common question in the forums is "What camera bag does not look like a camera bag?" Just because you have with you at all times, is no guarantee that it will not be stolen right off of you.</p>

<p>Danny</p>

 

<p>I think Danny hit most of the key points on the laptop. You don't want to be carrying it around - it could be more of a target in your backpack than it would be at the hotel. I carry a fairly small model, so it will fit in a lot of hotel room safes (and it's light to lug from hotel to hotel). I have checked it with hotel staff in the past when I felt like it was unsafe in the room; other times I just put it where it is least conspicous in the room - that's always worked. The one time it disappeared I had turned my back on it for a couple of minutes at a fairly large airport - lesson learned on that one. As someone else mentioned above it really does help to do some editing in the down-time during the trip. A couple of times I've realized that I botched a picture, or a whole series and I'm able to make up for it before I leave the location.</p>

<p>I go to photo trips quite a bit and always bring a laptop or netbook, for internet access and for backing up images (on the external mini drives). When I worry, I put it inside a luggage. Otherwise I leave it in plain sight on the desk with everything plugged in.</p>

<p>I save the images in two lightweight mini drives. One copy to leave in the hotel, the other to carry with me. </p>

<p>I haven's lost anything in a hotel, yet - knock on wood! ;) but, as mentioned in a prior post, I did lose my netbook during transit between flights.</p>

<p>Michael - ridicule can only come from being identified. You still haven't answered my question as to how much liability you think she has for being idenfitied (and therefore potentially open to ridicule)</p>

<p>Your last post merely reinforces for me that your indignance is not a sympathy for this particular case but your dislike for the growing culture of viral postings on this line.</p>

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>Thank you to everyone for all your suggestions so far. They are very helpful and has sparked some thinking on my part. I had not planned to carry a laptop because of weight/theft considerations, so it was most interesting to me to see what people are doing.</p>

<p>One suggestion that was given to me off line was to purchase an ipad with a photo connector and download my shots to the ipad, edit, and then email the remaining shots home that way I'd have two backups and the original. Of course, I'd still have the theft issue, but the weight issue would be resolved.</p>

<p>Rene</p>

<p>I have done numerous trips to Japan and visited all the Islands incl Shikoku Island. </p>

<p>I don't carry backups but that is just me I am a hobbyist and I go v light, all my bags are 6kg so I seldom have checked baggag a good thing with the budget airlines with a surcharge for that.</p>

<p>In Japan, just be careful using places like FujiFilm b/c they convert your images to a Photo CD. Go to a internet cafe and burn a DVD yourself. </p>

<p>You could get portable HDD that reads SD memory cards (and others) or a Netbook or send them home etc .. but they might be a hassle and be bulky etc.</p>

<p>Or copy them to a portable HD that you bring along using the cafes, like a USB HD, or a Flash (thumb) stick.</p>