Travel back-ups and safety

[divo]

<p >I will be taking a trip to Egypt in early 2010. However, I haven’t taken any serious international photo trips since going digital and am looking for tips on how best to balance safety with amount of gear. I’m a hobby photographer, so I don’t have deadlines etc. and am wondering about the general consensus on backing up images. Do most people travel with a laptop and external hard drive or with something like a hyperdrive? <a href="http://www.hyperdrive.com/">http://www.hyperdrive.com/</a> </p>

<p >If I take a laptop, a 5D, 3-4 lenses, and an external hard drive, what safety concerns am I looking at? Do expensive hotels offer services that give a better chance of keeping your laptop and accessories safe while you are out shooting? Alternately, can you leave laptops and external hard drives at a relatively cheap guest house and be confident that you’ll leave with all the gear you came with? Or, do you simply have to be prepared to carry everything with you or risk losing it? Any thoughts or tips would be greatly appreciated.</p>

[mike dixon]

<p>I use a HyperDrive for storing images while travelling. In travels through Japan, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, the only thing I've had stolen was a small flashlight that I didn't lock in my bag. I do have small locks on my backpack (mainly to keep out pickpockets) and a small cable lock I use to attach the bag to furniture when I leave it in a room, but these wouldn't stop a determined thief. I don't have any experience with Egypt, so I don't know about gear safety issues there.</p>

[divo]

<p>

<p>Mixon: thanks for sharing your experiences. I just recently found out about Hyperdrives and have to say that I am intrigued by their claims of ease of use and portability. Any other thoughts on the Hyperdrive? Is it an accessory you love, or is it a make-do type of compromise?</p>

</p>

[nsfbr]

<p>Being the cheapskate that I am, I've long used a similar device that does essentially the same thing, but at much lower cost. It is called Digimate III - and is just the housing plus interface for the hard drive (similar to the case only version of the Hyperdrive). Its cost is roughly $50. <br>

On the downside it is much slower than the hyperdrive (my experience vs. Hyperdrive specs) and you need to be a little saavy to set it up right - you need to have a FAT32 formatted laptop hard drive, which takes a bit of effort. After that it is completely effortless - turn on, insert card, push button, wait - to transfer cards. To download, connect to computer where it shows up as a hard drive. Each card's contents is a folder.<br>

I've used mine (actually two) for years. It comes with an external power supply and easily removable Li+ rechargeable battery. Apart from the speed, it is really great. And if you are a geek like me, with old unused laptops drives available at no cost, it is really dirt cheap. </p>

 

[divo]

<p>Joel: thanks for your thoughts. I'll look into that as an option. Does it only work with 160GB drives, or will any 2.5 inch drive work (currently up to 500GB from what I understand)? Sadly, although I am a tech geek to an extent, I don't have any old drives sitting around.</p>

[mike dixon]

<p>I've been using the HyperDrive HD80 for the past 3.5 years. It has worked as advertised. The rechargeable batteries that came with it weren't very good, but other than that it has been problem free and simple to use.</p>

[bruce_margolis]

<p>I go the other route. Always take a backpack full of camera gear and a laptop. All images are copied to the laptop as well as an external drive. That way I have up to three copies of each one.<br>

FWIW, never had a problem traveling with this gear or leave some of it behind in a hotel. Nevertheless, you need to know the area and if any doubt about safety, ask to keep it either locked in the hotel safe or at least locked in an office or something.</p>

 

[tobey_bilek]

<p>I fail to see how any device that will not make a back up copy, ie CD, can be considered travel backup.</p>

<p>Buy a cheap laptop at least. </p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>I fail to see how any device that will not make a back up copy, ie CD, can be considered travel backup.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Pretty much anywhere you travel, you can find an internet cafe and get your photos from a device like Hyperdrive onto a DVD.</p>

[rob_wall]

<p>I would be very nervous about trying to author DVDs on some strange virus-laden P2 Windows 98 clone in an Internet cafe. I contemplated this approach and discarded it knowing that there is a relatively high chance that when I got home the disc might be unreadable. </p>

<p>Otoh, memory cards are so cheap that now for a trip of under two weeks I just take my 2 x 16 GB and 2 x 12 GB Sandisks. I also shoot BW film which takes some of the load off the D-3. When my trips are longer I bring a laptop, but I try not to if I can.</p>

<p>My general view is take as little as possible. Walking up and down the streets of Cairo, dodging taxis, trust me, you will be thanking yourself for not bringing the kitchen sink. Egypt is very safe, but theft is a problem. Leaving things in your hotel room would not be my first choice but rather, as you suggested, leave them with the front desk. I'd assume your laptop will be scanned and possibly your HD bulk copied, but if that's OK with you it's certainly an option. Feel free to contact me off-line if you want to talk about photography in Cairo. </p>

 

[bruce_margolis]

<p>Jeff, my experience is you are correct. Well, as long as you are in the US anyway. </p>

<p>Outside the US, those spots -- as well as wireless generally -- are far more difficult to locate except in some of the very largest cities, much less Egypt. Maybe not something you want to waste precious time doing on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.</p>

 

[david_henderson]

<p>I don't want any more weight, or items, to look after when I'm away. I take on average little over a hundred shots a day with a dslr, so 20GB worth of memory cards is quite enough. I don't have a need or the time to edit photographs on a trip- just a nightly look through on the lcd screen to get rid of the things that plainly didn't work.</p>

<p>Of course the people who download or make multiple copies of their photographs every day might point out that I'd behave differently if card becomes damaged or corrupted to the point where the photographs can't be accessed. And they may be right.</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>Outside the US, those spots -- as well as wireless generally -- are far more difficult to locate except in some of the very largest cities</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I've never been anywhere I couldn't find an internet cafe or a hotel with computers I could use, even when not staying there. Rural Vietnam, Mexican Sierra foothills, Morocco anywhere (which is probably the best indicator for Egypt), Sicily (more like North Africa than Italy), Andalusia. My son just came back from Peru doing service work in remote villages, he was emailing every day from internet cafes. I can't think of anywhere I've been that doesn't have computers for rent, or even for free use.</p>

<p> </p>

[divo]

<p >Mike Dixon (sorry for typo last time): thanks for getting back to me with more thoughts on the hyperdrive.</p>

<p >Bruce: Would you usually stay at more upscale tourist hotels or are you more of a backpacker? I’m just trying to get an idea what works for different travel styles. I have always been a cheap guest house backpacker but haven’t travelled in several years. It may be time to change my approach. On my last trip I had a film camera, 1 lens and a zip lock bag full of unrefrigerated film: it was all so much simpler!</p>

<p >Tobey: I should clarify. I have a laptop. I just want to know what other people are doing to keep down the amount of gear required for a trip as on rare occasions I may have to carry everything (clothes and gear) with me and still want to shoot. Safety is also a concern. I take it that you feel a hyperdrive and enough CF cards to store everything is not an effective back up plan? What do you do with the disks you burn?</p>

<p >Rob and David: I hear you on the take as little as possible front. That’s always been my approach in the past, but digital seems to multiply the opportunities for carrying stuff around exponentially. Lots of CF cards seems to be an option for reducing stuff to carry and the hyperdrive (or similar) would offer storage on another form of media.</p>

[lintrathen]

<p>Hi Devon....... If you're looking to reduce weight and clutter go the route of multiple CF cards. Catalogue them Day 1, Day 2 etc and store them away from your cmera gear - your suitcase.<br>

I checked all my shots nightly via the USB, camera to TV.<br>

Regards </p>

[neill_farmer2]

<p>Hi, I just take as many CF cards as I think I'll need, Mark them 1,2,3,4 etc and use then in order then store untill I get home. Now done this several times without problems, even have some cards still unopened in the packaging that I didn't need. My supply for 6 weeks was for around 4000 RAW shots.</p>

[mightypir]

<p>I am not in favour of Hyperdrive style gadgets. I carry an ASUS Pc Eee 1000H. This has XP, 2GB RAM and a 80GB HDD. It manages to run PS3 reasonably comfortably, though I would not trust its screen for serious work. But for basic levels, resizing and RAW conversion it works great. And then there are all the other functions that the netbook provides such as email, internet etc. Don't need to worry about other pcs etc. And the battery life is fantastic, as is the cost. The size is perfect for my regular backpack, again when traveling. For a day trip I leave it locked in my suitcase (fully password protected ofcourse!)<br>

I supplement this with an older iRiver H340 that I have "bricked" and use it as a back up. This way I have one set of files on the netbook, and another on the player/HDD. The latter stays on my belt or my backpack when travelling or in my wifes handbag.<br>

I recently travelled to the Far East with this rig and there were no issues at all. Discipline has to be maintained (back up every time before formating cards etc) and it was liberating not having to worry about internet cafes or other peoples PCs. </p>

 

[shoshana]

<p>I take my laptop. And an external HD. I back up to both the laptop and HD. And lock the card and use a different one. A lot of hotels now have safes in the room - depends on what hotels you're using.<br>

If I could, I'd get a netbook to take along with the HD instead of the laptop. Why? The netbook is easier to carry around and would fit in more of the hotel safes....</p>

[divo]

<p>Thanks for all your thoughts. This has really helped give me some perspective and started me thinking outside the box. I can now do some "tests" on shorter overnight trips to see what works for me. Thanks again for all the responses.</p>

[notso bad]

<p>I looked at the price of a hyperdrive and instead bought a netbook, since that can be used with wifi for email, etc. I loaded picasa on the machine, since I was shooting in RAW and could review pictures this way. I had to bring a CF card reader, since a built in CF reader doesn't seem to be part of any of these netbooks.</p>

<p>As far as backup, I had one copy on the card, and a backup downloaded on the netbook. If I ran out of space on the 4GB x 4 cards I brought, the contingency plan was to use my older 1GB cards and switch to JPEG.</p>

[quanvu]

<p>I've travel to South East Asia for years, each time from several weeks to more than a month; thus beside carry all of my camera gear, here is I often bring it with me:<br /> A 15" lapop for email & doing my banking online (can't trust the Internet cafe's machine or PC rental places), with the laptop. I installed the Adobe CS3 do to basic download/backup and selection/elimination process. I also have 2 USB HD (160GB each, made by Maxtor), both combine less than 1.5 lb - thus, I was able to backup to my laptop and 2 copies on each of the Maxtor. Afer reviewing to make sure all the folders are matched in size & number of images, I format the CF/SD to get it ready for the next day. Of course, I always put the laptop and the Maxtor HD in different lugages, one is always in my camera backpack. Never lost one yet! (Knock on wood).</p>

[arie_vandervelden1]

<p>If I want to travel light then I just bring enough CF cards. CF cards are small and can be carried inside of a hidden moneybelt, when in sketchy places. In these type of places I like to carry everything, and I leave nothing sitting around in cheap guest houses.</p>

<p>If weight doesn't matter as much then I bring my Acer netbook. 80 Gb of storage. I've also got a CF card reader since the built-in reader is SD only. With a wifi connection I can skype, browse, check email, book hotels, confirm flights, and so on. I can do basic image processing with CS3, but I haven't gotten ACR to work (insufficient screen resolution) so I need a jpeg as a starting point. You don't want to do serious processing with the netbook, but it's fun to send a few web-sized snaps to the folks back home.</p>

[leighmcmullen]

<p>Laptop/netbook<br>

To quote Alton Brown of the Food Network, <strong>No single taskers... </strong><br>

I don't see the use of any of these drive only solutions when a costco card will get you a cheep netbook for 300 bucks and additional external 250 gig hard drives for 60 bucks each. With that you can check email, video chat, surf the web AND upload pictures of your adventures for us to see!<br>

----------<br>

That said, I would like to parrot what folks said about bringing enough CF cards, I did 14 days in Europe and 32 gig of CF was WAAAAY more than enough...</p>

<p> </p>

[talmage]

<p>My girlfriend and I spent three weeks in Germany and Switzerland with my Pentax K20D and a Canon SD450. Instead of a laptop, I carried a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, a USB Host adapter, and some extra SD memory cards. At the end of a day, I plugged the cameras into the tablet and copied photos to the SD card. I couldn't edit the photos or tag them but I could view them using a free program called "quiver". The N800 is much lighter than any laptop I'll ever own, even my Asus netbook.</p>