Recommended best practices for travel with SDHC cards

[paintingwithlight]

Good day all,

I've searched this forum for previous posts on recommended best practices for travel with SDHC cards and did not find a response. If this topic has already been dealt with I apologize.

Are there any recommended best practices for safeguarding photos while travelling? I travel without a computer, so my photos are only stored on my SDHC cards until I arrive back home. I am concerned about the loss of the photos, either due to camera theft or due to card corruption. I have a D7100 so I can opt to write to two cards simultaneously, but I don't. Can anyone share some best practices? Or am I perhaps worrying too much? Uploading to a cloud service while on the road (via an iPad) seems like it might take too long.

Cheers,

Michael

[Shadowman]

Michael,
I usually travel with my laptop and transfer images to the drive. Also, I delete images rather than reformat the card, that way if something goes wrong I can use recovery software to retrieve.

[Manfred M]

I am traveling right now. I've been on the road for about five weeks and have three more to go.

I've filled three 64GB CF cards so far. I have a laptop and two external 2TB HDD. I back up my shots nightly. The CF cards and the two HDD drives are never packed in the same place, so if one gets lost or stolen, I will have two other redundant copies of the data. I never overwrite my CF cards while on the road; I try to have twice as many as I think I will need, just in case. The cards only get reused once my data is backed up on two separate RAID drives at home.

The cloud is too slow and the places I travel to often do not have reliable internet available, so that is not an option.

I exclusively use either SanDisk or Lexar cards, bought from reliable sources. I have never had one fail, although I have had some of the cheaper brand ones fail.

I do have a dual memory slot camera, and only use the second card if I fill the first one. On this trip, that has not happened, but is has in the past.

I've had an external HDD fail last year, so the redundancy is a good idea. My laptop does not have nearly enough disk storage for me to use it as a primary storage device.

[paintingwithlight]

Thanks John and Manfred. Good food for thought.

[William W]

I have a small (and old) ASUS laptop (about 10" screen).

It has about 300Gb HD. It is lightweight and was cheap as chips bought as a "run out model". The battery life is enormous. It is 'slow' by today's standards - but who cares? I use 16Gb cards in camera and download to the ASUS each night while I am sleeping. I also carry a few 64Gb USB Sticks and when convenient (usually every second or third night) copy only the raw files to those USB stick and these are carried separate to the laptop.

If you capture similar amount of data as Manfred indicated, then (as he does) just use an hard drive (or two) for redundancy, rather than 64Gb USB sticks like I use.

I capture raw + JPEG (L) and the 300Gb drive has always been adequate to store all files on any trip.

The added advantages of my laptop is a 10" preview screen and internet access, for example to answer your question now and email and SKYPE access and it has an SDHC slot, but I carry a card reader too.

I also have on my ASUS Picasa 3; f/calc; Blur/calc; an EXIF reader and various user and reference manuals.

I would encourage you (and other photographers who travels regularly) to consider the advantages of a small, lightweight laptop as it can be used as:

storage device
preview device
basic but useful editing suite
reference library
application device
tethered monitor screen
link to all of the digital world

WW

[rpcrowe]

I don't use SDHC cards. I shoot with CF cards. CF cards are pretty indestructible. I have had them chewed by puppies and run through a washing machine cycle without loss of imagery.

Nice thing about memory cards in general is that the are not damaged by airport X-rays. If I were shooting with SDHC cards, I would carry them in a plastic case or some kind of card wallet. These are available at very low cost on eBay

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...older&_sacat=0

The best thing to do while traveling is to download your images and copy them to a pair of external hard drives. I have two small physical size but, large capacity, hard drives which are prefect for this. When I travel, I carry one hard drive while my wife carries the other.

[dje]

I have a small (and old) ASUS laptop (about 10" screen).

It has about 300Gb HD. It is lightweight and was cheap as chips bought as a "run out model". The battery life is enormous. It is 'slow' by today's standards - but who cares? I use 16Gb cards in camera and download to the ASUS each night while I am sleeping. I also carry a few 64Gb USB Sticks and when convenient (usually every second or third night) copy only the raw files to those USB stick and these are carried separate to the laptop.

If you capture similar amount of data as Manfred indicated, then (as he does) just use an hard drive (or two) for redundancy, rather than 64Gb USB sticks like I use.

I capture raw + JPEG (L) and the 300Gb drive has always been adequate to store all files on any trip.

The added advantages of my laptop is a 10" preview screen and internet access, for example to answer your question now and email and SKYPE access and it has an SDHC slot, but I carry a card reader too.

I also have on my ASUS Picasa 3; f/calc; Blur/calc; an EXIF reader and various user and reference manuals.

I would encourage you (and other photographers who travels regularly) to consider the advantages of a small, lightweight laptop as it can be used as:

storage device
preview device
basic but useful editing suite
reference library
application device
tethered monitor screen
link to all of the digital world

WW

Interestingly Bill I have been looking around recently for a small cheap laptop for exactly the purpose you mention. In recent years I have tried a variety of techniques with tablet computers but frankly they are a pain in the butt for this sort of use, particularly the Apple variety. Tablets are fine for emails and web surfing but not so useful for photography buffs.

Dave

[pnodrog]

I usually travel with a laptop and backup to it as required. However external hard drives with inbuilt readers are now available and may be an option for you. I also always leave the photographs on the SD/CF cards until after the trip and have transferred the photographs to my main computer and it's backup drive.

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/6201873948/western-digital-launches-the-my-passport-wireless-hard-drive-with-built-in-sd-card-reader

[Donald]

I usually travel with a laptop and backup to it as required. However external hard drives with inbuilt readers are now available and may be an option for you. I also always leave the photographs on the SD/CF cards until after the trip and have transferred the photographs to my main computer and it's backup drive.

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/6201873948/western-digital-launches-the-my-passport-wireless-hard-drive-with-built-in-sd-card-reader

I'm the samer as Paul, I think.
1) On the card (I user CF cards)
2) On a Lenovo Tablet PC
3) On a protable, external hard drive

I didn't know you could now get external HDs with built-in readers. That I like ... a lot. Must go looking.

[Black Pearl]

I didn't know you could now get external HDs with built-in readers. That I like ... a lot. Must go looking.

They've been around for ages, I have a Joby GIGA ONE which is about 12 years old - mind you that has a 40GB drive which was amazing at the time but not so not much these days

[IzzieK]

I just bought a new ASUS laptop which doubles as a tablet and I backup to that when we go to a hotel for the night. I also have a dual storage in my D810. I have had one failed on me so far but I was lucky enough to be able to back it up before it did. Sandisk and Lexar are good ones...

[James G]

I'm on the road today for a week or so...

I use a dual card camera (SD & CF) and capture while shooting to both cards

Each evening I copy the SD card to:-
a) Laptop PC (which has an internal SD card reader)
b) and then copy the same files to an external portable hard drive

I carry 3 x 2 CF/SD cards to ensure that in the unlikely event of card failure I have plenty of spares. (it has happened once to me)

I do not carry the portable hard drive around with me, leaving in the car if not in a hotel or B&B, etc

re-reading this, it all seems a trifle paranoid, but.....

[Donald]

They've been around for ages, I have a Joby GIGA ONE which is about 12 years old - mind you that has a 40GB drive which was amazing at the time but not so not much these days

Just shows how technologically 'savvy' I am!

[rpcrowe]

The "nice thing" about wanting a very lightweight and small computer is that the 10 and 11 inch screen notebooks are the cheapest of the lot. That is unusual when your wants/needs also coincide with the thickness of your wallet

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Michael,

Welcome to the CiC forums from me.

When I was shooting in Poland a few years back, I think I adopted the same principles as Bill.
e.g. Small laptop and off load as necessary to separately carried flash drives.

I also took enough SDHC cards so that I didn't need to off load and overwrite any, so my back up was the original card, now removed from camera and transported separately, continuing shooting with another card.

It was my daughter's wedding trip and while I may not have 'triple backed up' all things, I did the really important ones

Some cards were kept in my wallet or on my body almost permanently, I didn't even want to risk someone accidentally (or otherwise) taking my carry-on camera bag out of the overhead locker when the plane lands back home or losing it in baggage reclaim while distracted recovering hold baggage. Perhaps I worry too much


At one point, we did the inevitable, put something in one of those electronic combination hotel room safes and forgot the combination - it didn't take the assistant manager long to open and our stuff was recovered, but it makes you wonder how secure those things are - how widely is the default open code known? - I think I even tried 0000 myself, and it wasn't that!


BTW If you have to leave a laptop in an unattended car, do make sure it is completely shut down, not just hibernating/sleeping - I have a pet theory that thieves may use an electronic sniffer/pinger to detect Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth signals to identify which cars are worth breaking in to. I guess putting it in 'Aeroplane mode' might also serve the same purpose.

If it was a really important, unrepeatable event, I would write simultaneously to both cards (JIC), assuming I had sufficient capacity. Like others, I use Sandisk from a good source and haven't yet had a problem with a card failure.

Cheers, Dave

PS Enjoy the trip

[paintingwithlight]

I'd like to collectively thank all those who shared their advice with me in this thread. In addition to answering the question that I posted, you all answered a question that was on my mind but I didn't post it. That question was "am I paranoid?" The answer seems to be "quite probably, but so are a lot of other people who enjoy photography."

I own one of those little hard drives with an SDHC slot that Paul mentioned. I don't use it often because I am afraid that I might accidentally delete the photos instead of just copying them over. I also just switched to SDXC cards and don't know if the drive will recognize them. Guess I have an experiment to carry out now.

[William W]

. . . I have been looking around recently for a small cheap laptop for exactly the purpose you mention. . . Tablets are fine for emails and web surfing but not so useful for photography buffs.

Dave et al,

Mine is an "ASUS Eee PC Flare Series 1025 C" - got it as run out special from "The Good Guys" for $250 cash - that included a (little) computer shoulder bag and an external DVD/CD drive. Battery is just now failing, but for many years lasted.

This looks similar to be the "much updated version of my old thing"

Personally, I like the leverage in buying superseded models.

WW

[dje]

Thanks Bill. I'll have a look at that. I notice it's using Chrome OS which is an OS I know nothing about. I'll have to do some research on that. Physically it is just what I need.

Dave

[William W]

. . . "am I paranoid?" . . .

One of the traits which keeps me sane


WW

[paintingwithlight]

Thanks Bill. I'll have a look at that. I notice it's using Chrome OS which is an OS I know nothing about. I'll have to do some research on that. Physically it is just what I need.

Dave

I was just looking into Chrome OS notebooks, aka Chromebooks. I like what I see except for the fact that all the models that I looked at used an SSD - the largest was 32 GB. Clearly you can't backup a 64GB SDHC onto that SDD so an external drive is a must.