Digital photo storage?

[Hilary]

I'm still new to digital photography, so forgive me if this is a particularly daft question !

Is there any way I can store the images for future use in the event of my PC's hard-drive giving up the ghost and losing everything on there?

I won't want to keep images on my SmartCard after I've downloaded them; I don't have a CD writer (although I'm not even sure that would be any use in this instance!) and I assume a floppy disk wouldn't have enough memory to cope.

I want to be able to use the digital camera for holidays in the same way as my old film camera, and come home with photos which can be made into an album eventually. I will print off any photos I want before wiping them off the SmartCard, but I'd like the reassurance of knowing that I could retrieve the 'negative' in the future.

 

[whtyger97]

A picture on your memory card is a file like any other file on your computer. If you want to protect it (or any other file) from your hard drive failing, you'll need to store it somewhere else.
Here are some options:
1) Buy a cd burner and burn a copy to cd (if you don't feel comfortable installing one internally there are external usb ones you can get)
2) Buy an additional hard drive (again if you don't feel comfortable installing one internally there are external usb ones you can get)
3) Take the card to a photo place that can create a 'photo cd'
4) Scan the picture in again if you lose the orginial file (you'll likely lose quality if you do this)

My suggestion is buy a cd burner.

 

[Penny12]

Without a CD writer it's tough (otherwise you could just burn everything to CD as a back-up). To be honest, that's the only <i>true</i> way you could keep them safe that is under your control.

The only thing I can think of is uploading them all to somewhere like www.imagestation.com - you can even make an online photo album there if you want. However, even with it being the Sony name which is pretty 'safe', there is always the chance that they might pull the plug on the service, and with it your back-up. Though I suppose the chances of them doing it at the same time as your hard-drive dying are slim, but it's still a risk.

Does your PC have USB ports by any chance?

 

[Hilary]

Thanks for the suggestions, both

Penny, yes I do have 2 x USB ports, but they are both in use - one for the scanner and one for the camera download cable. I leave the camera cable in place because it's a pain to shift the PC out for me to reach the port every time I want to download some shots , but I suppose I don't really need to leave it there.

From the suggestions so far, I'm tempted to choose the easiest at the moment and get a photo CD made from the SmartCard. Any idea how many images could be stored on one CD, and is it possible to have extra ones added at a later date, or would I need to get a fresh CD made every time I wanted some images stored? I'm fairly sure we have a couple of local outlets with the facility to do this for me, so it shouldn't be too difficult - even for me!

Thanks for your help!

 

[mickg7dyd]

Hi,
I have started keeping my images on the original Smartmedia instead of deleting them.I pay about £12.70 for a 64mb card which holds about 100 images and I don't usually use more than 2 of these per trip.OK so it costs about £25 per holiday but I think the peace of mind is worth it imho.

Mick.

 

[Goofyish]

As said above, the most reliable option is to get a CD burner and copy all you photos to CD. You can get an internal or external USB CD burner. If you are short of USB ports you can get a USB hub which will give you more USB ports (make sure you get a self powered hub). The CD burner would give you an option of burning CD-R or CD-RW disks. With the CD-RW disks you can use them like a normal hard drive and drag-n-drop files through Windows Explorer. The CD-RW black disks are more expensive than the CD-R disks, and will need formatting before use.
Most CDs will hold betweem 650-700Mb of data.

It's may also be worth looking at a DVD recorder for you PC. These are coming down in price now.

Another option is to get an external USB disk drive. These can be a bit expensive though, and you still run the risk of losing everthing if it fails.

 

[Mickeytaker]

I have to agree with Mick, keeping the backup on the smartcard is the safest.
CD's are good for backup but they are extremely fragile, some CD's won't read in certain drives so if you change your drive you could lose them. Also one scratch and it's all over, you can't recover them from a damaged CD.
You can have your CD rewritten to if you choose that way but again, the more you put on one CD the more you stand to lose if it gets damaged.
With the prices falling almost daily you very well might be able to get one of these external backup devices very cheap in the future.
I thought i'd lost all my Disney Christmas pictures when my drive crashed in January but thankfully I managed to get them back. Mine are on a partition on my hard drive which should be safe but also can go down.
Nothing is guaranteed but you have some options to choose from.

 

[Fantasia Sam]

Sorry to jump on your thread Hilary

Can I ask do all digital cameras come with Smart media of 64kb - It's my birthday soon and I really want a digital camera but I don't know the first thing about what to look for in a digital camera.

LOL Hilary at least you know what and where your USB port is

 

[BevS97]

keeping the backup on the smartcard is the safest.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I put my smartcard in a reader at Jessops and it killed the card, all the images on it are gone and we can't use it anymore. Luckily, I had already copied the images to my hard drive and was able to retrieve them and write them out to a cd rom.

We burn ours to cd, but I have a couple of copies of each pic - I keep all the pics on my hard drive, and then burn the entire picture file to a cd every couple of months (I should really do this each time I add more from my camera), so each cd has the entire collection of pictures on it, plus the latest I have just taken as well.

Bev

 

[Penny12]

I agree - I definately think CD is safer than keeping it on the Smartmedia.

Personally I have well, 3 'homes' for my images (not that I'm paranoid or anything I have a copy of my pics on my hard drive, on my laptop, and on disk. I am in the process of making a library of sorts - once that's done, I'll burn those to CD.

Occasionally old CD's won't work in new drives - it depends what speed they've been saved at I think, but they have to be <i>really</i> old. However they would still work <i>somewhere</i> - it's also my understanding that CD's degrade after a number of years, so Bev's system is a good one - lots of copies, always updating. With CD's costing anywhere between 25p and 40p each, it's really not that much money for precious memories.

Sam - Digital Camera's come in 2 main types of memory. There's also the Memory Stick, which I don't know much about as it only comes with Sony products. The 2 types of memory are Smart Media and Compact Flash. I don't think there's any benefits of one card over the other, just the camera's they go into

When I got my Canon 'point and click' camera (Compact Flash) it only came automatically with 8mb - you can get lots of pictures on that, but only at it's lowest quality and highest compression. Ok, if you want small pictures to appear on screen/web, but not much good for anything else! Memory is pretty cheap though, I picked up a 128mb at the 7dayshop for ummm, £35 or something like that - the bigger the card, then generally the cheaper it gets per mb too. I have it on middle compression and middle resolution and I can get about 300 pictures (I think, off the top of my head) which is fine for what I want. Good on screen (which is where I want them - I make and keep my photo albums on screen now) and I still have an option to print as long as I don't want them too big or fancy. If I had it on the highest quality, it's about a 1mb per pic, so 128 pics per card.

Try checking out http://www.dpreview.com/ for Digital camera reviews for some ideas.

 

[Goofyish]

I would also feel 'safer' with my photos on CD rather than on a memory card.

As long as you buy a good quality blank CDs (avoid the un-branded ones), and store and handle them correctly then you shouldn't have any problems.

Blank CDs are cheap enough to make multiple copies if you want more security.

 

[Mickeytaker]

Sorry you lost your smartcard pictures in Jessops Bev. Do you know what happened? Did they admit to any liability?
I know if you hadn't a backup thats no comfort.
One other thing about smartmedia - or compact flash for that matter.
They do have write protect like floppy disks.
You know when you buy a new smartcard you have tiny labels in the pack for marking the card with whats on it? Also included are small silver circles, when you use one of these in the space provided on the card it can't be written to, formated etc until it's removed. It's just another safeguard for your pictures.
I know when my Dad was here visiting last year, he brought his camera and when I tried to read his card in my reader it wanted to format it!!! I couldn't get his pictures downloaded for him.
Computers are strange beasts indeed!!!!!

 

[BevS97]

No idea what happened, I checked the pics on my camera, took the card out of the camera, put it in the Jessops machine and it said it was blank. They tried it in another pc in the store, and it came back claiming ot be unformatted, so we put it back in the camera and that could no longer read it either.
I have tried reformatting it, but it seems to be damaged as it won't reformat either.

Bev

 

[Janice]

I bought a USB Hub from a local Computer shop Hilary and it was about £12.00

Just unplugged one USB that was in use, plugged in the hub, now I have 6 USB ports available.

I burn all mine to CD's too. I store them on my PC and then burn a new CD once a month. Of course, if there are lots, then I do it sooner.

 

[Goofyish]

I would recommend getting a USB hub with it's own external power supply. The USB ports on your PC may not have enough power available for all the devices that you plug into the hub.

 

[Fantasia Sam]

Originally posted by Disneymad

Sam - Digital Camera's come in 2 main types of memory. There's also the Memory Stick, which ............

Err Penny sweetie you lost me at that point above LOL

I think you just need to come with me when I purchase and then come home and help me set it up - I'll reimburse you with something I know you like .........drink

 

[richard3330]

Hi,

We copy our digital photos on to CD using the CD-Rewriter Drive. This way we have 2 sets (one on CD and one on the Hardrive) so that if we loose one, then we will have back-up.

As we have a Kodak Digital Camera I don't think we can buy Smartmedia or any of the better value cards - I think we have to stick with the extremely expensive Kodak memory cards (a 64mb one costs around £50+) - Can anyone clarify this?

Also, What is Burning??!!

Richard.

 

[Goofyish]

'Burning' is the computer slang term for writing data to a CD

On the subject of memory cards - there are number fo different types:

Compact Flash:
You can get type 1 and type 2 Compact Flash cards. Most cameras that use CF use type 1, although a few top of the range models also support type 2.
If the camera supports type 2 CF cards you will be able to use the IBM Microdrives.

Smart Media:
These are a lot thinner than CF cards

Memory Stick:
Used mainly in Sony cameras.

Multimedia:
Used mainly in Kodak digital cameras.

Secure Digital (SD) Card:
A new card, not very common yet.

Xd-Picture Card:
Another new card developed by Fuji and Olympus

 

[Olaf]

Dang, you guys lost me on the second thread. I just stick the little card thingie, into that funny black slot called a Zio, then hit the button. One I've got them, I stick them on the whatchmecallit, and hit the button. Of course, sometimes I never find them again. Although, I'm fairly certain they're in there somewhere.

 

[Fantasia Sam]

Wow Tim I think I need to check with you aswell before I buy anything you know your stuff