What's your photo backup plan (if any) for WDW/vacations?

[mikegood2]

For some reason, I just started thinking about my photo backup plan for my trip this summer. So I figured I might as well ask what plan, if any, people use or any suggestions to add to mine?

I'm probably looking at a similar plan to what I used in 2011. Of course i will bring a few SD cards with (possibly?) enough room to hold everything onto, but I never feel safe unless I have at least one backup of everything. So, I'll probably bring a netbook and at least one portable hard drive and make a backup of every night. I will then store that drive and any filled up cards will get stored in the room safe. I also had a SD card reader for my ipad, but that didn't work out well, so I'm not planning on relying on that.

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[mikegood2]

Sorry, hit quote instead of edit! Double post

 

[2Tiggies]

I take several large memory cards, a portable hard drive and a laptop. I don't delete anything off my cards anymore until I get home. I back up all my photos to the hard drive and to the external hard drive every night. It's probably excessive, but at least that way if one of the SD cards fail, the worst I would lose is that day's photos

 

[hakepb]

I usually bring my laptop and burn DVDs as I go. If my laptop cannot fit into the room safe, then the DVD's can (just in case someone breaks into the room)

You could upload your pictures to a photo sharing or ordering site or a cloud backup as a means of saving photos if luggage gets damaged/lost on the way home.

 

[2Tiggies]

I usually bring my laptop and burn DVDs as I go. If my laptop cannot fit into the room safe, then the DVD's can (just in case someone breaks into the room)

You could upload your pictures to a photo sharing or ordering site or a cloud backup as a means of saving photos if luggage gets damaged/lost on the way home.

Or if you accidentally leave your laptop at Security at the airport ...... NO idea who would do something so stupid (I did get it back)

 

[boBQuincy]

I keep all photos on the memory cards and keep them with me. As far as I know no memory card has failed within a few days after taking the photo. Once I get home I make multiple copies (including offsite) before formatting the memory cards.

Another sort of backup: I always take a spare camera, either a body or a good P&S just in case.

 

[jimim]

Man I think I'm going to get the vote for worse backup plan here. You guys are all hardcore. Putting hard drives in safes and all these multiple copies.

I take my Mac with me and download my pics each day to it. I then reformat my compact flash card I used for the day. I do travel with more than one so I get bonus points for that. That's it.

Last trip I didn't feel like carrying my Mac so I took my iPad and used the USB reader. It was just too slow. So that won't happen again.

This trip, now that we have 2 kids, I'm going to get a Think Tank street bag so I can have all my equipment and Mac in one bag vs 2 cause our load has increased. I prob will not bring an extra hard drive but I prob should, but I just never had a problem.

When I get home I do make 2 backups to 2 NAS's in my home for backup.

I really never gave a thought to keeping stuff safer in the room. That got me thinking today. My computer is always just in my bag in the room and my iPad or other gear is usually just on the table. I never had a problem but actually never thought about it either.

jim

 

[mom2rtk]

Nothing fancy or high-tech here. I usually don't even bring a computer along. I just have a LOT of cards. I shoot RAW, and I like to shoot without concern for running out of memory. I keep 2 card wallets physically attached to my backpack by a rope lanyard (but kept inside one of the zippered backpack compartments). One is for empty cards, one is for full cards. Since my cash and equipment is in that backpack, it never leaves my side.

Once I get home I put them on my computer, but keep them on my cards as long into the year as I can before our next trip. By then, I have edited and backed up the photos to a second hard drive.

 

[zackiedawg]

Netbook works fine for me - I have enough card space to cover all the shooting I'd need to do in one trip, so I always leave all my shots on the memory cards and don't erase them, and at the end of the evening each day I come back to the room and load the day's shooting onto the Netbook as a backup so I always have two copies of the photos - netbook and memory cards. I have sometimes on longer trips also brought a portable USB powered pocket drive and copy from the netbook to the drive, so I can keep the drive in a separate location as the netbook - I do this mostly when traveling in various parts of the world where even room security cannot be taken for granted.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

I bring my older laptop that doesn't have a large hard drive, so I bring my two 750gb portable hard drives and download, reformat my cards every night. I shoot JPEG/RAW. It uses a lot of memory, but I need the instant gratification of looking at my images and the option of later processing them. As far as cameras (both the DW and I are photographers), we bring three DSLR bodies with overlapping focal length lenses (both consumer and professional quality) and a P & S (the DW has her Iphone also). I am a little paranoid of having a problem that far from home so everything comes with us.

 

[photo_chick]

For some reason, I just started thinking about my photo backup plan for my trip this summer. So I figured I might as well ask what plan, if any, people use or any suggestions to add to mine?

I'm probably looking at a similar plan to what I used in 2011. Of course i will bring a few SD cards with (possibly?) enough room to hold everything onto, but I never feel safe unless I have at least one backup of everything. So, I'll probably bring a netbook and at least one portable hard drive and make a backup of every night. I will then store that drive and any filled up cards will get stored in the room safe. I also had a SD card reader for my ipad, but that didn't work out well, so I'm not planning on relying on that.

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I download my cards to my laptop and back it up to another hard drive. I also upload most of my processed keepers to smugmug so if all else fails I at least have those. Then of course when I get home I make my regular backups. I format my cards every night. The fast CF cards are still a little to expensive for me not to.

 

[wiigirl]

I back them up to my laptop and then try to sync them to an online storage when I am not at home.

When home I keep them on my computer and then a second firesafe redundant usb drive. Overkill possibly, but I am a bit of a nerd and I love the pictures of my kids.

 

[Pixel Dust]

I take several large memory cards, a portable hard drive and a laptop. I don't delete anything off my cards anymore until I get home. I back up all my photos to the hard drive and to the external hard drive every night. It's probably excessive, but at least that way if one of the SD cards fail, the worst I would lose is that day's photos

You're not crazy. I do all of this too.

 

[mrcricket]

I back them up to my Ipad.

 

[mikegood2]

I take several large memory cards, a portable hard drive and a laptop. I don't delete anything off my cards anymore until I get home. I back up all my photos to the hard drive and to the external hard drive every night. It's probably excessive, but at least that way if one of the SD cards fail, the worst I would lose is that day's photos

Don't think that is excessive at all! I forgot that I also back up onto the netbook drive and the external drive. The truth of the matter is I'm more concerned about loosing a memory card than having it fail. To me SD cards are just too small and flimsy which is probably why I preferred CF cards back in the day.

I bring my older laptop that doesn't have a large hard drive, so I bring my two 750gb portable hard drives and download, reformat my cards every night. I shoot JPEG/RAW. It uses a lot of memory, but I need the instant gratification of looking at my images and the option of later processing them.

Ever since I got my t4i I've been shooting JPEG/RAW most of the time. While I rarely do anything with the jpegs myself its nice to have the option. If I'm visiting my brothers family I can leave copy the some jpegs on to their computer, because they would have no idea what to do with a RAW file , or its easy to get onto and use on an iPad.

I download my cards to my laptop and back it up to another hard drive. I also upload most of my processed keepers to smugmug so if all else fails I at least have those. Then of course when I get home I make my regular backups. I format my cards every night. The fast CF cards are still a little to expensive for me not to.

I back them up to my laptop and then try to sync them to an online storage when I am not at home.

Some type of file uploading service is nice, but you really can't rely on it on vacation. Don't have as much control of the internet as I would like, or don't know what type of limitations the hotel has.

When home I keep them on my computer and then a second firesafe redundant usb drive. Overkill possibly, but I am a bit of a nerd and I love the pictures of my kids.

Don't think that overkill at all! I usually have 3 copies of all my photos/video. One on my computer, one on an external drive at home in a safe and a third at the bank in a safe deposit box. My SIL usually also gets an edited jpeg version of "better" photos for her collection.

 

[2Tiggies]

and a third at the bank in a safe deposit box.

My photos are definitely not that valuable I really wish they were though

 

[mikegood2]

My photos are definitely not that valuable I really wish they were though

Mine are not either , but the safe deposit is for work and it has the room for another drive.

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[hakepb]

If my home was destroyed, I would obviously be most concernd with people and pets, but after living things would be memories like photos.
You can buy replacements for stuff, but not older photos.

I'm not sure i would start a safe deposit box for photos, as some form of off-site storage should be good enough.

 

[mrcricket]

I back them up to my Ipad.

 

[mikegood2]

I back them up to my Ipad.

If mine had more than 32gb I'd agree, but I'm not sure a 64gb would even be enough for me? Now if you could attach an external drive to an ipad...