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

[photo_chick]

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.

If you're robbed they may take all your hardware and you'd loose your on site backups as well. I stash a drive that's updated about once a month off site. It doesn't have to be a safety deposit box, a relatives house, at work, anyplace it's secure will work. I have one in my locker in the darkroom on campus, among other places.

 

[mrcricket]

If you're robbed they may take all your hardware and you'd loose your on site backups as well. I stash a drive that's updated about once a month off site. It doesn't have to be a safety deposit box, a relatives house, at work, anyplace it's secure will work. I have one in my locker in the darkroom on campus, among other places.

I use CrashPlan for offsite backup. It's awesome. And I can access the files anywhere, even my iPad.

 

[TC09]

The hotel we stay in usually has a computer that guests can use. I bring two portable hard drives with me on our trips and back up my photos to those drives every night and reformat the memory cards when I'm ready to start shooting again.

When we get home I back them up to a third hard drive, but after reading this thread, I may start having the third hard drive offsite somewhere. Also thinking about picking up a netbook so I'm able to the backups in the hotel room.

 

[hakepb]

The hotel we stay in usually has a computer that guests can use. I bring two portable hard drives with me on our trips and back up my photos to those drives every night and reformat the memory cards when I'm ready to start shooting again.

When we get home I back them up to a third hard drive, but after reading this thread, I may start having the third hard drive offsite somewhere. Also thinking about picking up a netbook so I'm able to the backups in the hotel room.

FWIW, in a cyber-security presentation, the speaker loves to run a virus/key logger scan on hotel provided computers. He says he's rarely disapointed, and generally finds a scary amount of computer bugs/Trojans... Never type your password or any personal information on one of those computers, someone will be saving every keystroke.
(If you must use a public computer, there are programs "Neo Safe Keys" that let you copy and paste every letter, so usually a bad guy is only recording a useless "click, click...")

 

[klmall]

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.

Ditto here but sometimes I bring my laptop also as a backup device.

For those of us who use RAW and take hundreds of shots per day uploading to a site isn't an option at WDW. First of all, RAW is huge in amount and
second, many photo hosting sites won't allow RAW uploading and third, Disney's internet speed is atrocious and too slow for me to use for anything but email and reference.

 

[hakepb]

Ditto here but sometimes I bring my laptop also as a backup device.

For those of us who use RAW and take hundreds of shots per day uploading to a site isn't an option at WDW. First of all, RAW is huge in amount and
second, many photo hosting sites won't allow RAW uploading and third, Disney's internet speed is atrocious and too slow for me to use for anything but email and reference.

How true about the Internet speed.
Free WiFi ruined Disney Internet 10x faster than Free Dining ruined the restaurants

 

[photo_chick]

Ditto here but sometimes I bring my laptop also as a backup device.

For those of us who use RAW and take hundreds of shots per day uploading to a site isn't an option at WDW. First of all, RAW is huge in amount and
second, many photo hosting sites won't allow RAW uploading and third, Disney's internet speed is atrocious and too slow for me to use for anything but email and reference.

I only upload jpegs and I use my 4G hotspot which has been for me a ton faster than WDW wifi.

Good point on the RAW upload to a photo hosting sites. It should also be noted that nearly all photo hosting sites change your files in the name of "optimization". That's why you're better off using a file upload site if you want to try and keep the original file unchanged or if you want to store RAW files.

 

[BirdsOfPreyDave]

I have an older laptop that stays in our Owner's Locker so I don't have to pack one for WDW trips. I have Lightroom installed on that laptop. At the beginning of a trip, I clear the catalog and delete all photos from previous trips. (The hard drive isn't very large.) Each day, I import photos from all cameras. During the imports, Lightroom is set to put one copy of the photos on the hard drive and a duplicate copy on one of the external drives. I then format and reuse the memory cards.

On the last day, I export the Lightroom Catalog onto the second external hard drive. I set the option to copy image files in addition to the catalog itself. This is what I'll import into Lightroom when I get home. If this fails, I have the second drive with the unedited photo files. All I'd loose is any edits I made while at Disney.

One external hard drive travels in my camera bag, the second goes in a different carry-on. If by some chance both external drives are lost or damaged in transit, I always have the knowledge that the pictures are still on the laptop in storage.

Something new I'll try on my next trip is a backup of an S2 JPEG file to my tablet. I have Eye-Fi cards that are set to direct connect to the tablet and automatically transfer these lower-resolution versions of the photos. This is primarily so we can look through the photos on the tablet during the trip and on the flight home, but it does also serve as a secondary backup plan. The S2 files are small enough to transfer quickly, yet have plenty of resolution for viewing on a screen. If my tablet is able to get enough bandwidth while in the room, I have the Eye-Fi app also set to send copies of the photos to PhotoBucket. That would be yet another backup.

At home, I have a three-tier backup. I have Norton 360 set up to perform a backup of each of our computers nightly. This is done to an on-site networked disk tower. This tower is hidden away in a closet, and wouldn't be immediately found by a burglar. I then have CrashPlan loaded on each computer, which creates a continuous backup to the cloud. I also have CrashPlan set up to create a back up of each machine to an external hard drive once a month. I keep this in my car. (Yeah, not the best place to keep it, but at least it's out of the house if there's a fire.)

 

[mikegood2]

On the last day, I export the Lightroom Catalog onto the second external hard drive. I set the option to copy image files in addition to the catalog itself. This is what I'll import into Lightroom when I get home. If this fails, I have the second drive with the unedited photo files. All I'd loose is any edits I made while at Disney.

One external hard drive travels in my camera bag, the second goes in a different carry-on. If by some chance both external drives are lost or damaged in transit, I always have the knowledge that the pictures are still on the laptop in storage.

My parents will also be with us part of our trip, 2 days later, so my dad may bring his macbook air with him which would work out better than the netbook. It would also let me use lightroom also, much faster and display photos much better than the netbook. I could probably borrow his air, but I don't want to be responsible, if he brings it he's responsible.

The second portable drive is interesting though. If I do that I could probably leave one with them to bring back since they leave two days later. In the past I have kept my SD cards and drives packed in different locations.

Something new I'll try on my next trip is a backup of an S2 JPEG file to my tablet. I have Eye-Fi cards that are set to direct connect to the tablet and automatically transfer these lower-resolution versions of the photos. This is primarily so we can look through the photos on the tablet during the trip and on the flight home, but it does also serve as a secondary backup plan. The S2 files are small enough to transfer quickly, yet have plenty of resolution for viewing on a screen. If my tablet is able to get enough bandwidth while in the room, I have the Eye-Fi app also set to send copies of the photos to PhotoBucket. That would be yet another backup.

Does your camera shoot multiple sizes, or does the Eye-Fi create a smaller version when it sends it over? I'm thinking about shooting in RAW/jpeg mode with my dSLR and just transfer some of the jpegs onto my iPad.

 

[DSLRuser]

I ahve plenty of redundant back up on my home system. 3 copies, 2 local, 1 off site accross multiple drives.

but on vacation, I risk it. Every picture goes onto my laptop. Then I reformat the cards.

For the most part. while on vacation, I am risking it with just a single copy and no back up.

 

[BirdsOfPreyDave]

Does your camera shoot multiple sizes, or does the Eye-Fi create a smaller version when it sends it over? I'm thinking about shooting in RAW/jpeg mode with my dSLR and just transfer some of the jpegs onto my iPad.

For my DSLR cameras, I'm also shooting RAW + JPEG. I have the cameras set to create a full quality RAW file, but a lower quality JPEG. The Eye-Fi is configured to transfer only the JPEGs. I load the RAW files by connecting the camera directly to the laptop.

On my P&S camera, there is no option for RAW so the only option is to save the highest quality JPEGs. I don't take a whole lot of pictures with this camera, though. It's mostly just used at the pools and waterparks because it's waterproof. I'm hoping the photos from this camera won't fill the memory on the tablet too quickly.

 

[DSLRuser]

If you're robbed they may take all your hardware and you'd loose your on site backups as well. I stash a drive that's updated about once a month off site. It doesn't have to be a safety deposit box, a relatives house, at work, anyplace it's secure will work. I have one in my locker in the darkroom on campus, among other places.

Truth.

 

[mikegood2]

If you're robbed they may take all your hardware and you'd loose your on site backups as well. I stash a drive that's updated about once a month off site. It doesn't have to be a safety deposit box, a relatives house, at work, anyplace it's secure will work. I have one in my locker in the darkroom on campus, among other places.

My process is similar to yours. I work from home so the safety deposit box is more convenient and more importantly less than five minutes away. I drop off a backup of all my work files ever two or three weeks and store any new "personal" photos on those drives. Then every 3 months I take my personal offsite drive home, update it and drop it back.

I ahve plenty of redundant back up on my home system. 3 copies, 2 local, 1 off site accross multiple drives.

but on vacation, I risk it. Every picture goes onto my laptop. Then I reformat the cards.

For the most part. while on vacation, I am risking it with just a single copy and no back up.

In my case our last trip was my nieces first trip to WDW and they invited me along so the safety of those photos were even more important to me. I also figured their was a good chance that might have been my only visit to WDW! Of course two years latter we are returning (June 2013)!

For my DSLR cameras, I'm also shooting RAW + JPEG. I have the cameras set to create a full quality RAW file, but a lower quality JPEG. The Eye-Fi is configured to transfer only the JPEGs. I load the RAW files by connecting the camera directly to the laptop.

I wish my canon t4i had the option of selecting a smaller sized jpeg, but the RAW/jpeg option only offers the full resolution. I've thought about getting an Eye-fi in the past, I may want to look into them again. I do like the fact that more and more cameras are offering built in wi-fi now.

Sent from my iPad mini using DISBoards

 

[Jonasphill]

Our Disney World/ Vacation procedure goes as follows.
Leave the park.....remove cards ( 32gb each camera) put fresh cards in( freshly formated)....Copy the cards to the laptop and import to lightroom..... Copy the laptop files and backup Lightroom catalog to an external hard drive......remove the hard drive and put it in the rear storage compartment of our SUV.....then we format the cards used for the previous day, getting it ready for the next rotation..... We normally have 3 camera's with us so we rotate 9 cards ( 3 for each camera)......... So far we have not lost any pictures, yet........knock on wood!

Also invest in a usb 3.0 card reader..... Super fast!!!!!

 

[wkrider]

I take a laptop, 500 gig portable storage and a 1 tb portable storage. every night I back them up to both and on the laptop, 3 copies. When I get home I transfer them to a 1 tb internal drive that only my media goes on and an external 500 gig mybook. I then edit what I want to edit and upload all the "keepers" to my smugmug.