Before we broke up to our big trip, we broke our heads: How should we keep our photos safely on the road? What if our laptop is stolen or our memory cards are broken?
There is hardly anything worse for any travel photographer, than to lose the photos for several weeks or even months irretrievably.
That is why we want to show you in this post how we save our photos on journeys and what security precautions we have taken. And since there are of course several ways to back up photos on the road, we also show you a few alternatives.
SAVE PICTURES TO TRAVEL - WHERE IS THE PROBLEM AT ALL?
To be honest, we have never really focused on securing photos on journeys. Most of the time we were only a week or two. Then we simply packed enough memory cards and trusted that the just did not go broken. This was perhaps somewhat naive, but luckily always went well.
Since we have been working independently of the location and are therefore not just a few weeks but traveling all year round, this is no longer an option for us. Before our 6 month trip through Asia we then worked intensively with the topic.
As we save our photos in RAW format, an image is 20 or 30 megabytes in size. In six months there is a lot of data gathered together, so we probably had to take a whole box of memory cards. Even if we were not traveling with hand luggage, would a box memory card definitely not on our packing list are.
Also, memory cards are not the most reliable storage medium. Such a small thing you quickly lost and as we had only recently experienced, a memory card can sometimes break. But more about that later.
I think we agree that it needs a better plan to secure his photos on travel. And we show you now.
OUR EQUIPMENT FOR BACKING UP PHOTOS ON THE GO
Even after our return from Asia, we restrict ourselves to traveling with hand luggage. So not only is our packing list of European destinations reduced to the essentials, but also our travel photography equipment , which can be described in good conscience as minimalist. Nevertheless, the technology makes up a large part of our complete luggage. But hey, safekeeping photos safely goes after all.
To secure our pictures we need the following 5 ingredients:
# 1 Our laptops
After years, oh what: decades ago, when Windows users we have since last year Macbook owners . Despite initial aversion, we are now very satisfied and do not want to miss our little work animals any more.
# 2 Adobe Lightroom
The image processing program our choice is Lightroom. Because it is not only great for editing the RAW files, but also supports us in managing, sorting and especially when sorting out photos.
We use the monthly subscription of the Creative Cloud as we also need Photoshop for 22places. There is a photography subscription that includes Lightroom and Photoshop and costs 11.89 Euros / month. A more favorable alternative, however, is to simply purchase a one-time license for Lightroom 6. This costs then only once 118 euros.
Left:
Lightroom in Creative Cloud subscription .
One Lightroom 6 license .
# 3 External hard drives
We have two external hard drives for backup while: a 2 TB hard drive from WD , and a 1TB hard drive from Transcend with a special impact protection. Especially because of their robustness, we have chosen the Transcend, which is also available in a 2 TB version.
We had the first hard drive before and since it has served us so far, she is allowed to explore the world with us. Otherwise we would have probably bought two Transcend hard drives.
# 4 memory cards
We have on our trip only two 32GB SD card case, and a 16 GB card in replacement. The next section explains why we can get along with so few cards.
Basically you get SD cards but also in Asia in every small supermarket, which is why you can at any time quickly get replacement.
# 5 Online data store
No matter how many computers, hard drives and SD cards, we have it: when our luggage is stolen or a water damage or explodes or whatever, then everything is gone. Therefore an external data storage is extremely important for us.
We also store our photos online. There are several ways to do this, such as the Google Drive or Dropbox. We use our own webspace, which we have forced through our websites. More information about this can be found later.
Since you now know what we have to do to secure our photos, we can now move on to the next step. We now tell you exactly how to secure our photos.
OUR WORKFLOW FOR STORING PHOTOS WHILE TRAVELING
We have now found a more or less fixed workflow for us, which we use to sort and save our photos on journeys.
Step 1: Consciously photograph
An important step already happens before we shoot a photo at all: Think! Since we know from our own experience how exhausting it is to sort out 5,000 photos after a week, we have now begun to take less photos.
Waaaas? Perhaps you think now, we have become completely crazy. Of course not, we only know ourselves too well and know that many photos would remain unsorted and unprotected if the mountain of pictures becomes too big.
That is why we are now photographing even more consciously than before. We think more about it, as we put a subject in scene and do not want snap wildly on it. However, the latter should never be done anyway.
This means that at the end of the day, we have not only a lot less photos on our memory cards, but also the photos are just better.
Of course, it still happens from time to time that we come back in the evening with both 300 photos on the memory card. Here we come to the next step.
Step 2: View and sort photos at regular intervals
Step 2 prepares us even the most of the problems, simply because we are often something too negligent. Our goal is to sift and sort the photos of a day every night or at least the next day.
Sometimes this works quite well, but it still happens that we accumulate photos for a week and then stand before a huge mountain pictures.
When sorting, we do the following: We import all photos of one day or one week in Lightroom and copy them to one of our external hard disks.
Then we look at all the photos together and sort out knallhart. I'm usually more rigorous than Jenny, but in the end, less than half of the photos are left.
By the way, we are sorting out the great flags in Lightroom. All rejected images are given a black flag and are deleted immediately after sorting. We delete the photos not only from Lightroom, but also directly from the hard drive. So we need a lot less memory space.
Step 3: Double secured holds better
In the next step, we copy all photos from one external hard drive to the other, so we always have two complete backups of our photos. If one of the hard disks gives up the mind, we have all the images on the other.
Step 4: Triple-backed holds even better
But if both hard disks are broken or stolen, we are completely naked there. So in a transposed sense.
That is why we store the sorted and for good-looking photos again online.
There are a lot of vendors where you get online storage. We simply place our pictures on our own server. In this way, our photos are always stored in a safe place and we can access them from all over the world.
Of course uploading large image files is not always possible. In Thailand this works relatively well on the Philippines rather less. For the internet connection, we are glad, if we can check our e-mails from time to time.
The luxury of a server of course has not everyone. But there are a lot of providers, where you get free or for little money online storage space.
The best-known providers are likely to Google Drive or Dropbox , which we ourselves both use also. Both offer free storage, with Dropbox it is 2 GB and with Google Drive 15 GB. This is of course not a lot to save RAW files, but you can buy with both providers additional space.
With Dropbox you get 1 TB of storage space for 9.99 dollars monthly or 99 dollars per year. Google Drive also costs $ 9.99 a month.
Free storage on Amazon
One of our readers gave us a great tip. Amazon offers an unlimited online storage space for all Prime members for photos, which also applies to most RAW file formats. Among other things, the RAW formats are supported by Nikon (.nef), Canon (.cr2) and Sony (.arw).
A Prime membership costs 49 euros a year and also includes thousands of free-streaming movies, countless free Kindle ebooks and of course always the fastest shipping for all Amazon orders. It's worth it!
Link : Amazon Prime for 30 days for free .
Conclusion: There is no absolute security for photos
With this workflow, we feel pretty safe. Of course, it can happen to us that the photos are lost before we upload them to our online store. Then we just had bad luck.
However, much more security is not possible in Asia, since the upload speeds usually recall the times of a 56k modem. So far everything has gone well and we hope that will continue to be the case. In Europe , it is of course already a lot easier to back up the photos online.
Did you know already?
Our Pacsafe is a wire-reinforced bag that you can tie to a solid object with a steel cable + lock. Never again without! Click here.Pacsafe
EXCURSION: PROTECT MEMORY CARDS
We had already mentioned at the beginning of the article that we were able to make experiences with a broken memory card recently. That's not nice, I tell you.
On some photos suddenly funny colorful stripes were seen and we were already afraid that Jenny's camera would give up the ghost. After some research, however, we have the memory card as an evildoer and this is probably not even so rare.
Memory cards are synonymous sensitive media and there may be something broken. With some precautions, however, you can reduce the risk significantly:
Tip 1: Do not simply flip memory cards into your pocket
Ok, this tip should actually be self-evident, whereby I myself was not particularly care with memory cards. If you buy memory cards, there is often a small plastic cover. Use them!
If there is to be something noble or you prefer a cover for all memory cards have want, instead of many individual cases, you can build a great card case, z. B. the here .
Tip 2: Never delete images on the camera
Most of the time you look at a picture directly on the camcorder display, after pressing the shutter button. If it is crooked, jagged, too light or too dark, or has a wrong image, then quickly press the Delete button.
If it is not necessarily, let it be! Sort the pictures better only on the computer. By deleting images directly on the camera, you increase the probability of data errors.
Tip 3: Always format your memory card after loading
After you have transferred your pictures to the computer or to the external hard drive, you should empty your memory card completely. To minimize the risk of data errors, you should format your memory card every time after you put it back into the camera.
But be careful: always make sure you've backed up all the pictures. If the memory card is formatted, it is empty!
NO COMPUTER ON THE ROAD? THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES.
Not every traveler has a laptop in their luggage and can secure their photos in this way on an external hard drive. Of course there is still a possibility, how you can make a backup of your photos: hard disks with W-Lan.
Recommended is the hard disk of WD, which gives it with 1 or 2 TB storage space. The hard disk has an SD card reader integrated, so you do not need a computer to save the images from your camera to the hard disk. Here you find more information about the wireless hard drive .
Did you know already?
With the right credit card, you can save a lot of money when traveling. How to do this, we tell you here!Credit card without foreign charges
Transfer is easy by plugging your SD card into the hard drive and having access to the pictures with a supplied app for your smartphone. Sounds awesome and easy. When you're out on the road, this is an excellent alternative to backing up your images.
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HOW DO YOU ENSURE YOUR PHOTOS ON TRAVEL?
We have found the perfect workflow for securing our photos on the road. We are still curious how you do it. Tell us what hardware you are using and how you save your pictures when traveling.
