Effective Backup Principles For Photographers

Being a photographer is a tough business to begin with. When a photographer loses their pictures then they lose their whole business. Lost pictures are lost money and time and that is something a photographer just cannot afford. Here are a few simple backup techniques to keep your photos safe and keep you in business.

Flash Drives  and Flash Cards

A flash drive is a great way to backup photos from your computer. When you download your files to your computer you can also make a copy on a flash drive that way you will have two copies of your photos.

Not only will you have a double but you will also be able to take your photos with you. Say you have a meeting instead of trying to take your whole computer just take your flash drive and use their systems to display your work.

The steps involved are simple after saving your pictures into a file you will then copy them into your removable drive. You can locate your removable drive under the “my computer” file on your computer, it should state removable or USB or flash drive. Then just paste into the drive and you will be backed up.

One interesting way to make sure you do not lose your files when you are under contract, is to use two different flash cards and back them up on the go. Some cameras (like the Nikon D7000) use two SD cards (Secure Digital cards) at the same time, making the duplication project a lot easier.

Just think about how easier it becomes to back-up all the photos of the wedding you are just shooting, while you are taking a small break at the bar. Not only will this help you avoid moments like explaining why you have to photos of their wedding, but it will increase your reputation to a certain degree.

It might seem a little less-cost effective than usual, however, given the fact that the prices of flash cards nowadays has lowered considerably (given their storage range) you can certainly afford it.

External Hard Drives

An external hard drive is an option as well. This type of backup is a little more costly however if you have a lot of pictures and have been in business or plan on being in business for a very long time this would prove to be very beneficial to you. So to back up your pictures to an external hard drive is just as simple as the other two processes mentioned.

First, you need to connect your external hard drive to your computer, this is typically done with a USB cable. If you are a windows user, there should already be a drive that recognizes the external hard drive.

If by chance your computer does not recognize it, then there is usually a program that comes with the external hard drive that you will need to install on your computer.

After the program is installed you should be able to see an icon in the bottom right hand corner, this is a verification that you have installed your drive properly and that it is functioning.

After the external hard drive is installed and functioning properly, the rest should be fairly easy. Simply open the external hard drive on your computer, then drag and drop items in which you want to back up onto it.

You can store your pictures, music even settings on your external hard drive and there is tons of space. It should take you quite a while to completely fill your external hard drive. Some externals offer automatic backups that you can schedule within its settings.

Should You Still Use CDs/DVDs?

There is a constant struggle between the new and the old, and it’s happening nowadays with CDs and DVDs as we head into the large storage era. It seems that the way technology is evolving and morphing, CDs and DVDs are mostly left out of the race (notice how slowly but surely they have been cut out of certain configurations – the Macbook Air doesn’t use it at all for quite some time now).

And let’s be honest about this, how often have you been using your optical drive nowadays? This may pose a problem if you want to consider this type of recording media as your back-up method.

It might be a short-term solution only given the fact that you will have to move all your data to a different storage device in the next few years.

It remains however one of the cheapest back-up methods, but also a slower and less accessible one. My advice is that you should only consider this if you have no other option.

Cloud Back-up Methods

We just discussed about the old ways to back-up your data, but let’s step in the Web 2.0 / Web 3.0 bubble and think about cloud services and how one can back-up their data and still have it at hand no matter where they are.

Most of the times it might be a bit expensive finding a service that will host hundreds of gigabytes, however, if you need them at hand and surely backed up at the same time, then this might be the best solution for you.