Foto Friday ~ Neil's journey to Germany

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Revisiting photo saving and storage

Remember my post about backing up your computer with not only cd's, but with an external hard drive? I've learned my lesson with having as much backup as possible with having had 3 computer hard drives fail on me in the last 8 years (one PC, two Macs, see how Mac is not doing so hot in the running for me right now? So disappointing!). And I hope my not-so-pleasant experiences have encouraged you to get an external drive, too.

I have seen recently that you can buy the external drives for as little as $75.00 or you can get one at Dell for $76.00. Target has them online and in their stores, as well as Circuit City (they will ship your entire order for 3.99 or you can pick it up in the store) and Best Buy.

I have found Circuit City has great prices, and Best Buy will have them on sale at good prices. I don't really have high recommendations for one brand over the other because they have all worked great for me. I have 3 right now and they are all 3 different brands. Apple computers recommend LaCie, and so do I (I have one of these), but Fantom and Western Digital are both very reliable and great brands as well (these are my other two).

It may be really overwhelming for someone who has never shopped for the external drives before because there are so many options. If you go to macmall.com and search for external hard drives, you get 30 pages of options. But all you really need to know to start is, the size of drive you want. You can get sizes anywhere from 125GB to 2T (and maybe even larger, I've never looked for them any larger than that . . . I am sure they are out there). The different prices are basically determined by size of memory. 125 being smallest, and 2T being largest. But for the regular picture-taking consumer, I would say 125 is plenty large. And then if you want me to recommend a brand, I would say, start with any of the above mentioned.

So now that you have all the information you ever needed right in front of you to go purchase an external hard drive, you have no excuses. So please please please do it now. I know $75 or $100 is a little expensive, but believe me, it's worth every penny when you lose your computer hard drive and every one of the thousands you had on there. (This is coming from your obsessive-compulsive picture-taking friend, but also from a professional photog who has to do this to make her clients feel safe.)

What got me back on this external hard drive kick? Losing my hard drive just a few weeks ago and my friend, Cait, saying that my blog entry inspired her to go purchase one and organize her computer's pictures. Yay, Cait! I'm so excited! I want more of my readers to do the same. Now go do it :c)

The "why will my photo cds go bad over time?" mystery.

I know it's been weeks and weeks since I posted about archiving your photos. I said I would post the next day the continuation and that just didn't get done. Sorry. Anyhow, I hope today is as good a day as any :c)

So to continue, yes, probably most of the cd's that you archive your photos onto will go bad. Yep, it's true (I've had it happen!), which is why I wanted to tell you about it.

It is scary to think that the majority of people these days take pictures but never actually print any of them. Most of the time the majority of us, who use digital cameras, do this. And many times this is all we do; download the pictures to our hard drive, archive them to a cd, then delete the ones from the hard drive making room for more, but hardly ever do we put them onto an external hard drive or archive them the way we should.

If you buy cd+-r (or dvds) for archiving your pictures, you better rethink it. They will go bad. I'm not just saying it. They really will.

Many manufacturers say that their cds will last 40+ years, but it's not true. Tests have been done that show that they only last an average of 2 years. Of course we will probably read and keep reading varying reports, but from my own research, I keep seeing around 2 years. That scares me. The thought of not being able to pass my children's baby pictures down to them and their families because of something I did the wrong way (and could have easily done right) is really frightening.

You can read numerous reports here, here, here and here. Oh, and here.

I won't go into depth because you can read those articles, but bottom line is, the materials the cds are made from will deteriorate making your pictures inaccessible. The chemicals that the cds are made of will eventually break down. Who wants that to happen? Even more, who wants to risk that happening?

The solution: buy archival gold cds. Yes, they are expensive (around $42 for 25), but they are worth it. They are proven to last more than 300 years because they are made with 24K gold instead of silver, which stops degradation from oxidation (the CD rot). I highly (did I say highly?) recommend getting them. To me, just like the external hard drive, they are 110% worth every penny. Pictures, to me, are worth a thousand words plus so much more . . .

I haven't found the gold cds in many retail stores (yet). I am sure eventually I will as they gain popularity. But you can find them at numerous places online: light impressions (one of my favorites), delkin, mac mall (another fave), my digital discount, print file (a great one for archival anything), and encore data.

Here are a few things you can do to possibly keep your silver cds living longer (even though I still wouldn't rely on them personally):

*store them vertically in a protective case
* do NOT write on them with a permanent marker. Use a felt-tipped water-based pen. Solvent-based are no-no's and will destroy your cds even quicker.
* buy only branded cds. Don't try and save money with an unbranded cd because in many cases you will be disappointed with cd failure. This, again, has been proven over and over. Use only branded cds. To identify them, they just need to have the brand on the outside of the cd.
* do not use any sort of labels or tape. The solvents in these will slowly destroy your data. (I recommend using the white cd envelopes with the clear window in them. I find them at Office Depot and places like that.)
* store them in dark places out of sunlight (these things will break your cds down quicker as well: high temperatures, humidity, light exposure, mechanical stress, chemical exposure and air quality)
* use a good quality burner and do not burn cds at fast speeds like 52x. Even slow burning can cause problems with the images after time. Stay in the middle at 12-16x.
* and finally, do not not not buy cds that say "CD-RW". This means it's a rewritable cd which can be the worst quality cd ever. I always buy "CD-R" or "DVD-R". I actually burn most of my personal images these days on DVD's because I can store so many more images, especially high jpeg, tiff or RAW image files.

My last few words:

if you can't go the gold cd route, go the DVD route for burning your photos. While they will probably break down over time, too, they are sealed with a thin plastic, unlike cds, so your photos will at least last longer with dvds than cds. And if you can't even do the dvd route, PRINT OUT YOUR PICTURES. Better yet, go ahead and do that anyway! You'll thank me later :c)

12 essential photography rules.

Suddenly I am all about helping you guys, my friends (and my lurkers, I suppose I'll help you, too), take better photos, store photos better, etc. Here are tips, which I didn't make up, but which I found very helpful, which may help you also. If you have a DSLR with manual settings, these should really be helpful. Some may be way over your head, some may not, but if you find just one useful, it will make me happy.

I'm all about making people happy with a photograph I take. Why not help make you happy with the results of the photos you take. Ultimately you will take 95% of the photos you own, so why not improve so you'll have perfection to pass on to your kids and their kids. But wait, before you can pass them on, you have to save them, and even more important, PRINT THEM. Again, another post which will come later . . .

The tips, all borrowed from Pop Photo (and all great in my opinion!):

12 essential facts, formulas, and photographic rules

What happens when your systems go belly-up, when all of that cutting-edge technology dies and you must rely on (gasp!) your own knowledge? It pays to have these basics in your head. They can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will.

1. Sunny 16 rule -- The basic exposure for an average scene taken on a bright, sunny day is f/16 at a shutter speed equivalent to one over the ISO setting—that is, f/16 at 1/100 sec at ISO 100. From this you can interpolate, and try f/22 at the beach, f/11 on a cloudy-bright day, etc.

2. Moony 11, 8, and 5.6 rules -- There are many different rules that work well when shooting the moon. One favorite for a proper exposure of a full moon is f/11 at one over the ISO setting. For pictures of a half moon, use the same shutter speed at f/8, and for a quarter moon, use the same shutter speed at f/5.6.

3. Camera shake rule -- The slowest shutter speed at which you can safely handhold a camera is one over the focal length of the lens in use. As shutter speeds get slower, camera shake is likely to result in an increasing loss of sharpness. So, if you're using a 50mm lens, shoot at 1/60 sec or faster. Not enough light? Use a flash, tripod, or brace your camera against a solid object. (Val's comment: I've had great results from 1/30 even. I learned in school to never shoot at under 1/30 without a tri-pod or flash.)

4. Anatomical gray card -- Metering off an 18-percent neutral gray card is a good way to get a midtone reading that will give you a good overall exposure of a scene. Forgot your gray card? Hold your open hand up so it's facing the light, take a reading off your palm, open up one stop, and shoot. (Various skin tones rarely account for even a full-stop difference.)

5. Depth of field rules -- When focusing on a deep subject, focus on a point about a third of the way into the picture to maximize depth of field, because the depth-of-field zone behind that point is about twice as deep as the depth-of-field zone in front of it. This works for all apertures and focal lengths, but the smaller the aperture and the shorter the focal length, and the greater the distance you shoot at, the greater the depth of field.

6. Largest digital print rule -- To calculate in inches the largest photo-quality print you can make with a digital camera, divide the vertical and horizontal pixel counts (see your manual) by 200. For critical applications, or if you want exhibition-quality prints, divide the pixel counts by 250. (Val's comment: this is a really insightful point!)

7. Exposure rules -- The classic advice is, "Expose for the highlights, and let the shadows take care of themselves." This works with slide film and digital. But with negative film, especially color negative, you're better off overexposing by one stop.

8. Quick flash-fill rule -- When using an automatic flash unit that doesn't provide auto flash-fill ratios, set the flash's ISO dial to twice the ISO you're using. Meter the scene, select an f-stop, set the autoflash aperture to the same f-stop, and shoot. The resulting 2:1 flash-fill ratio will produce filled shadows one stop darker than the main subject.

9. Flash range rule -- Want to know how much extra flash range you get by going to a faster ISO? The rule is, "Double the distance, four times the speed." For example: If your flash is good to 20 feet at ISO 100 (film or digital), it will be good to 40 feet at ISO 400.

10. Megapixel multiplier rule -- To double the resolution in a digital camera, you must increase the number of megapixels by a factor of four—not two. Why? The number of pixels in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions must be doubled to double the pixel density across the image sensor.

11. Action-stopping rules -- To stop action moving across the frame that's perpendicular to the lens axis, you need shutter speeds two stops faster than action moving toward or away from you. For action moving at a 45-degree angle to the lens axis, you can use a shutter speed one stop slower. For example: If a person running toward you at moderate speed can be stopped at 1/125 sec, you'll need a shutter speed of 1/500 sec to stop the subject moving across the frame, and a shutter speed of 1/250 sec to stop him if moving obliquely with respect to the camera. (Val's advice: Just have it set at 1/250 or over with action shots and you should almost always capture the action in freeze-frame.)

12. Sunset rule -- To get a properly exposed sunset, meter the area directly above the sun (without including the sun). If you want the scene to look like it's a half-hour later, stop down by one f-stop, or set exposure compensation to minus one.

Happy day to you! Now go and shoot some great photos then bring them back and show me! :c)

Course in saving digital photos (Part 1)

Update on this post . . . I have added some (potentially) helpful comments in the "blabs to Val" section (a.k.a. comments section) in answer to questions from others.

As you might know, I am a photographer, and I am extremely disorganized. Now don't tell my clients that - they think the opposite. I'm just glad I put on a good front! No, just kidding, to be honest, I am very organized when it comes to my clients . . . their pictures and negatives I treat as gold, but my personal pictures is another story, and I really really need to be better at preserving (and respecting & honoring) my own bits of gold.

As I posted in another post, I am trying to get more organized. I'm into a routine where I finally am saving them as I go like I should. They are now all on CD's and also saved to my hard drives. Which brings me to this, explaining my way of saving my photos.

I think this is an important area in the digital world we now live in that many people overlook or ignore or just don't feel they have time to do. I understand as I have been there. But, I've also been one of those who have lost all pictures on my computer's hard drive after not saving them responsibly! (Sigh . . . that was really hard, as it would be for anyone with a love of photographing their family . . . their livelihood.)

I learned my lesson with my personal photos, which has helped me become a better "saver". This is my personal routine when I download photos (personal or work) to my computers.

• save them to the hard drive
• save them to CD's
• mark the CD with what is on it (something I should not do which I will explain later)
• file the CD's in the right folder (or box)

THEN

• save them to two external hard drives (yes, two)

I highly (highly!) recommend saving your photos to an external source, other than CD's, for three reasons.

1) better safe than sorry
2) your cd's will get bad one day, THEN what will you do?
3) what if one external hard drive crashes too? (See, I'm not totally confident in today's amazing electronic age because mistakes do occur, and again, better safe than sorry . . . hence, why I save to TWO.)

What do I mean by external sources? I mean a hard drive that isn't the one which stores all your computer information, but rather a stand-alone hard drive that starts fresh, clean and empty. One that you can fill up, as though it's another computer, with all your "stuff", and only your stuff. Almost like a photo album, but a high-tech computerized one. It connects to your computer, but just for transferring pictures from the computer to the external device. When you are done transferring, it needs to be disconnected. That way, if some freak of nature happens and your computer goes out or lightning strikes it, your external sources are safe forever and always.

Here's some examples of external hard drives. I have two but plan to buy one more very soon. I think I just need one with a larger GB memory, I'm thinking around 800 GB would be nice. Right now the two I have are the Fantom with 250 GB hard drive (which you can now buy for just $79. I think when I bought mine it was $120! ) and the Western Digital 250 GB hard drive (which you can now get for $98, I paid well over $120 for mine. The prices just keep coming down and coming down because the competition is getting so vast.) * And another note, I always buy all my computer things from macmall, thanks to Alexis for introducing me to them. They are awesome - great customer service, very quick shipping and amazing prices!

To me these hard drives are so inexpensive! I mean, $80 is nothing (in my opinion) to photos which are priceless! That's why they are priceless - because they can never ever be replaced. Too bad we can't go back in time. Thank goodness for cameras stopping time and memories for us the way that the do!

So, to sum this little part up ---- get ONE! You won't be sorry.

The 2nd part of this is, like I said above, your CD's will go bad. I'm sorry, but it's the truth, so time to face it now before it actually does happen.

. . .

Sorry! . . . to be continued (because I honestly don't have time right now . . . off to lunch with family!) I'm sure you are now asking "so why will my CD's go bad?" I will tell you tomorrow. Yummy food calls! :c)