When Disaster Strikes

[Editor's Note: I'd like to welcome Hugh Walker, the latest addition to the FYP team. Hugh has shot everything from landscapes to fashion photography and has a very unique perspective on the photography industry. I'm very excited to introduce him to you all and hope you find his posts to be just as intriguing and inspiring as I do!]

Let me ask you a question: If, by some random act of the universe, your main computer system was suddenly beamed to the Orion nebula, would you experience a glitch in the matrix or a major nervous breakdown? Could you, in a matter of hours, find all of those images that you captured during this year, restore them to a new computer system and be at peace? Or would you be contemplating finding the nearest bridge and executing a perfect 10-point swan dive? Now be totally honest with yourself. Remember that the first step to resolving a problem is accepting that you have one in the first place. It would not be surprising if your answer was “I need to practice my water landings” because the majority of your colleagues are very much in the same position. In general, most photographers are not fully aware of what it truly means to ‘go digital’ and therefore do not establish a plan to adequately prepare themselves for a possible disaster.

Disaster lurks at every stage of the digital process. File corruption or loss is a common occurrence and is possible with each conversion or transition of a file from one media to another. The first, and often the most traumatic, point of failure is the actual process of transferring the image from the camera sensor to the memory card. Have you ever considered that at the point of pressing the shutter button a computer within your camera takes the readings from the sensor, converts that information to a file and then writes that file to the camera’s memory card? What would happen if that memory card was faulty? The result would be a corrupted file and tragically no image of the bride and groom taking their first kiss. Trauma!!!! Corrupted memory cards are not uncommon and nearly every person who has owned a computer has experienced the heart wrenching event of trying to recover from the failure of a disk drive. Let us not forget those recordable DVDs that you have used to store back-ups of your files; they too will deteriorate over time.

During the past two weeks I have had two external disks fail; one containing all of the files relating to a workshop that I was hosting and the other containing my complete music library of 400 CDS. But, did I panic? I did not even blink. Why? I have a standard workflow that involves keeping multiple copies of my files. What did I do? I simply located the most recent back-up and restored the files to another external disk. For me it was just a glitch in the matrix. It could have been catastrophic, but my workflow saved me. Could you have said the same?

Step 1: Before Your Shoot

· Always use memory cards from one of the better known brands. Not all memory cards are manufactured to the same high quality standard. Cards are not as expensive as they were in the past so invest a few high quality cards, if only for peace of mind.

· Unless you are shooting lots of video, avoid using 32GB and 64GB cards. A 16GB card on a 5DMKII, shooting in full ‘RAW’ format, will hold around over 350 images.

· It is a good practice to label your memory cards. This is even more important if your cards are from the same manufacturer and of the same size.

· Always have more than one memory card in your camera bag. Never go to a shoot with one memory card. If a memory card gets full during the shoot, replace it with an empty one.

· Never erase files or folders from a memory card while in the field. In the heat of the moment it is quite easy to make a mistake and delete all of the files by accident.

· If your camera allows it then shoot in ‘RAW’ or ‘RAW+ Jpeg’ mode.

Step 2: Upload

Use a card reader. Buy a card reader of reputable brand and use it to transfer your files to the computer. If your computer has a fire wire or USB 3.0 port, then use a reader that supports those standards and enjoy the fast transfer rates.

· Make copies of the images to a back-up device immediately after upload and before you start any processing.

· Do not erase or format your memory cards immediately after uploading the files to the computer. Wait a few days until you have had the opportunity to review the images on your computer and to have ensured that you have a back-up of those images.

· Do not format memory cards in the computer. Always format the memory cards in the camera in which they will be used. This will ensure maximum compatibility with the camera.

· Develop a standard naming convention for your folders and files and be consistent its use. One easy way to achieve this is to use a software package that assists in the automation of cataloguing your images. Examples are Aperture , Light room, Capture One Pro . ACDsee Pro .

· Imbed tags and Meta data into your files during the upload process. This will help you to find images more quickly and allows insertion of vital copyright data into the files (Important if you are publishing the files to the web).

Step 3: Create a back-up strategy

Your back-up strategy can be very simple or very complicated and is really governed by two things:

1. the amount of data that you need to back-up

2. the level of protection that you require (or, how much money can you potentially lose if you cannot quickly access your files?)

If your data needs are modest then you can reliably back-up your system using an external storage drive. These devices are available in many formats and sizes from manufacturers such as Western Digital, Seagate, LaCie etc. A good source of information is to search within the ‘Amazon’ online store for the topic ‘external storage’. My suggestion would be to purchase either a 500GB or a 1TB device. Most external drives purchased today provide software that can be used to back-up your files. In most cases it is as simple as directing the software to the folder or drive to be backed-up and then let the programme do the rest. For those devices that do not come with software I would recommend GoodSync by Siber Systems Inc. It has a user-friendly interface, is very quick and has never failed me .

For maximum reliability, I would suggest that you purchase two identical external storage devices. Label them A and B and create identical back-ups on both devices. Take the device labelled B to a secure, but accessible location such as a friend’s house or your office and leave it there. Rotate both devices between your house and that location on a weekly or monthly basis. A rotation such as this protects not only from the local disaster of a hard disk or system failure but also provides protection from disasters that may impact your house, such as fire, flood etc.

The final step is to place another copy in the ‘cloud’ using services such as Carbonite. Mozy or Drop box. These services allow you to store files in secure data centres on the World Wide Web.

If your appetite for storage is much larger then you are entering the realm of Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. In simple terms network attached storage are smart devices which can hold many disk drives and are connected to the local area network in your house. These devices normally offer the ability utilise a number of similar sized hard disks all bonded together to provide a large storage area. The benefit of a NAS is that they can be shared by many computers at the same time and they usually come with built in levels of disaster recovery from a drive failure. Popular brands of NAS are Drobo by Data Robotics, DLink, Synology eand implement a strategy that allows you to back-up and restore your critical files. tc. Simply doing a Google search on NAS will return pages of information on the various types and there pros and cons. The primary point is that you must develop and maintain a back-up strategy.

In conclusion, start with high quality memory cards, back-up your data at every opportunity and keep multiple back-ups. If you follow these simple steps you will not have to practice your water landings.