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Big Computer 3 is one year old! - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5 6

by Mike McNamee Published 01/06/2009

For the wedding photographer (and for this read any shooting that cannot be easily repeated) loss of a set of files carries greater consequences early on in the process. If you lose your computer totally after an album has been delivered this is a less serious issue than the same problem before the album has been made. In this failure scenario you are at the same vulnerability as we were when weddings were shot on film. Similarly if you lose a CF card early in a wedding shoot you have at least the opportunity to do some re-shooting, even it is not ideal. The journey home is probably the most vulnerable time for such data. The wedding is complete, you are on the way home and a road traffic accident burns out your car with your kit in the boot. Assuming you have survived the RTA you have a problem; if you have not, somebody else has the problem!

For many people, having their wedding shoot on two hard drives is as secure as they wish (or are prepared) to be. However, a backup on two discrete hard drives plus DVD backup is more comforting. Here is a suitable workflow that would suit most photographers.

1. Shoot on a number of CompactFlash cards; then loss of one card is not a total loss. Forty images per card is not a bad point to aim for.
2. Download the CF cards to a hard drive, as soon as you arrive home.
3. Copy these (RAW or JPEG) source files to another drive, preferably toa drive in another machine but certainly to another discrete drive, not a partition.
4. Do not leave any files on your Windows Desktop. Any operating system corruption will almost certainly lose those files for good. 5. Make two sets of DVDs of the source files. Both sets should be carefully stored in dry, dark conditions. Do not leave them around on the bench. Ideally one set should be in another location (eg your mother's house) so that in the event of fire or burglary you do not lose your livelihood as well as your studio/home. A fire-proof safe is another option.
6. At this point you are safe to format your CF cards ready for your next assignment.

You are securely backed up but you have not addressed the availability issue. Your next move is to grade, retouch, process the files and make them ready for album use. Once you have completed as much work (and time) as you are prepared to risk, you should make secure backups of this stage of the work. This is best on hard drives so that you have both the worked files and the originals available easily and so that you can make progressive backups as you go. For a wedding, although it would be painful to rework your source files totally in the event of loss, it would not be a business killer.

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1st Published 01/06/2009
last update 21/07/2022 08:46:23

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