Need advice from Lounge Shutterbugs on photo storage

[Patiod]

So I'm FINALLY into the digital age - got a digital camera for Christmas (what's next? cable TV?)

My home computer could die any minute, and I don't want to put any photos on my work computer either.

So what do folks suggest? Memory sticks? Photo storage sites? Which ones?

Need all the advice I can get (anything you've found makes your photo life more interesting).

I should mention that we don't have kids, so it's not like we have relatives checking in to see pictures of little Baby Snookums.

[SacredCow]

1. A big external hard drive is one option....

but, of course, that could crash as easily as a computer.

[auntAgonist]

2. burn the photos on to CDs or DVDs. Then you can

have printed, whichever ones you want to share with people or put in albums. :shrug:

:)

[Patiod]

5. Why the little "shrug" smilie?

I've never owned a digital camera (did I mention that?) and so didn't even know this was an option.

Is the "shrug" smilie saying I should know that?

Perhaps I wasn't clear - I am ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS about all things digital, including burning, uploading, the whole deal.

The only shred of competence I have is that I can upload a picture onto tinypic.com and then post it on DU!

[auntAgonist]

18. whoa!!!

The shrug was 'cause that's all I can think of to tell you.

sheesh.

I'm not offering any ideas to anyone anymore.

I'm sorry you took it the wrong way.


enjoy your camera. I love mine and I'm no techie.

aA
kesha

[Patiod]

19. sorry I misinterpreted - I just hate that shrug thing

It always says to me "Sheesh, what's so hard to understand about that?" - which is clearly not how you meant it

Please don't stop helping with advice - I've gotten A LOT of good advice here in the Lounge when I need expertise quickly (I also get a lot of smartass replies, but it's the lounge)

Thanks for setting me straight AA. Sorry for the defensiveness!

[lizziegrace]

3. I got one of these - a small external hard drive

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=391

The software loads itself and automatically searches for data files (photos, music, documents and others) and backs them up. There's also a restore feature in case you lose all the data.

[Patiod]

6. Thanks - this looks like just the ticket

And the price looks pretty reasonable.

Beats the hell out of all the little memory sticks floating around my life with various files on them...

[lizziegrace]

7. I found it on sale at Best Buy

don't know if it still is now that the holidays are over.

I'd still burn the ones you can't possibly live without to cds or DVDs and back them up.

[Patiod]

12. OK - I've already admitted that I'm clueless

So I'll go for broke: what's the difference between CDs and DVDs? Can I burn pictures onto both? (I don't burn music, so I'm starting from scratch here).

Will the software CD/DVD that came with my camera have that function?

(hey, I know as much about (legal) pharmaceuticals as a lot of medical professionals, but I haven't been paying attention to the digital revolution, so I need remedial help!)

Thanks!

[lizziegrace]

16. No problem

if your computer has a cd burner, you can save the images to a cd. A cd holds less data than a DVD does. My father put hundreds of photos from a family reunion on a DVD. In order to burn a DVD, you have to have a DVD burner in your computer. I just now have one in a laptop that's a little over a year old. If you have an older computer and it was not a high-end model, you may not have a DVD burner.

Clear as mud, huh? ;)

[Patiod]

20. Actually, very clear

My home computer is pretty old, so I'm guessing no DVD burner.

[hunter]

4. I put them on external hard drives & CDs.

So I end up with an album of photo CDs, my picture files on both my computer's hard drive and a seperate external drive I keep for pictures, scrapbooking etc., in addition to my regular computer backups, which makes at least four copies.

Maybe I'm OCD a little, but external USB hard drives are always $79.00 on clearance somewhere, and they keep getting bigger and bigger. The latest crop of $79 hard drives are half a terrabyte.

[Patiod]

8. Interesting to note that no one suggests on-line sites

I prefer the control that external hard drives seem to offer (hell, I wasn't even familiar with them until someone on this thread posted a link the "Passport" - that's just how low-tech I am)

Don't want to log on and find that my photo-sharing website has gone belly-up!

[hunter]

14. Anything you put online can escape...

I don't want to log on and find my photosharing site has gone belly up and the hard drives are in possession of the Secret Police.

Nah, actually I can't really care. They already know what a devil I am by my DU posts, and the casual nudity is pretty boring.

I have an awesome farmer's tan!

[lukasahero]

9. Everywhere

I believe in backups. I have a "storage" drive connected to my pc but also use a flash drive and photobucket mostly because I don't want to lose these pictures ever and, since I work with computers, I trust none of these options completely. :)

[MrCoffee]

10. I like google's Picasa photo site

[lizziegrace]

11. Did your wife like her camera?

:)

[MrCoffee]

13. Heh

She ended up not getting the Nikon DSLR thanks to her totaling of the car in the middle of November, but I did upgrade her ancient digital point & shoot.

She'll get the DSLR for a random April surprise.

[Resuscitated Ethics]

15. Big external hard drive is a must

They are coming down in price-- a great Western Digital 500gig for about $100.

Online photo storage will break your heart: they reduce your resolution and go belly-up at the most inopportune times, then they try to squeeze you for prints. Online sites are fine for SHARING but suck for archiving in my experience.

I personally recommend to shoot at highest possible resolution and archive the hi-res in some sort of repeatable retrievable way. I name my individual "rolls" by camera/date for example "D50 12-25-08". What if a year down the road you want to edit a picture? If all you have is the first lame crop lo-res out on a photo share site you won't get the fabulous results that a full hi-res "digital negative" will give you.

More advanced but I shoot with camera raw (Nikon Electronic Format- NEF) when using my DSLR. Worth it to be able to adjust white-balance AFTER shooting the pic: with JPEG all of that get processed upon shooting and if you have messed up the setting oh well. Superior sharpness with RAW as well. I was really able to give up film but my resulting files are about 8-10 mb per shot.

Great pictures are elusive-- strive for sharpness. If you have strived to cover five-or six methods of getting a sharp picture and something like a gust of wind comes up, something you can't control, at least you will have the other sharpness points covered and have a much better chance at a pleasing interesting photo. Stability, focus, ISO ("film speed"), lighting etc. If most are in place then one or two getting wiggly is easier to stomach.

Have fun! Shoot lots!

[Patiod]

Thanks for this advice.

A little advance, but I soaked up what I could. Your comments about online storage are pretty much what I assumed.

"Strive for sharpness" is clear, too.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. I save all my photos on DVDs,

and I have a thing called a PicturePorter that I use on trips. http://digitalfoci.com/picture_porter_elite.html

[unpossibles]

21. I use Flickr

it's free, but for $20 a year, you get unlimited storage. ALso nice for posting photos on forums such as this, and you can set photos to be public, private or in between.