Tips for a photo trip. Part 4: storing photos safely

Monday 14 November 2022, 16:32 by Nando Harmsen | 5,378 views | 7 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

To enjoy a worry-free photo trip, I have a number of tips to help you take photos with a group without any concerns. I draw on the experience I have gained from the many situations I have encountered as a photography tour leader.

This is the fourth part in the series of tips for a photo trip. The first part was about the camera bag and how to deal with it during your trip, the second part was about the tripod. The third part was about knowing your camera.

Despite all the equipment, bags and tripods, the small, fragile memory card is still where your valuable photos are collected. It is therefore important to pay attention to it, so you do not come home without your photos.

When you are out on location, you regularly open your bag, take things out and rummage through the equipment you have with you. Are you sure no memory card will fall out? Do you have enough memory cards with you?
All sorts of things can happen to your memory card. It is small enough to lose. It is vulnerable to breaking, at least some cards are. A memory card can become unreadable for unclear reasons. It is enough to make you nervous.

The way travellers deal with keeping their photos safe is as varied as the people themselves. And yet, despite all kinds of ingenious methods, I have seen things almost go wrong. That is a shame.

You may still have the memories, but the photos were part of the point too.

1. Buy good memory cards

There are cheap and expensive memory cards. Some are unbranded, while others come from a reputable brand. Preferably buy good quality. Search online and read which ones are good. Usually, these will be the better-known brands.

This screenshot from an online shop shows that there is plenty of choice when it comes to good cards. Do not make the mistake of buying a dirt-cheap unbranded card from a supermarket or discount shop.
Do not go for the cheaper unbranded cards. Remember that you are entrusting your valuable photos to them. You do not want to take the risk that something happens to them.

2. Make sure you have enough memory cards

I have seen photo-trip participants take only one or two cards with them. Sometimes they do not even have enough storage on the card. They can run out of storage halfway through a day or halfway through the trip.

It is better to have one memory card too many than one too few. Just buy an extra one, even if it is only for backup.
Sometimes the plan is to transfer the memory card to a hard drive every day, then empty it and use it again. Sometimes the number of photos taken is seriously underestimated.

Take more than enough with you. You would rather come home with an unused card than have to delete photos because you run out of space.

It is better to take four 64-gigabyte or 128 GB cards than two 32 GB cards, or, and I hope you never do this, a single card that you empty every day after copying the photos to a laptop.

3. Keep spare cards in a good case

Once you have bought enough memory cards, also buy a good case for all of them. Do not use the handy plastic boxes they came in, even if you have convenient compartments in your camera bag where they fit. A case keeps everything organised and safe.

Do not keep your cards in the plastic boxes. Buy a good case so they stay safely together in one place instead of falling loose inside your bag. I put cards that are full in the case the other way round.
Number your cards if you wish, so you can easily see which ones you have used and which ones you have not. Come up with a system that lets you see at a glance which are full and which are empty.

It can be very simple. Front facing forwards means empty, turn it around for full.

4. Use backup in the camera

Does your camera have room for two memory cards? Then you can save every photo directly to both cards. A perfect backup while taking photos. If something happens to one card, you will still have the other one with the same photos on it.

If your camera has two memory slots, use them for backup. Better safe than sorry. If you only have one slot, always make sure you have a good backup at the end of the day.
Some people say that nothing ever happens to cards, or that nothing has ever gone wrong in all the years before. That may be true, but it does not guarantee that it will not happen. Every so often I see another sad message about photos being lost for that reason.

Save your photos to both cards in exactly the same file format. So both raw, or both jpeg if you prefer to use that. Do not think you can save a jpeg as a backup for a raw file. That is not a backup.

5. Never delete photos

It is tempting to look at your photos during the day, or even straight after taking them. Never delete photos, even if they have really failed.

Why would you? You have enough storage with you after all. Avoid accidentally deleting the wrong photo, or something going seriously wrong while deleting. It is better to delete photos at home.

Do not delete photos on the camera. Not even if they are really bad. You have, if all is well, enough cards with you. So you do not need to do it to save space.

6. Make a daily backup to a hard drive or laptop

If you have two memory cards in your camera, you have a backup. If you only have one card in your camera, it is sensible to make a backup of your card to an external hard drive or laptop at the end of every day.

An external hard drive or laptop can be used for backup. This is a hard drive with a built-in card reader and battery. This type is no longer available, but there are others. It is more travel-friendly than a large laptop.
I personally prefer an external hard drive with a built-in card reader. It is small and compact, and you do not have to carry a large laptop around. Usually there is not enough time to edit photos anyway, so I would rather leave that at home.

Even when you have two cards in your camera and use the camera's backup option, the external hard drive or laptop provides extra security.

In principle, it would also be possible to upload your photos to the cloud, but you are then always dependent on a good internet connection. Moreover, uploading can be painfully slow, meaning there may not even be time to do it.

7. Never empty your cards

Once you have transferred all the photos from your memory card to an external hard drive or laptop, never empty the card. Leave your photos on it. If your card is full, take a new card, but always leave your photos on the card.

Are your photos on an external hard drive or laptop? Do not delete your photos from your memory card. Keep this card as a backup and take a new card if it is full.
The card contains your photos, and your external hard drive is your backup. If you empty the card, you no longer have a backup. If something goes wrong with your laptop or external hard drive, you have nothing left. Theft, dropping it, or a hard-drive crash is all it takes to lose your photos.

Four extra tips

Always format the cards in the camera itself before use. Do this for all the cards you take with you, even those you have just bought.

This way, your card is perfectly prepared for storing photos from your camera. Do this at home as preparation, not while you are travelling.

Take a photo of your home address on every card you take with you. Write it on a piece of paper and take a photo of it. If a card does get lost and you have an honest finder, it will always be clear who the card belongs to.

Of course, you must take this photo after formatting the card.

Did you know about this slider? If you have a problem with the card, check whether it is set to lock.
If the camera suddenly says during the trip that it cannot write to your card, check whether there is a mechanical write-protection switch.

SD cards in particular have a small slider that can sometimes accidentally move to lock when taking the card out of or putting it into the camera.

Do not make backing up a complicated or time-consuming process. Keep it simple and easy so you can do it without having to think about it too much. If it takes too much effort or time, you may decide not to do it this time.

Do not turn your photo trip into a nightmare

A photo trip is fantastic. Going out together with like-minded people is also educational, because you get to see how others take photos. It is inspiring, and you can easily reach the most beautiful places.

Taking photos on location without any worries is great. Knowing for sure that every photo you take will also make it home is reassuring.
By making sure you have enough storage and a reassuring backup system, you can be certain that your photos will actually make it safely home. That way, you can enjoy looking at your photos for many years to come, bringing back memories or showing them off.

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