I finally got around to getting off my first film from my medium format camera developed. The film was a black and white one which came “free” with the camera. I’d realised (even before I tried this film) that I’m not very good at visualising the world in black and white. When converting digital files  I need to give it a go to really appreciate what an image will look like in B&W. Unfortunately, there’s no such luxury with film so I tended to go for high contrast scenes this time around to be on the safe side.

I’ve learnt from playing this way, and now I’m looking forward to trying out the colour portrait film I have sat in the fridge.

Because this was an experiment really, I couldn’t bring myself to spend the £20 to get them properly scanned from the negatives, so I’ve scanned in the photos using my cheapy flatbed scanner at home. That has degraded the quality a bit compared to the prints.

I briefly thought about adding “storing your memories” as a tag line to the header until I realise quite how cheesy it was.  And it might, or might not, give you a clue to my on going competition to win a free portrait shoot by guessing “why aCoolDryPlace?” This article isn’t going to help in the slightest on that front.

If you book me as your wedding photographer, you will want to know that when you get home from honeymoon I will still have all your wedding photos. Keeping your photos safe is important. In this post I thought I would share what I do to keep both my professional and my personal photos safe, and offer you some advice of fairly inexpensive back up solutions for use at home. I am going to assume digital photos are the order of the day, since most photography, both amateur and professional/wedding has gone that way. Film is an altogether different monster.

Warning: This article is very geeky. Please don’t take apart your computer unless you know what you are doing! Contact me if you are desperate for a little help. Contact a professional support service if you are in need of a LOT of help!

Harddrives fail!

I know from personal experience that harddrives fail. Assuming anything else is to take a risk. Copying to CD/DVD is often thought of as a straightforward approach, but you’ll quickly end up with a lot of Cd/DVDs and be unable to find anything. CD/DVDs also fail given time, not that I’ve experienced that yet. The simplest back up solution is to get a second harddrive, whether internal to the computer, or an external USB harddrive.The problem with this approach is remembering to copy everything onto the second harddrive, and keeping it consistent with the main harddrive. Backup software can help with that, but a hardware solution should be more reliable. RAID (Redundant array of inexpensive disks), more specifically RAID 1, enables you to set up two physical drives as if they are a single harddrive in the computer. The hardware (hardware raid is a better bet than software raid) automatically copies everything to both disks. If one disk fails, it can be replaced and all the data on the surviving on copied across to restore the redundacy. Some computers’ motherboard‘s have that feature built in, or you can get a PCI RAID card to do the job. I used an internal RAID solution for quite some time until I needed to upgrade harddrives and ran out of space in my machine. I’m now using a network RAID box so that multiple computers can access the photos in my home network.

Houses burn down!

Having a backup readily available at home is great, but what if my house burns down or some not so friendly individual steals my computer when I’m away? It is important to also have a backup offsite. For some people paying a service like Flickr to store their important photos should be sufficient. Personally I don’t have the broadband bandwidth to upload so much data, and I have opted to have a removeable harddrive rack in my computer. From time to time I can bring the harddrive from its secret storage location, backup everything, and return it to that location (your parents house is always a good place to store stuff!). Backups aren’t as frequent, but most of my data will be safe in the event of a disaster at home. There are network solutions available which enable you to host a box offsite to upload data too, but you’d need a very good internet link.

Having the original and two backups is a fairly standard approach to managing this risk. More backups would be safer, but less manageable, and it is very unlikely that both my home and offsite backups will fail at the same time.

On the job backup

For added peace of mind, I also have a photo drive to allow me to back up my memory cards while out on the job. This means that I have at least one backup of any really important photos (like wedding photos) prior to getting home.

Recommendations for the non-professional

For the non-professional photographer I would still recommend the double backup solution for keeping your memories safe. And the backups should be stored at different locations. The links above are to example products and not ones I have tried or necessarily recommend. I’m not going to make a precise recommendation because the best solution for you will very much depend on your technical skill, number of photos, and financial situation. As an initial solution you probably can’t go too far wrong with keeping a backup on Flickr. They don’t guarantee your data’s safety (other online services will), but I don’t think they’ll loose it in a hurry, and you can share your photos with the world (if you want to they can also be kept private). And when you sign up you might get 3 months free which you can give as a gift, to a friend, or to me perhaps!

Oxfam in Oxford regularly have special camera sale weekends where they display all their photography gear. Rarely is there anything modern, but I’m always tempted by the older cameras. I don’t know why. Last time I almost bought a Kodak Junior, but having researched it, I found that I would have ended up having to re-roll 120 film on to the now obsolete 620 spools. That seemed a little bit too much like hard work, for what would have been just for fun.

But it got me thinking. I fancied playing with a medium format camera. Digital medium format cameras are somewhat out of my reach price wise, so I started investigating film ones. Rather than opting for something very old, along the lines of what I might find at Oxfam – I’ve got hold of the camera above. It’s a early 1990′s professional medium format camera. I’m hoping that the additional expense of film, and the slowness of a fully manual camera, will teach me to think about each shot that little bit more. While it is largely for me to practice with at the moment, I may start offering a retro portrait service for those wanting the look-and-feel of good old film.

I’ve not had any films developed yet, but I’ll post some photos when I have.

This is my latest bit of kit, a Vosonic VP5500, it’s a portable harddrive with built in card reader designed to download/backup photos on the go. This will enable me to take more photos without having to go back to my computer to free up space on memory cards. Good for weddings, and great for holidays.

I haven’t had much chance to play with it yet, so I’m not sure how long the battery will last, or how long each card will take to download. However, neither of these should be too much of an issue, as I have a charger (and you can usually find a plug socket around most places), and I have many memory cards. Surely it can download fast than I can fill them…

I lent one of my cameras to a friend – Mark Porter – for his trip to Chelsea flower show. He got some nice shots and I had difficulty chosing something to put up here. I’m sure Mark will post some more on his blog once I get around to burning them to a DVD and giving him the photos. Whilst I’m happy to lend my kit to friends, next time I might not the day before a wedding, I’m not sure I can handle the extra worry.

I’ve now upgraded my primary camera to a Nikon D300 – woohoo!

A friend asked me why and what it could do that her cameraphone couldn’t. My wife asked me what it could do that my old camara couldn’t, and she was probably thinking “Why?” too. Does it mean that I can take better photos? Should you by a D300 to take better photos? There are two schools of thought regarding photographers and equipment:

1. Your camera doesn’t matter
2. Your camera does matter

Whilst having a great camera doens’t mean you will take great photos, talent is required too. But having a great camera does mean it is easier to take great photos, and it will enable talented photographers to make better photos too. It really depends on what the limiting factor with respect to your/my photography is (talent or equipment). I know I’ve got room for improvement on the talent front, but the D300 will also help me to get better shots in a few ways. So, here’s why I got the D300 and why it is better than my old camera/my friend’s cameraphone. I primarily got this camera for my wedding photography work, and this is where I expect it will be most helpful.

• Lower noise levels at high ISO – this is going to allow cleaner photos in low light situations, such as wedding receptions.
• More pixels – whilst 6 megapixels (old camera) is plenty for most standard enlargements, the extra pixels (12MP) of the D300 will enable bigger enlargements or tighter cropping for the same size enlargement. Not necessarily a better photo, but more flexibility with the final product.
• A second camera – having a back-up at weddings is important, and until now I’ve borrowed one. Now the D300 will be my main tool, but my old (very good nevertheless) camera will be a back-up / second camera.

I felt that in those areas my old camera could limit my abilities for wedding photography. If I only did event photography I don’t think I would have needed to, or bothered to, upgrade as my old camera is quite capable for that kind of photography.

So as to whether you need a new camera – you should determine whether your camera is limiting your photography. If it is, identify in what ways, and that will guide what you need in a camera. Or just buy the D300 and be happy (but broke).

They will be used properly for a job tonight. More on that later.