When we talk about redundancy with our cameras and images, the term can be very misleading as many people equate redundancy as to having two card slots in your camera. While that may be a huge part of it, redundancy and backing up your images is so much more than that.
The Idea Of Redundancy
Redundancy is a term we use in photography describing how we protect our hard work from being lost. There are many reasons that can contribute in losing your images or video, and we will look at how we can prevent the loss, and what kind of situations can cause loss. This is by far not a comprehensive list, although it is very comprehensive, and there may be other factors involved in loss of your data.
How can you lose your images or video?
These are some of the situations in which you can lose your work. People worry about a card being corrupt, but as we will discover, this is just one way to lose your work. The fact that most people mostly only worry about a corrupt card, should send warning signals to you instantly.
• Corrupt Data On Your Card – Your storage card becomes corrupt and unreadable. Although this is not as common as most people seem to think, it is a real threat, especially if you are not replacing older SD cards (etc) regularly (especially if you are writing/formatting the card with extreme regularity).
• Card loss – Changing cards in events can easily lead to you losing a card, especially in dark or busy environments. Be sure to always have a safe place where you know your cards are stored safely.
• Camera loss/stolen – A big contributor to loss of images and video is the loss of your equipment! This happens far more than you think. It only takes a second to turn your back on an unattended camera and it can disappear.
• Failure to back up images on your computer to more than a couple of backup options – You may think you’re safe after the event, but failure to back up your images instantly can result in lost images if your hard drive(s)/network fail.
Being sensible and planning to avoid redundancy issues
Believe it or not, having just one card slot isn’t always the issue (photographers managed for many years with only one card slot, and still do!), although it is a contributor to the possibility of losing your work. There are ways that professionals use to combat this, as well as ways to tackle other forms of loss of data.
• If you have to work with one camera that only has one card slot in a special event, have a safety box with a couple of storage cards. During set intervals (or a lull in activity), swap out the card for a fresh card to start the next part of the event. It will minimise loss should a card be corrupted. It is a simple but very effective way of ensuring your data is a safe as possible.
• Use a second camera – This is a hugely tried and tested method (regardless of how many card slots you have). You may be photographing with different focal lengths on each camera, but as a photographer you strive for the best images no matter what the focal length, so losing data from one camera (through any means) will ensure you still have useable images.
• Use a second photographer – for the same reasons as above, but you’ll cover more ground and have more variety of images. The idea of two photographers makes so much sense when you are required to record a once in a lifetime event such as a wedding.
• Ensure the camera never leaves your body, do not leave it anywhere unless you have a reliable person with you to take care of it. It only takes a second for someone to pick up your camera without you knowing and it’s gone forever.
• As soon as you can, take the photos off your cards and make sure you send the images to at least two backup locations (plus your computer if you keep photos on that for initial edits). As well as uploading them to a cloud service. You can never have too many backups of a special event!!!
• Keep the images on your cards until you really have to format the cards. One day you’ll thank me for this! It can be easy to accidently erase images that you have taken off your cards.
Most importantly, make it routine
All that is said and done, accidents do happen, card failure does happen (no matter how much you paid, or what kind of card it is) and as humans we can make mistakes (especially if you’re tired after a long day’s shoot).
Make it routine to just follow the simple steps above, and be prepared. It doesn’t matter what camera you are using, or what your computer setup is, there is a point listed that can help you be safe with some kind of redundancy for your images.
Always follow the rule of three for your backups:
- Save all and every image to your primary drive.
- Save all and every image to your backup hard drives (ideally this should be off-site, although in reality it should be stored safe and securely in a dry place).
- Save all and every image, or at minimum the images you have chosen to edit to a cloud service.
Conclusion
I hope this has been helpful, and I know it’s certainly helped me over the years, just because it’s made me feel a bit safer with knowing I’ll have something to bring back from a shoot. Always make time to backup after a shoot, one day you will regret not backing up, and that day will be too late.
If you have anymore tips, let us know below!
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My name is Mark G Adams and I run Photography By Mark G Adams. I am a professional photographer from South Wales, shooting weddings, events and portraits as well as running meets and workshops. For fun I like to shoot landscapes, wildlife and occasionally do street photography. Enjoy my website as I share my knowledge learned over decades of working and having fun in photography. Feel free to like, comment and subscribe!
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