Hi, gang. I’m writing this from The Faroe Islands — a place that’s been on my travel wishlist for years now and I’m thrilled to be able to see and photograph this amazing place for a few days. Unlike Iceland (which is actually my next stop in just a couple of days), it’s not over-run by tourists or throngs of photographers (yet), and there’s something amazing around every corner. Absolutely beautiful islands.
I Skype’d into The Grid from onboard the ship I’m on traveling on this past week, and one of the questions was about my travel photography backup strategy, so I thought I’d go through it with you here today on the blog. It’s actually incredibly simple, but very effective.
BACKUP ONE: I don’t erase my memory cards the entire trip
That means bringing lots of cards, but SD cards (which is what my Canon EOS R uses) are dirt cheap right now. This two-pack of Lexar 64-Gig SD cards is just $18.99 at B&H Photo (link). When a card gets full, I just put it in my in-room safe until it’s time to return home.
BACKUP TWO: I Backup to a Hard Drive each night
Even if I’m really tired, at the end of the day each day I back-up all the new images on my card to a Samsung Portable SSD Drive. You can get the 500GB super-fast, super small, super lightweight drive for $89.95. I love this drive, and it’s with me all the time. (link)
BACKUP THREE: I send finals or picks to The Cloud
If I do any final images, or if I’ve made Picks of my best shots, I upload those to the cloud (either Dropbox or iCloud on my Mac) for safe-keeping. That way, if anything were to happen to my gear (it gets damaged or stolen), I still have my best shots backed up. I don’t back up all my shots — usually the upload speeds on hotel or a ship’s Internet are pretty bad, so I only upload the Picks or JPEG finals.
That’s it — three easy quick steps, and you’re triple-backed up. Hope you found that helpful.
Have a great week everybody — I’m off to jump in a boat to shoot some big rock formations off the coast!
-Scott
