As a photographer, you must have clicked thousands of photos so far. You invest your time, energy, skills, and efforts every day to click photos that earn you money. But what about their safety? What if your camera gets stolen or damaged before you hand them to your clients? Are you backing your photos up in the right way? Not sure about that? Then you are at the right place. Read the article carefully to ensure no photos of yours get lost ever in the future.
Top 5 Foolproof Ways To Backup Your Photos
Use two card slots
Using two cards in your camera will be the most effective way to backup your images while shooting. If your camera has the facility, then you are lucky! Just set the duplicate mode by and as you click, the pictures will automatically get copied into the secondary card. If you use full-frame DSLRs like the Nikon D800, Sony A99, Canon 5D mkIII, Nikon D600, Canon 1D, etc. you will get two card slots. APS-C DSLRs generally do not have such slots except the Nikon D7000. But the bad news is, this system does not work for videos.
Carry a portable media storage
Apart from your laptop, you can also backup your photos in a portable media storage drive. There are many such drives available at affordable prices. Use them when you are shooting outdoors, especially during the shoots where you need to move here and there in crowded areas a lot, and carrying a laptop is not possible, or even safe. You can backup the photos on your laptop when you are in your studio or any secured place. The objective is to keep your photos safe no matter where you are.
Copy in an external hard drive
Never make the mistake of saving your photos in only one location on your computer. Use an external hard drive. An external hard drive is the storage system that you need to connect to your computer externally, generally with a USB cable, or via a network in some cases. Many low-cost hard drives are available in the market nowadays, so you can backup your photos without pinching your pocket. The price usually ranges between $50 to $350, offering around 1-8 GB of space. To automate the backup process, use the software of the drive or third-party software dedicated for backup.
Back up to Online Cloud Storage
Along with the hard drive, save your photos in the cloud storage too. You can use Crashplan, Glacier of Amazon, Nordlocker, Dropbox, etc. They also do not cost much. Just do some research and compare the prices and facilities, to avail the best one. According to your need, you may either upload RAW files or backup them after you are done with the post-processing. They are really useful as they backup your photos automatically and make you free of the worries of losing them. In almost all the storage systems, there are some free versions also available. If you are an amateur photographer, you can avail of this facility, and backup the small number of photos you consider special. If you are a professional photographer and need a lot of space to store your work, take your time, and compare between the online storage systems in terms of price, offers, and convenience. For example, if you are an iPhone user, google photos will not be your first choice, no matter how much alluring its offers are!
Digitize the prints and negatives
If you have printed photos, albums, and negatives that you want to preserve, you must digitize them. If you are backing them up for a professional cause, use a scanner, or avail a service provider dedicated to digitizing your prints. Otherwise, you can use the Google PhotoScan app. You can use it to scan even the framed photos without reflection.
And there is one additional tip for you- once you are done with selecting a backup system, do not forget to review that periodically, and ensure that your photos are safe. Change your way of backing up photos if necessary.
Written By Sanga Basu, Content Writer, WPC.
