Backing up

On location backups

A colleague of mine recently requested my advice about buying a camera. As he became more and more engrossed in this wonderful hobby he enquired about how to best back up his images. I explained my method and told him to copy or adapt it to his way of working.

Here's what I do:

1. Shoot pictures
2. Copy the images to my laptop (leave the images on the card for now)
3. Copy* these images from the laptop to external hard drive number 1.
4. Copy* these onto External hard drive number 2.
5. Work on the laptop on any images that need a touch of Photoshop
6. Repeat steps 3 & 4
7. Once I am sure that hard drives 1 & 2 match, I format the cards in the cameras they are to be used in. Depending on the content, I sometimes completely wipe the cards*, leaving no trace of what was on there before. I then remove them from my laptop.
8. I give hard drive number 2 to a colleague who stores it for me. I do this because in the event of fire or whatever, I will have one copy at least of my images. (Needless to say, my hard drive is password protected.

 Nine terrabytes of space

 

To completely wipe my cards or hard drive clean, I use the excellent "Shredder" freeware programme by B. Nikhil Baliga. It's available from this website.

* For the copying, I use the free SyncToy from Microsoft. It has the option to copy only the files that have changed since your last backup. You can download it for free here.

Any backup system is better than no back up system .

What method do you use?

Thanks for reading.

On location photoshoot result

You may remember that I published a piece here detailing how I carried out a quick photo shoot for Nobel Biocare magazine at the dental practice of Dr R. Sleiter?

At the end of that article Iwrote "It will be interesting to see which image they use in the magazine."

Well this morning I received a few complementary copies of the magazine and I've reproduced the page layout where they used my image below.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We may live in the digital age, but nothing beats seeing your work in print.

Thanks for reading.

Amazing sunset.

Saw the most amazing sunset last night. At first I thought it was a fire in the distance but the colours started to spread across the sky and gradually grew more and more intense.

The first four images were taken with the 5D MKII and a 24 - 105mm zoom

 I then attached my 300mm f4 for this one.

300mm lens 1/128@f4

  

These two were taken using the Samsung Galaxy 3.

The really unusual thing about it was that my camera was pointing south!

Thanks for reading

On location portrait photoshoot

I received an email from the pharmaceutical company Nobel Biocare asking if I would be free to take some portraits of a dentist for an article that they will soon be publishing.

When I  responded positively that I was available, I was sent details of the shoot and the requirements of the image that was needed. Basically it was a vertical format, preferably three quarters or head and shoulder with a slightly out of focus background. Another proviso was that the dentist shouldn't be wearing his work clothes. 

All very straight forward except it was to be taken in his surgery during business hours. There would be patients in the vicinity. I decided to travel light and although all my gear remained in my car, I used only my 5d MKII with my new 24 - 105 zoom, a Speedlite 430 EX2 and an interesting diffuser that I picked up on a Swiss auction site for a few Francs. I love this device as it gives a lovely almost shadow free light.

The new diffuser in place

I arrived half an hour early at the practice and looked around whilst Dr Sleiter tended to business. As the background had to be slightly soft, I looked for a location that had something on the walls that wouldn't detract too much. I saw two rooms that I thought would be suitable for the image. In one room, the ambient light was measured at 1/80sec at f5.6 and the other recorded 1/200 sec at f5. These apertures were chosen to render the background as slightly out of focus.

When Dr Sleiter was free, he changed out of his dentist clothes and selected a shirt which (in my opinion) wouldn't clash with the surroundings or background.

We started in the first  room and I selected 1/80sec at f5.6 manually on the camera. The walls weren't white and this was seen in the image as the flash reflected from them. The resulting image is warm, which I quite like.

 

 1/80sec @ f5.6 with flash

My only concern was the background. I wasn't sure if it would distract too much on the magazine page where it was appearing.

After a couple of more pictures we moved to one of the surgeries where it was a lot brighter. I started (with the settings established earlier) with a head and shoulders of Dr Sleiter standing then I had an idea. What about making the foreground out of focus?  

1/200 @ f5 with flash

 To be safe, I first asked him to sit on one of the dental chairs and I took a head and shoulders pic of him.

 1/200 @ f5 with flash

Then I swung the dental equipment in front of him to give some sort of "meaning" to the image. This is my favourite of the bunch as it immediately says to me "dentist in his environment".

All in all an enjoyable assignment that went very smoothly with the minimum of equipment and setting up.

It will be interesting to see which image they use in the magazine.

Thanks for reading.