Field backup solution for Iceland trip

Turbo-G

Turbo-G

Suspended / Banned
Messages
394
Name
Grant
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all,
I'll be heading out to Iceland at the end of Feb-early March, and expecting to be taking a lot of photos with my D750.

I'm not planning on taking my MacBook with me, but I was after an alternative backup solution that I could dump my photos to each night, as a secondary backup.

For reference I don't intend to wipe the cards each night, but would prefer to have a secondary backup media with me during the trip just in case the cards die / get lost.

In my head I'm thinking some sort of portable hard drive (pref solid state) with an SD slot, allowing backup of images from card to drive.

Any recommendations, or alternatives to this particular challenge would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Grant
 
I think the D750 has dual card slots.
Why not buy lots of cards and save each image to both cards as you shoot. Store the cards in separate locations when they are full.
 
yzfmike said:
I think the D750 has dual card slots.
Why not buy lots of cards and save each image to both cards as you shoot. Store the cards in separate locations when they are full.
Click to expand...
A similar option (in addition to this) is to buy a big card (or two) and use the D750's copying function to copy from one card to another to create a third backup. A 64gb sandisk 95mb/s pro card can be picked up for around £30, slower cards card be picked up for less. Page 303 of the manual for more details. It can take a while to transfer lots of data so ensure you have a charged battery.

WD do an external hard drive with a SD slot in it but it's quite expensive compared to using the D750 and a large SD card.
 
Last edited:
Actually I do something similar to that suggested by rob-nikon above.
When travelling with my D800 I have a high capacity CF card in the primary slot and, each evening, I use the camera to copy the RAW files to a smaller (slow), cheap, SD card in the secondary slot - I don't delete them from the CF.

When the CF is full I replace it - so I always have 2 copies of each RAW file
 
yzfmike said:
I think the D750 has dual card slots.
Why not buy lots of cards and save each image to both cards as you shoot. Store the cards in separate locations when they are full.
Click to expand...

I do this anyway, but wanted an extra layer of protection.

Storing both cards in different physical locations during the trip is a good shout though. I currently keep all my cards in the same wallet, as it's usually just the risk of data corruption I'm protecting against, rather than total loss.
 
Ive not used this so I can't say how good it works but it has a SD slot. At £195 it's an expensive way to get a third set of data.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EAOJBHY?th=1

Another option to get a third set of data is a high capacity SD card and use the D750 to copy one of the dual backed up cards to it every night. Keep the three sets of cards in different places (hold luggage, camera bag and on you/wallet) means you are less likely to lose any data at all.

Sandisk 128GB SD cards can be picked up from £28-£60 on Amazon depending the card speed. 64gb cards range from £16-£33. That's a lot of storage for little outlay if you want a third set of data. It may be worth checking what sized cards work in the D750. I have used 64gb as disk cards before but can't say if 128gb cards are ok.
 
Last edited:
How about something like the Kingston Mobilelite? Transfer from SD to USB and built in battery backup for a mobile device. Can also be used to view / transfer images on a mobile device.

Then get some hi how capacity USB 3.0 flash drives which will be cheaper than equivalent SD cards.
 
My favourite solution is to configure my camera to RAW to primary and JPEG to secondary slot and use multiple small SD cards (4, 8, 16GB) in the primary slot and one large CF card in the secondary slot. JPEGs are small, still good as a backup and 64GB card can keep all of them.

Then I have a two copies of everything and on multiple cards and in two formats. In happy day situation I just import RAWs from primary cards when I get home. If anything bad happens (never happened) I still have all my JPEGs on the secondary card.

I recommend not to do anything with your primary cards while on travel. Don't manage, don't delete, don't backup, don't import anywhere. Nothing. I would be specially careful about putting them to any of those magic £99 backup devices. My workflow starts in my Lightroom when I get home. If I start doing it while still in the field only bad things can happen.
 
I took a netbook and 2 external HDDs. Backed up to all 3 HDDs (netbook + 2xEHDDs) and didn't delete/format any cards until I'd transferred all the shots onto my desktop as well as the other backups. Having printed the ones worth printing, I've disposed of all but 2 copies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top