RAW Question :D

[480sparky]

Memory cards are cheap. Hard drives are cheap.

I had a shock when I changed from JPG to RAW+JPG on my 60D (18mp camera), and an even bigger shock when I bought a 5D3 (23mp). RAWs suck up a whole LOT of space! Moving from a 30D to 60D to 5D3, my cards have 'grown' from 4gig to 8gig and now 16gig sizes. My hard drives (and computers, too!) have grown to 1 TB size with an SSD for the operating system and My Documents, which includes whatever 'current' photoshoot I am working on. As an amateur, once I'm done editing a shoot, I only save the JPGs on the 1TB with multiple separate, backups. Note that one does not need the worlds 'best'/'greatest'/'fastest' HDs for long-term storage. Only reliability counts.

Then save a bit of space and shoot raw only. If you need JPEGs, then you can easily batch create them in post. The only reason to shoot raw+JPEG is you need the JPEGs right out of the camera.

 

[Gavjenks]

If you really want long term storage, you want multiple redundant mediums in different locations, and you'll want to check them occasionally, so that if one goes bad, youll know to replace that copy to maintain redundancy.

This sounds really difficult and expensive, but it doesn't have to be. For example, an extraordinarily safe and fairly cheap system could be:

1) Your copy on your hard drive that you use normally if nothing goes wrong
2) A backup on CDs that you keep at your work office or some other building like that (your locker at school if you're young), so they cant burn down at the same time as your hard drive. Building needs to be inhabited to have normal temperature ranges, though, ideally.
3) Another backup on cloud storage, such as Amazon S3 or even Amazon glacier. You can store many gigabytes for like... a dollar or a couple of dollars a month. You pay additional $$ to retrieve stuff usually, but you should normally never have to, since it would only be necessary if you lost your hard drive and CDs both, and you'd only need to retrieve your absolute best images, or you could pace it out as clients requested old images only (slower retrieval is usually cheaper on clouds).

Total cost = tiny fraction of a penny per photo.

 

[EDL]

Just remember, a hard drive is a mechanical device (unless you are using a solid state drive, but even those wear out). For long term storage consider burning your keepers onto CD, DVD or blu-ray disks.

CDs and DVDs are NOT forever mediums. They WILL degrade, and you will eventually lose the images.

The best way to keep your images is to copy them onto multiple devices and keep them in different locations. And this does not mean keep the CDs in the closet, the DVDs in the basement and a hard drive in the safe. Different addresses. If your work isn't in three distinct locations, it doesn't really exists.

True, but they will last a lot longer than a hard drive. I have some old (I'm talking 1x back from when writable CD's first came out) that are scratched up, but are still readable. Would I let my archive get to that state on purpose..no, but you can burn disks, store them for 5,10,15 years. By then, newer storage tech will certainly be available and you can take all those old, slow, small capacity CD's, DVD's and Blu-rays and burn them onto the disk dujour.

I guess the point was intended to be two-fold. Hard drives fail (rather frequently actually). Burnable disks, while not "forever", are much more long term and best of all...cheap.

If you are a pro or a very serious photographer, then certainly the multiple copy and multiple physical location is a must.

One thing that got me was waiting too long to actually burn the disks. Multiple computers over time, some failed drives and I ended up losing pretty much all my macro shots from a number of years ago. Now, I burn my shots to a disk within a week of getting them even if I haven't processed anything or sorted through them. I'd rather have 10 copies of the same thing and a bunch I don't even intend to keep than to lose them all again.

The digital age certainly has brought on the conundrum of data storage and management. It does take time and unfortunately, I (and probably many folks) put it off till it's too late too often.

 

[EDL]

That's why the D7000 shines for the semi-experienced photog. 2 card slots that can be set to shoot raw on one and Jpeg on the other. Otherwise you don't have many options. I have a 32gig card and can shoot 800+ shots in raw before I have to switch out. They are cheap (If you don't need one with high speed).

My T3i can shoot RAW+JPEG onto 1 card. The penalty is the time it takes to process and write.

 

[EDL]

The most reliable hdd for storage in my opinion are Western Digital, followed by Hitachi, then then Seagate and Fuji, and Samsung last as they are really crap and were just sold to Seagate, though for SSD i recommend Samsung as the best, strange is it not.

Also for SDHC cards, Samsung as very good and built like a tank and not that expensive either.

John.

Agreed on the HDD. I'll never buy another seagate. I've had 3 of them fail in less than 2 years from time of purchase (2 of them in less than a year). I've never had a WD or Hitachi fail.

 

[Kolia]

I'm glad I started taking picture with film back in the days. Now buying a pair of 3TB HDD is cheap compared to buying films and having them developed !

Adobe DNG Converter can reduce the file size a bit, but otherwise you are going to have to delete more or convert to jpg or buy more storage space.

John.

You'll want to test that DNG file size for your own camera. I found out that for my Sony a65, DNG files are 10% bigger than the original RAW file...

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I just converted a few nef/raw files from my Nikon d5200 to dng and the dng file are approx 10.8% smaller than the original nef/raw files.

So i dont know why your Sony dng files are 10% bigger.

John.

I'm glad I started taking picture with film back in the days. Now buying a pair of 3TB HDD is cheap compared to buying films and having them developed !

Adobe DNG Converter can reduce the file size a bit, but otherwise you are going to have to delete more or convert to jpg or buy more storage space.

John.

You'll want to test that DNG file size for your own camera. I found out that for my Sony a65, DNG files are 10% bigger than the original RAW file...