Ok. I did a search and didn't find something like this, so sorry if there's a topic like this out there.
As everyone knows, RAW takes up a ton of space, and I was curious to hear what everyone did to alleviate that tension on the hard-drive. It seems every 50 pictures I take steals 1 GB of my hard-drive and I'm so nervous to delete files because I don't know if I could look at them in a year and see some potential that I didn't see earlier (has happened many times). I used to shoot solely .jpg, but recently saw the immense benefit in shooting RAW.
I can get about 400 RAW files on one DVD. And I catually back up twice -- so each batch of RAW files goes to two DVD's. I keep a copy at home and one at the office.
One idea (that I have yet to do myself) is to get the data/adjustments made using all the power of RAW, then (after possibly waiting a certain amount of time) converting them to jpgs for long term storage.
You get the advantage of shooting in RAW, as far as adjustments go, then when you make your adjustments, you store in jpg.
This may work in some circumstances, albeit not all.
4GB a week. 25 weeks = 100GB, 250 weeks = 1 TB. 500 weeks for 2 TB. That's almost 10 years. At about a hundred bucks a drive, that's 10 bucks a year, or $0.83 a month. A small price to pay for keeping every picture you ever took.
My raw images are stored on Internal hard drives and one large external hard drive. I keep 'em all (but may sort down later). Furthermore, I keep redundant sets on two different hard drives. Not likely to have two hard drives fail at the same time... unless a catastrophic event occurs. Cloud storage is a good solution, but has the drawbacks of slow upload speed and prohibitive costs. I have some hope that Apple's iCloud solution may address these concerns, but the announced $25/yr. for 5GB does not address the TBs needed by photographers.
I frequently shoot RAW, but have solved a lot of the storage problem by not retaining ALL RAW originals - it just isn't necessary. I only keep the RAW files of images that I believe have the potential of being needed again.
If I shoot a wedding, and take, say, 600 images, I will be brutal in the intial browse, deleting anything that has no redeeming value. I will sort out the ones that I intend to do special edits to, or that I intend to use for some kind of digital art/enhancement, and with these, I will keep the RAW files. With ALL of the others, I will convert to jpeg, and delete the RAWS.
I also store on multiple, redundant, 1TB and 2TB external drives. A NAS system is a good choice too, and when I can afford the one I want, I will HAVE it!
If I am shooting in an "iffy" lighting situation, I will almost always shoot RAW...it gives me the flexibility to rescue any images that need adjustments.
Thanks for everyone's great responses! I was talking to my dad about it and he suggested an external hard-drive also. I might get one of those for photos. Ambaker makes a good point.
25$/yr. for 5GB wouldn't be really worth it, if you only expect to be editing on one main computer (and even with an external you can use any computer you want).
No I probably don't shoot 200 keepers a week...that would be amazing. But...I don't know, I just don't like deleting pictures, unless they are obviously terrible.
Neat, since you've never done it, I would try it and see how you feel about it. Personally, I know I've lost photos to overexposure shooting in .jpg and the great control over changing your exposure in post-processing in RAW really sold me. You can really get the exposure and color control you want in RAW.
I have some hope that Apple's iCloud solution may address these concerns, but the announced $25/yr. for 5GB does not address the TBs needed by photographers.
$25/year is only for the service that matches your ripped CDs to higher quality iTunes versions and syncs them to your other devices. Everything else on iCloud is free.
LindaLee, I think I should be more aggressive in deleting the ones I don't like right away. :) That's a very good suggestion.
Thanks...it took me YEARS to learn to be quite brutal in my intial "blow-through". If I have multiple images that are quite nearly the same, I narrow it down to the best ONE. I also finally realized that 90% of the images I shoot & keep never see the light of day again after I finish with them and give them to the client, and therefore saving RAWs is a waste of time and space for most of them.
I have some hope that Apple's iCloud solution may address these concerns, but the announced $25/yr. for 5GB does not address the TBs needed by photographers.
$25/year is only for the service that matches your ripped CDs to higher quality iTunes versions and syncs them to your other devices. Everything else on iCloud is free.
Thanks for the info. That's helpful. I did search for capacity limits on general storage, but didn't find any info. Unlimited is a big number and free is the right price.
I have some hope that Apple's iCloud solution may address these concerns, but the announced $25/yr. for 5GB does not address the TBs needed by photographers.
$25/year is only for the service that matches your ripped CDs to higher quality iTunes versions and syncs them to your other devices. Everything else on iCloud is free.
Microsoft gives users 25GB (SkyDrive) of space...for free. Also, the LiveMesh service that Microsoft has...for free will sync devices. I use both.
4GB a week. 25 weeks = 100GB, 250 weeks = 1 TB. 500 weeks for 2 TB. That's almost 10 years. At about a hundred bucks a drive, that's 10 bucks a year, or $0.83 a month. A small price to pay for keeping every picture you ever took.
Plus, if you consider what your time is worth, trying to sort, delete, copy to dvd, manage all this stuff, a straight dump of every file to a 2TB disk is a huge bargain.
I copy images from my memory cards to two places, one drive that is just for storage of them as backups, and the occasional validation request here, and another which is where I edit from. Typically, I put the editable files on my computer's drive at first. Then, when I am more or less done with that shoot, I "relocate masters" in Aperture to an external hard drive (different one than the pure raw backup drive)
LindaLee, you are right. I was just doing that today. No use having 5 of basically the same exact thing with the same angle, exposure, etc.
The iCloud thing might be useful if I had more than just a little iPod shuffle. :D
Chromeydome, you make a good point. I think I'll do a bit of both. It's overwhelming looking through old photos when 95% of them are unusable.
Yo_Spiff, Lol. :D That's basically the process: marinate (think about which picture to use for the final image), season (RAW edit), grill (Photoshop edit). Makes one hell of a CR2 steak, indeed! XD
I have filled up my 750Gb external backup drive and have been using my 500Gb potable travel drive. I finally bought a 2Tb drive when Newegg had them on sale a few days back. My intention is to use a hard drive dock, so that I can insert and remove the drives as removable media. Should make it easy to do the backups and just plunk in a new drive whenever needed.
I have my crap spread across five or six different locations, not a single one is complete, and I fear data loss every day... It is on my to do list... Along with a ton of other things... *shrug* life....
