A post earlier this year by CNET News.com's Stephen Shankland pondering how he should store photos while traveling got me thinking about the same question.
I can't claim to have come up with "the answer," but I've thought about the issues, read through some discussions about what people consider best practices, and have tried to roughly quantify relative failure rates. What's right for you will depend on priorities and circumstances, but hopefully the following will offer some food for thought.
Real-world failure rates are hard to come by. However, having been the owner of a variety of laptops and other devices with hard disk drives, a 1:100 drive failure rate in a portable device over the course of a month's vacation doesn't seem out of line. Flash memory fails too. Anecdotal information from a couple of dealers (based on product returns) suggests that a 1:1000 rate is a reasonable stake in the ground--10x the reliability of disk. Further complicating the story is that some errors are recoverable, but you'd probably better stop using the card when you have a problem.
That's the hardware. Then there's the wetware--i.e. you.
This one's even harder to quantify. However, speaking for myself, I'm always misplacing loose memory cards. Furthermore, procedures that involve a lot of multi-step copying, editing, and so forth offer lots of potential to erase something that you thought you backed up or for an operation to otherwise fail without your knowledge. Or you might, like me, sometimes just do something really dumb. Also, consider theft and other forms of loss beyond your control.
Add it all up and my guess is that, for most people, minimizing the possibility of human error is more important than incrementally reducing the impact of a potential hardware failure.
With those reliability estimates and human realities as a baseline, here are my thoughts for some reasonable practices:
- If at all economically feasible, carry enough flash memory to hold all your photos. Flash has a good 10x the reliability of hard disks, more when you consider that it's probably going to be OK even if you drop it or run it through the washing machine.
- Common wisdom is that name brands are, in the aggregate, more reliable, and some higher-end cards also come with data recovery software. This seems reasonable. However, I've never seen actual data to bolster this belief--only random stories about crappy off-brand cards purchased on eBay. One data recover company notes that differences in build quality are indeed part of the reliability story but goes on to say it doesn't correlate in any consistent way to brand.
- Because photos can sometimes be recovered from memory cards after they've had a problem, it's a good idea to have at least one backup card. That way, if there's a problem, you can take the card out of the camera and work on it when you get home. Messing with it in the field is a recipe for losing data that could otherwise have been retrieved.
- A lot of people advocate putting fewer eggs in one basket. That is, they suggest using multiple smaller cards rather than one or two larger ones. This is hard to argue against so long as you develop a good system to ensure you don't lose the spare cards or accidentally erase or otherwise mess something up while you're swapping them around. Given overall flash reliability, I don't see this as a particular win--and may even be a net loss if taken to the extreme of some complicated scheme of rotating cards in and out of the camera.
- Although I tend not to bother, making a periodic hard disk backup of your memory cards is good belt-and-suspenders practice. If you're traveling with other people, a hard disk is also a good way to trade pictures. A computer is one possibility. Hard disk-based media players or portable devices specifically designed for the purpose are others.
- If you can't keep everything on flash, then you obviously need to copy it somewhere. Based on the numbers I threw out above, I wouldn't trust a single hard disk backup as my only copy of anything I really cared about. In this case, I'd want either a second hard disk or a way to burn a copy to DVD. (One advantage of making DVDs is that you can potentially mail a copy to yourself at home. (Laptop and DVDs were the solutions that Shankland eventually decided on.) If you have a bunch of spare thumb drives of reasonable capacity laying around, that may be another possibility.
- Cameras break too--maybe more so than any of the other parts we're talking about here, especially if you're in harsh conditions. I'm not sure of the final digital camera mortality rate on the Grand Canyon boating trip I took a couple of years back, but a fair number bit the dust. So definitely consider a backup camera. Sharing memory card format and/or batteries between main and backup is nice, if feasible.
Ultimately, it's all a matter of playing the odds of hardware failure, while keeping in mind all the dumb things that we can do to sabotage ourselves.
EOS 5D ripe for replacement
(Credit: CNET Networks)There's something to be said for missing a big rumor because of a national holiday. Unless there's some real information, I don't really care about posting every time a new product name surfaces in software, or in this case, on a book title on Amazon.com.
While I was relaxing on my day off, non-vacationing bloggers had already spread the rumor about a Canon 5D Mark II book appearing on Amazon.com (Engadget, PhotographyBay, Gizmodo, and lots more), which was then discredited by the book's publisher in a Dpreview forum as simply a placeholder entry.
Frankly, my initial reaction on seeing the book post was that Wiley's time frame seemed awfully ambitious. The author's book on the relatively elderly EOS 5D only came out last month, so I thought it a bit odd that she'd manage to get out a new book, on an unshipped camera, by November.
Of course, it's still quite likely that we'll see a 5D replacement sometime this year and that we'll probably hear some fairly accurate details about it from a blog site way before Canon decides to put out an official pronouncement. At least we haven't seen any hissy fits from Canon reps about a Web full of misinformation, like Adobe Systems' John Nack posted this weekend.
Weighed down by its financial unit, Sony posted a $45 million loss for its fourth quarter earnings Wednesday.
Analysts were expecting an average estimated profit of $260 million for the quarter.
Revenue for Sony's video game unit, which competes head-to-head with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii, grew by 26 percent in the past year based on better sales of the PlayStation 3 console.
Still, the bright point of the company's quarterly report was its electronics business. Revenue was up 9 percent due to increased sales of its digital cameras, video cameras, and notebook PCs.
The TV unit struggled though, and in April the company announced it was replacing its top TV exec. But Sony has higher hopes for this year. It said it plans to sell 17 million flat panel TVs in the next year, an ambitious goal. To do so, it will continue selling entry-level models, a practice it began last summer at Target and Wal-Mart.
A remote-desktop access feature found in some Macintoshes is being credited with leading police to two suspects in the burglary of an apartment in New York.
In addition to flat-screen TVs, iPods, and DVDs, the thieves made off with two laptops, one of which belonged to Kait Duplaga, an Apple store employee, according to a report in The New York Times on Saturday.
While police in White Plains, N.Y., were coming up empty with their investigation, Duplaga learned that her computer was being used on the Internet, and she turned on the Back to My Mac feature installed on her Mac from another Mac, according to the report.
The feature allowed Duplaga to see immediately how the computer was being used at the time, as well as operate it remotely. Recalling that she had a camera installed on the computer, the fast-thinking Duplaga snapped images of one of the burglary suspects before he realized what was happening, according to the Times. Duplaga showed the image to friends, who recognized the suspect as someone who attended a party at the apartment.
The photo led police to arrest two suspects on Wednesday and recover nearly all the stolen property.
"It doesn't get much better than their bringing us a picture of the guy actually using the stolen property," Daniel Jackson, the deputy commissioner of public safety in White Plains, told the newspaper. "It certainly made our job easier."
The Back to My Mac feature, which runs on Leopard-based Macintoshes, requires a $99 subscription to the .Mac online service.
Advanced Video Technologies lobbed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pure Digital Technology, maker of the popular Flip Video cameras, according to a Reuters report.
Flip Video Ultra
(Credit: Pure Digital)The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in a U.S. District Court in New York, alleges Pure Digital infringed on Advanced Video's patent for its Full Duplex Single Chip Video Codec. The technology is designed to compress the video and allow it to be displayed on small-screen devices.
Advanced is seeking unspecified damages and a "reasonable" royalty, according to a Reuters interview with Stephen Roth, attorney for Advanced Video. He noted Advance is not seeking to halt sales of the Flip Video cameras.
Pure Digital is aware of the lawsuit, a representative for the company said, adding: "The suit is without merit and we will defend it vigorously."
(Credit:
HP)
Remember that $40 HP photo printer from a couple months back? For an extra $5.99, you can get one that's similar but way better: The HP A716 churns out snapshots as large as 5x7 (panoramas, too) and comes with 4 gigabytes of internal storage.
The big benefit, of course, is that you can offload photos from your memory card when it gets full, then copy them over to your PC later. Like any good photo printer, the A716 also features card slots for all major memory-card types, support for PictBridge connections directly to cameras, and a good-sized LCD (2.5 inches) for reviewing photos. It can even connect to a TV for big-screen viewing.
CNET never reviewed it, but PC Magazine awarded the A716 an Editor's Choice. I've had one for a couple years, and it's a terrific little printer--though I do find the onscreen menus confusing. But for $46 (plus shipping), down from $250, who cares?
Note that this is a refurbished model; it comes with a 90-day warranty.
(Credit:
Circuit City)
For about the price of a budget digital camera, you can snag a budget digital camera and portable snapshot printer to go with it. Circuit City has the Kodak EasyShare C613 6-megapixel camera and EasyShare G610 dock/printer for $129.99 shipped (plus sales tax in most states).
The camera's fairly basic, offering a compact design, 2.4-inch LCD, and 3x optical zoom; CNET readers rated it 6.2 out of 10, meaning it's probably fine for tossing in your bag for everyday use, but not the camera you want to rely on for the family photo that's going to hang over the mantle.
As for the printer, it docks and charges the camera and churns out 4x6-inch prints in about 60 seconds. Over at Amazon, users didn't seem to mind the slow performance: They rated it 4.5 out of 5.
This is new gear, no rebates required. If you really want to get crazy, Circuit City is also offering an Epson CX8400 photo printer for $9.99 (after rebate) with any camera purchase--including this one.
(Credit:
Kingston)
If you own a digital SLR camera or some other device that uses CompactFlash media, now's your chance to stock up on storage: Adorama has a 4GB Kingston CF card for $0 after a $40 mail-in rebate. Shipping runs $5.
Yeah, there's a rebate, but at least we're talking quality media here: Kingston is a top brand, and the company backs the cards with a lifetime warranty. Plus, the rebate itself is through Kingston, not Adorama, so it's probably a safe bet. If you're interested, don't wait: The rebate deal expires Friday (February 8), but I'll be surprised if the inventory lasts the day.
(Via Gizmodo)
(Credit:
Lori Grunin)
When Canon's Chuck Westfall popped by last month to give us a sneak preview of the EOS Rebel XSi, I expressed my disappointment that the camera's raw continuous-shooting maxed out at a mere 6 frames. I asked Chuck if there was anything on the horizon that might deliver a better raw burst-shooting experience for the can't-afford-a-Mark-III set. His immediate and somewhat unexpected response: "JPEG XR." A few weeks later, I put a similar question to Casio's Scott Nelson, a product manager in the camera division, as he showed off the company's burst-mode blitzkrieg, EX-F1--a camera which doesn't support raw for burst shooting. He, too, indicated that JPEG XR held the key for delivering higher-quality, high frame-rate photos at reasonable prices.
Never let it be said that I couldn't recognize a trend once it whacked me on the head a couple of times.
Raw files--data straight from the sensor--place a heavy performance burden on a digital camera. Though they're same dimensions as JPEGs, raw files support 12-bit or deeper color, while JPEG and its widely ignored successor, JPEG 2000, support only 8 bits. That makes the raw file footprint bigger, even when compressed, and increases the required amount of buffer memory. Furthermore, while JPEG-processing chips are cheap, the proprietary nature of raw files makes it necessary to use dedicated silicon for processing them with any speed. That's a lot of cost to add to a sub-$1,000 dSLR or enthusiast shooter.
Microsoft's JPEG XR--the XR stands for "extended range"--provides some of the image-quality benefits of raw while offering the smaller file size and non-proprietary processing benefits of JPEG. Keep in mind that JPEG XR doesn't replace raw. It simply offers better compression algorithms, and a wider dynamic range than JPEG. At best, one might find a JPEG XR photo visually indistinguishable from a processed raw file. That lets it stand up to retouching better--suffer from less degradation--than its predecessor. For shooters in that market segment, that may be enough.
Clearly, no one's talking about actual products yet, and JPEG XR-as-standard hasn't even attained Committee Draft status within the ISO's JPEG committee (that's scheduled for the end of March). But the fact that I'm actually hearing about it in conversation makes me think that we might start to see some implementations by next year. While I still would prefer longer raw bursts, JPEG XR strikes me as a reasonable compromise.
(Credit:
Buy.com)
Here's the scoop: Buy.com has the Epson Stylus CX7450 printer/scanner/copier for $70. They also have a deal going where you can get a $70 mail-in rebate if you purchase a digital camera at the same time. Any digital camera. Like the $9.99 Argus Keychain Digital Camera. Add $6.79 for shipping and your out-the-door price is $86.78. Final price after rebate: $16.78. Woo!
The CX7450 employs four separate ink cartridges (one each for black, cyan, magenta, and yellow) and promises print speeds of up to 28 pages per minute. It includes a memory-card reader, a 120-sheet paper tray, and fairly basic scan/copy features. It's new, not a refurb. As for the camera, well, it's junk. It does double as a Webcam, though, so maybe you'll get some use out of it. If not, it's a perfect play-camera for the kids.
No rush on this one: The rebate deal is good until March 31. Of course, the $9.99 camera may not be around nearly as long. (Via Deals2Buy.)
