Creating photo backups during trips (2 Viewers)

[Tiraya]

I'm quite used to lugging around my laptop on trips, specifically so I can make dedicated backups of a day's photos, in the event of, heaven forbid, a corrupted SD card. But I'm curious if there's a better way. I could buy a smaller, second laptop so it is easier to take with me, but taking a laptop at all might be overkill. Is there anything folks here know of, or use, that could "clone" an SD card's files during downtime in a hotel, far away from home?

Certainly if I get on any more serious and expensive trips in future, having the peace of mind would make me feel a lot better!

 

[delia todd]

I took a tablet and flash drives, giving me two copies of each card, downloaded daily.

If you've got a cloud account with plenty of room, you could upload there as well/instead. I only have a basic Cloud space, and filled it the first day LOL.

 

[njlarsen]

The cloud solution obviously only if you have wifi where you are going.
Niels

 

[Tiraya]

Honestly, I don't know to what extent places do, but I assume most lodges of sorts in South America and other countries do have wifi...

 

[njlarsen]

Honestly, I don't know to what extent places do, but I assume most lodges of sorts in South America and other countries do have wifi...

I have been in some that have low data bandwidth. However, my post also was intended for people doing camping which has less likelihood of having decent wifi. Another example of low bandwidth is when you are in a boat doing a Galapagos trip (or other), many of which are not strictly birding.
Niels

 

[Steve Babbs]

I use a tablet and pendrives. It is a bit fiddly, but I have a tablet which was very cheap and is about 6 years old. It does however have Windows and Android. I use Windows. I am pondering a new tablet and am not sure how easy it is with a just Android tablet.

If you have twin cards in your camera then you can just get all photos to go to both cards but this does slow things down a little.

Most places do have wifi but it can be slow and I prefer not to rely on it.

 

[Jim M.]

I don't back up and have never had a problem on the 20 or so international trips I've done over the past decade. I always buy my cards from the most reputable retailer I know – B&H photo. That helps guard against buying a counterfeit card.

If I did have a problem, I always have a backup card I could switch to. And I expect that usually, even if a card does become corrupted, you should be able to recover most or all of your photos using recovery software.

For me, the backup options seem to be more trouble than they're worth. But I'm sure I'll be bombarded now by harrowing stories of corrupted cards and and irreplaceable lost vacation photos.😏

 

[seaspirit]

There used to be external drives (aka image tanks) with built in card readers, but those seem hard to come by now since laptops, netbook, tablets do the same trick in combination with external drives.
My approach would be a small (inexpensive, maybe 2nd hand) laptop with an additional external drive (SSD in both preferably). This will give you one copy on the computer's drive, another on the external drive, and unless deleted the original on the SD card.. This combination will offer the option to review and evaluate images more efficiently than on the camera screen.
Backup into the cloud can be difficult and time consuming depending on local internet access availability/speed and data volume that must be moved (depending on camera and file format 100 GB/day are not unrealistic).

 

[Steve Babbs]

For me, the backup options seem to be more trouble than they're worth. But I'm sure I'll be bombarded now by harrowing stories of corrupted cards and and irreplaceable lost vacation photos.😏

I have never had it but would hate to risk it. I am also aware of the risk of theft and a camera, and the card in it, is about the most obvious target.

 

[Jim M.]

I have never had it but would hate to risk it. I am also aware of the risk of theft and a camera, and the card in it, is about the most obvious target.

In that case dual card slots won't help. Plus I think the risk of having a laptop stolen is even greater than a camera. Everybody can use a laptop; few have interest in a telephoto lens. So carrying a laptop for backup makes you more of a target and likely increases the risk of a theft incident.

In any event, I've been on about 20 int'l group tours; nobody on any of those tours has had any optics stolen--or anything else of value that I recall.

 

[Steve Babbs]

In that case dual card slots won't help. Plus I think the risk of having a laptop stolen is even greater than a camera. Everybody can use a laptop; few have interest in a telephoto lens. So carrying a laptop for backup makes you more of a target and likely increases the risk of a theft incident.

In any event, I've been on about 20 int'l group tours; nobody on any of those tours has had any optics stolen.

I would put much smaller cards in the second slot and change them regularly hiding them away. When I've used a tablet I've copied to a USB pen not the tablet.

You are probably pretty safe on a tour. I travel independently. I have had relatively little stolen but two blokes with knives did attempt to get stuff off me in Java: they underestimated my stubbornness but it is a threat, especially, for example, when birding in an urban situation in South Africa.

 

[vupham]

I will buy more cards, like for long trip in 30 days or so, 10~12 240Gb memory is good.
Sometimes I bring laptop, but usually I will use an backup device just to clone out the SD card (but it can not apply for CF Express A) into the hard disk storage through smartphone.
Here is the device, you can search for similar device has same feature, I just leave it clone while I have dinner, comeback finish before go to bed
Link to amazon the version of 2019: Amazon.com