Thank you. That makes a bit more sense. Maybe I will look a bit closer at it in the future.

I never said not to download... I am sorry for his loss, but that goes back to what I said about keeping the camera secure. As someone else already said, whatever he had extra cards in could well have gone along with the camera.

All my photos are downloaded to my PC as soon as I come home. I would never suggest having the in-camera card be the only copy of anyone's work. It *is* however a last-ditch off-site backup should something happen to the computer. Assuming the camera isn't sitting beside the PC when the asteroid hits, of course...

Wow! I am impressed by you people...! When I read the original post, I was ready to duck and run for cover! For those of you who frequent the photography groups on facebook - and *some* do, because that's how I found the Hog - you will have seen the violent outbursts that arise periodically when this matter is raised.

I have seen people proclaim that it isn't a photograph if it has been 'altered' by software. They never explained just what it *was*, of course. And here was me thinking that photography meant pictures using light...

I did some 'forensic' photography back in the military, where photographs were required to be totally original and able to be used in court.

Apart from that, my aim is to take pretty pictures! I often see a possibility on my computer monitor (as I did in the darkroom) that I didn't see when in the field. It's *MY* picture, and if processing it means someone else doesn't think it is authentic, then that is their loss.

I am not a fan of photos which no longer look real - *some* of the HDR stuff just looks silly to me - but they are not my pictures, so I really don't lose any sleep over them.

In short, they are your pictures, do whatever you want to them to get the results you like!

And there's the rub... CS2 user here...

I used to use that, many years ago.

I don't have any grudge against it, or anything. The advantage of PS, Elements or LR is the *vast* amount of help and advice available. On here, in books, available courses (Lynda.com).

I have CS2, which is a little long in the tooth, but the price was right. I have just received a free download of Elements 10, which I am going to try out soon. If I like it, I will probably upgrade to 12, whereas an upgrade of PS is beyond my means.

I am hesitant about LR. The nondestructive approach is one thing, but it means to get access to any of your processed work, you *need* that particular program. I use my finished stuff (ok, a little bit of it!) for wallpaper, slideshows and all kinds of stuff through other programs. I don't like the idea of being 'hostage' to that one particular piece of software. Have I misunderstood something in the blurb about it?

Excellent job with the PP work!

If you aren't going to be taking backups, then how is this better than a large card which stays in the camera? I assume that everyone would take care to keep their camera secure? With a large card, you take away the possibility of damage while inserting/removing cards, there is no danger of dust/dirt getting into the camera while it is open *and* you always have storage available.

I wouldn't think a card was any more likely to 'go off' while in the camera than it would be if stored in a case somewhere.

I am currently limited to a small P&S camera admittedly, but I have a 64GB card in there. It has a couple of thousand (12 MP) photos on there, and it is about 4% full!

This method also takes away any risk of particular memory cells 'wearing out', since each memory location is only used once. When the card eventually (about 10 years time at my rate!) does fill up, I have the option of formatting and reusing it, or just replacing it with another. To me, this seems like a no-brainer...

It does not address the question of backups, which was the original question. I have no real answer to that, other than the portable drives, etc., which have already been mentioned

The issue of card size keeps coming up on here, and it just amazes me how anyone can think that changing lots of small cards is safer than using larger ones. Each to his own, of course. I just feel that it is so obvious, that's all.

He was 16 at the time... A toddler I could maybe have understood it, but... His mother and I split up over parenting issues - mine being that a 16-year-old who told me to go F... myself didn't deserve to retain his teeth!

That sucks...

My idiot ex-stepson decided he wanted to look at my negatives, so he emptied them out on the floor, took them out of the sleeves, walked all over them...

I am now engaged in having my stuff scanned onto digital, and spending *hours* retouching all the scratches and stuff. Plus, I am constantly remembering stuff I had photographed but which I no longer seem to have the negs for... A lot was unreplaceable, such as a large parade in Germany for the Queen's silver jubilee, back in '77. I have the rehearsals, but not the actual parade - at which I had caught some good shots of HM arriving... Grrr...

No it isn't. If you go into USB devices, then select the drive and hit 'properties', then select the policies tab, you should see the following:

You don't need to power down *or* eject the drive. If you find the setting I was talking about, windows takes care of it. And no, JR1, you didn't post this above. I don't have time to dig into it, but you basically tell windows to treat it like a hard drive and not to try and 'optimise' it's writing.
It *is* in there somewhere...

In win7, there is a setting *somewhere* which tells the PC to flush the buffers, so you can unplug the drive at any time... Sorry I can't be more specific, but I can't see it at a quick glance. Maybe something to do with properties? Anyway, it *is* in there somewhere!

How about these:

Royal Navy on the River Tyne


Red Arrows


Ringing them bells!

Condensation shouldn't be a problem in freezing weather, if you are going out to take pictures. The air is usually pretty dry, since all the moisture has frozen out of it - why we keep getting electric *zap*s from door handles and such! Time to be careful is when coming back indoors again...

I found a place advertising on line that does rentals anywhere in the country. They ship it to you in advance of your rental period, and then you ship it back at the end - pre-paid, if I remember right. I can't remember the name, but I found them just googling camera rentals or something.