DB Loc: Myrtle Beach, SC

I would like to pass along something taught to me at a very early age by my very intelligent father....

Life is a series of choices. All choices have consequences, some good some not so good. Be sure you can live with the consequence before you make the choice. And remember, doing NOTHING is also a choice.

This has served me well and I think it applies to this discussion. Only YOU can choose how you handle your work...

tiger1640 Loc: Michigan

Here is also something to think about. This is from "Night Photography Finding your way in the dark" by Lance Keimig.
He brings up some interesting points that I did not think of.

"It is also essential to back up your files after you load them onto your computer. All hard drives will eventually fail, so scheduling regular backups is critical. Manually copying files is not a reliable method of backing up your data. Simply dragging files to copy them on a second drive can leave data behind. It is much better to use a backup utility like SuperDuper or the Windows backup utility. These applications back up your data bit for bit and then verify that the two copies match exactly. Apple’s Time Machine can also be used, but this method creates file archives, keeping copies of every version of every file you create, which takes up much more storage space on your hard drive. How often you back up your data depends on how often you add files to your hard drive. Backups can be scheduled overnight on a regular basis when the computer would be otherwise inactive. Don’t take any chances with an “it won’t happen to me” attitude. Eventuallyit will, and if you have backed up your data, it will only be an inconvenience rather than an epic disaster. Lightroom’s catalog backup function only backs up the catalog, not the actual images."

bobmielke Loc: Portland, OR

If you believe any recorded media will last forever you've never seen a hard drive crash or cd/dvd melt in a car/fire.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Post withdrawn... Will submit later. Sorry!

Bette

My question isn't exactly about storage. I recently erased my camera chip because I was out of space. I took pictures at halftime on Friday of the homecoming queen ceremonies and almost all were too blurry to use. Could there be a connection? There may have been too much movement for use of the telephoto, also, and I suspect that is the real cause. However, a person on this forum last week suggested that chips should be reformatted rather than erased, and we were trying to reformat when my friend chose the erase option, as there was not a reformat option on my camera (Nikon 18X Optical Zoom VR, 4.7-84.2 mm 1:2.8-4.5 on the lens, 10.1 megapixels, VR & ISO 6400, 18X Zoom 27-486 mm1 Coolpix). She says she has always used the computer to reformat.
I bought this camera for my work at the library but it works pretty well on news pictures now.I think I should use the telephoto only when there is good light, but the camera is very good on still shots in low light, as in an indoors photo.
Thanks for advice on whether to go buy new chip and anything else that strikes you. Cheers, Bette

DB Loc: Myrtle Beach, SC

Obviously you did not read what I posted...

JimH Loc: Western South Jersey, USA

Blurry pictures are PROBABLY the result of a user error with regards to inappropriate settings or lack of a stable platform with longer exposures. Couple that with a telephoto lens and you have your culprit. Try taking some shots in good light with a stable camera, and see how they turn out. If they're OK, then it's not your card.

BUT, cards are cheap, and will not hurt to have a spare.

gessman Loc: Colorado

I'll offer my humble opinion and hopefully some more experienced will join me, especially if I appear to be wrong. If your pictures were not fuzzy before and if they're not fuzzy other than those taken at the game with the zoom, it sounds like "pilot error" to me. There is no way that erasing or formatting the card will cause fuzzy pictures. I could sound a lot less resolute about that and maybe should, but I don't feel that way. Me thinks you screwed up at the old ball game.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Uh oh, JimH beat me to it. Sorry!

Bette

You're right. Sorry.

Bette

You're right. Sorry.

ianhargraves1066 Loc: NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Florida

Take it from me. I had a small house fire a year ago. Confined to my compyer room it did $65,000 of damage to the house, burned up 3 computers, a $2000 Richo laser machine and destroyed 40 years worth of negatives. I had scanned most of the negs and burned them on to CD's. Howver the heat from the fire turned 300 odd cd's into a molten mass. Keep the Ccopies in someone elses house.
Cause of the fire, A power supply for my Dell Inspiron Laptop. 41 letters to Dell, not one reply>

gessman Loc: Colorado

I'm really sorry to hear that Ian.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Just let me add in another factor I failed to mention earlier as a consideration to online storage. First there's viruses that can hit online servers in spite of all the protection and, second, there's the element of destructive hacking for hacking's sake. Nobody is immune from those two issues.

Let me say one more thing without attaching any value judgement. I've seen my son and his company charge other companies $20,000 to retrieve just their accounting data from failed raid drives, drives that are supposed to be completely fail proof with redundant multiple backups. He has retrieved data for major universities, various government agencies, and all kinds of private companies. Of course, those are all tax write-offs but still, in lean times it robs profits. His prices were not out of line for the industry. He had friends at, and "went to school" on the worldwide leader of that industry, taking his prices right off their menu.

georgeedwards Loc: Essex, Md.

Sounds like you may have a solution for storage problems but I missed it. Can you state it in a few sentences? I have thousands of photos stored on my CD's and DVD's, I thought I was safer that my friend who just left them on his computer. It crashed, he lost all, gave up photography.