Happy Sunday everyone!

I spend way too much on my cloud backup. I use 3 different cloud storage providers (don't ask ) and a couple of "free" services.

I also have Amazon Prime which allows to upload any number of full size images for free(i.e. included with subscription) which I don't use because it's very awkward to download images back (you have to select individual images, i.e. no bulk restore/download).

Amazon also has S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage that is pretty cheap to store. I'd use it only for disaster recovery so I don't care that it may take more than 12 hours to access. Restoring though is a total different story and seems may cost a lot of money (they charge for data transfer per GB and possibly some other charges). I didn't find any options like sending your hard drive and getting all images back on that drive. Download pricing is a bit complicated so I'm not exactly sure how much it would cost.

I also can't think of a good strategy how to organize such backup so it's easy to restore either as a whole or parts.

We have multiple computers in the household, and I'd like to store not only images but also videos and different types of documents (word, excel, pdf, etc.) but the images would definitely take the most space.

Does anyone here use S3 Glacier Deep Archive for their long term backups and did you figure out recovery pricing, and what the best organization structure for such backup?

I do have backups on external drives and on Synology NAS running in RAID-1 (mirroring), so the cloud back would be for having a backup off-site.

I am mostly interested to hear opinions on S3 Glacier Deep Archive.

Thanks,
Sergey

Has anyone used Watson EN-EL15 type batteries in their D850?

I bought a D800 years ago from BH. At the time there was a special deal, get two Watson Batteries (EN-EL15 type) and a dual Watson charger with two EN-EL15 charging plates at a good price so I got them. They have worked fine over the years in the D800. I recently bought a D850 and figured I'd use the Watson batteries in that as well, but foolishly never tested them, as the D850 EN-EL15a battery has never been used to exhaustion, I've just recharged and reused it. I had tested my original EN-EL15 battery from my D800 in my D850 which worked fine so never bought a spare Nikon battery as I could use the D800 battery if needed. Plus I foolishly figured an equivalent EN-EL15 aftermarket battery would work.

Last month we went out to Wyoming to visit our daughter, her husband and our grandchildren at their new home. Traveling light, I just took the D850 and the two spare Watson batteries, along with my Leica M240 as a walk-around camera, leaving the older D800 at home. Before leaving I had checked the Watson batteries in the D800 and ran the test mode on each in the Watson charger, both batteries showed 100%. Foolishly never tested them in the D850.

After taking a bunch of pictures, I figured I'd swap batteries in the D850 just to have a fresh Watson battery before the next day of touring. Turned it on and nothing, all I saw was the little battery indicator in the LCD screen and it showed a dead battery indication, camera itself would not even turn on so I couldn't look at the actual menu to check the battery condition. Swapped to the second Watson battery and same thing, dead. Put the original D850 battery in and all was fine although down to 20% which was understandable due to how much I had been using it and the reason I wanted to swap batteries before going out that day.

I had also given my daughter a D800 when our first grandchild was born so they could provide us with photographs as the kids (there are now two granddaughters) are growing up. I used her D800 to test the Watson batteries and they worked fine, showed 100%. Put them back in the D850, showed dead. So in my case, anyway, the Watson EN-EL15 batteries won't work in my D850 while original Nikon EN-EL15's will. I very quickly placed an order for two Nikon EN-EL15b batteries from BH and had them shipped to my daughter, they arrived in three days, and are working fine. The original Nikon EN-EL15 from my daughters D800 also worked fine in my D850, it's just the Watson clones that don't work.

I'm just curious if anyone else has experienced a case where a Watson battery (or any other non-Nikon battery) has worked in a D800 but not in a D850. Not that it matters, since I will never buy another aftermarket battery again, but curious if mine is an isolated situation.

Friday, 26 January. My partner (Windows 7 computer) and I were working the day shift out of the residence. The following events happened just as described. Just the facts.

Here's the story: I shoot NEF (Nikon RAW) with my D500. My usual procedure is to download my pictures from the XQD card directly into a dedicated computer folder using Adobe Bridge. Later, I visit the file and do post-processing on selected shots using Photoshop CC. All processed photos are saved as .jpeg files for sharing, publishing, etc. The original NEF shots remain in the folder, as well as those that haven't been processed. (I re-format the XQD card in the camera to "wipe" it clean for the next session.)

Lately, alarming facts have come to light. When I visited some of my previous folders (large), I found a number of NEF files missing! All the PP'd .jpeg files are there, as well a good number of the NEF files, BUT NOT ALL!

I back up my files once a year on two hard drives and a set of flash drives. Going back and checking all the backed-up folders, the same NEF files are missing from every one! Now, the missing files are from the last shots of the session. One theory: When the original folder was loaded, its capacity somehow got fixed to that size. Then when I did my post processing, the newly created .jpeg files pushed NEF files out to make room. Far fetched? Yes, but that's all I got.

Anyone out there ever had a similar experience? or a theory (half-baked or not)?

Thanks for any and all replies. John (Marks)

I would rather have the opposite. I have a high end Dell monitor at home and top line HP at work, both of which boast of reproducing the full AdobeRGB spectrum and both do a great job of it, but I'm having trouble seeing the benefit. If your output is to the web or a print, what's the point? Neither of those can handle it. I end up with photos that look great on my monitors, but not so great for everyone else in the world. What am I supposed to do, invite everyone to my house to look at my monitor?

The H100 is even better than what I have. I am clocking an old 2600K at 5 ghz and it keeps the cpu to around 34 deg C and on rare occasions will inch up to around 55. Before I installed it I was constantly getting overheat warnings - 80 Deg C and higher.

My dual Dell 2413H's are 1920(x2) x 1200 - so the combined res is 3840x1200. the width and height, side by side is 43x18. The Dell U3216Q is 3840x2160, and is 19Hx30W. That's why I went dual screen. And I don't have to deal with the tiny text prompts and rescaling stuff which was not even an option in 2012 when I got them. I love the LR implementation - make my changes on my LR desktop, and see the full screen preview on the second screen. But if you don't have the foot of width, then the single large display is certainly a reasonable choice.

All of these are considerably better than any consumer grade, 6 bit display. But you have already figured that out.

Corsair makes very reliable liquid coolers. I am very happy with my H80 - going on two years. You will definitely be able to tell the difference between a true 10 bit display costing north of $1000, and the Dells, but by the same token you'll be able to tell the difference between one of those great Dells, and just about everything else. It's a compromise, but one that is very easy to live with. Definitely go with dual screens and extended desktop - you'll be happy you did. ASUS also sells some displays that compete with the Dells. BTW, if you decide on Dell, you'll need the XRite i1 Display Pro (about $200) or their i1 Pro (a lot more money) to profile your display - Dell's use a hardware-programmable LUT which the Spyder cannot handle.

Liquid cooling, Frank, for sure so you can take advantage of the modest overclocking with no worries.

Apple has misdirected it's marketing again by pushing something that really doesn't help with photo editing - large 4k or 5k displays, while ignoring the real issue - gamut size and type. The DCI P3 color space is not an ideal editing environment for still photos - it is intended for video that will be projected by a xenon tube - cinema - and is color matched for that. So your only editing option would be to go standard gamut - which looks pretty sad alongside a display that property displays 100% Adobe RGB. You will likely get your best editing experience with a wide-gamut IPS display, backlit (not side lit), 10 bit capable, coupled with a better display card, like an NVidia Quadro M2000 with 4 gb vram, which will drive up to(4) 4K displays simultaneously, in 30 bit color. I like the Dell 2516D or the 2716D for a cost effective solution, or any of the 10 bit Eizo, HP DreamColor or NEC offerings - which are about 2x the cost of the Dells.

You will only see the full gamut in photoshop, which does support 30 bit color which is selectable in Preferences.

As you have already figured out, Apple can't touch this level of color accuracy or performance, even with their uber-expensive Mac Pro. You are definitely making a good choice and saving a lot of $$$ in the process.