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When Disaster Strikes

As all of you may know that my camera was broken last month. My external Hard drive for the collections of my pictures crashed yesterday. Oh man...

Guy, how do you keep your pictures from this kind of incident? Like do you have more than 1 external hard drive to keep it?

By the way there is a new nikon d40. Is it as good as d50 cause the cost of the camera is ~US$600 for the whole kit.

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-=wynngd=-

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wynngd I back all my photos up once/month to a DVD. (Used to do CD - but once starting shooting RAW that could take up to 3/month). I'm paranoid about losing my collections. It also means my website could be back up within a day if anything happened to it too.

As for the D40 - haven't heard of it. I know there's a new D80 out - and it's not cheap. However, dpreview has info. http://www.dpreview.com/articles/nikond40/

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Suzan...
www.photoswithfinesse.com

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Every time I download my camera to my external drive I also back up to a DVD. Once a month would be too long for me to wait. It's better to get in the habit of burning your images immediately after downloading and editing any of those images, this way you won't forget.

External hard drives are great, but they're prone to crash just like the internal hard drive too.

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I also try not to delete them off the card before they've been back up to DVD. If I know I'm going on a shoot then I'll back everything up before wiping off the cards. Unfortunately with work, Xmas season, social club and everything else coming up, shoots have been few and far between!

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Suzan...
www.photoswithfinesse.com

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Hi Wynn.

Sorry about your camera - I hadn't heard about it. And your hard drive too? Yowch.

First thing I do is maintain my pc/drives by monitoring the drives and regularly checking for errors and or defragging them (using Windows' tools) I've never had a hard drive crash in any of the pcs I've owned since the early 90's. Doesn't mean it won't happen, but I lessen the chance significantly by actively checking on the health of my drives. And yes I do intend in time, to buy a couple of high quality, high capacity externals.

As I don't have an external, I run a couple of drives within my home pc. I then back up to DVD fairly regularly. I never delete a shot from my camera, as it's all great information as to how a shot worked (or didn't work) and very much something to learn from if I wish to attempt similar shots. As I always shoot in RAW, I can edit or manipulate my images years later as easily as the day I took the images.

Since I bought my D200 and 4GB card (and mostly shoot uncompressed RAW), I can fill the card in next to no time, so I download often to PC. I know a lot of professional photographers shoot 'tethered' to their laptops - but then again this is often in a studio situation.

I guess as far as backup, and depending on how important your photo information is to you, (and should money not really be an issue) then ideally it'd be wise to download to pc and back up to several external sources such maybe 2 or 3 external drives (and mirror one so that it's an exact copy of the original) and dvd(s)

In regards the D40, it's Nikon's new (totally) entry level D50 replacement (launched on Nov 16th) It's much smaller than the D50 and is touted as one of the smallest DSLRs on the market, due to Nikon believing that many people are put off DSLRs, due to size, weight and complicated operations. It's essentially a trimmed down D50, though still carries the 6.1 mp sensor of the D50, D70 and D70s - ultimately, it should deliver very good quality images.

With this camera, Nikon have eliminated the features that they imagine people would not use or (be confused by) so that people can make the leap from 'point and shoot' to DSLR. The advantages being that they can still interchange Nikon and other branded lenses for such things as large range zoom, wide angle or macro opportunities. It doesn't have advanced metering, super high shutter speeds, multi button interface, aperture preview, 10 mp or many other features that some seasoned shooters demand.

Similar to Canon's new 400D (Rebel XTi elsewhere) they've removed the top LCD display to shorten the width of the camera, and now are using the review screen on the back to display settings and menus etc. The D40 also has only a 3 segment AF and metering points, down from 5 segments on the D50/70. This makes the cam cheaper to manufactuer and easier to use. It shoots to 1/4000th sec and as fast as 2.5 frames per sec

That's the (very) basic run down.

Would I buy it?

Well if I were to be starting out tomorrow and had little idea of DSLR and had been using a point and shoot (the menu system is very similar to Nikon's coolpix range) I'd certainly look at it. Similarly, if I shot with a DSLR and I wanted my kids to follow in my footsteps or if they had an interest, then it'd be brilliant for kids to dip their toe into (assuming said kids never dropped, broke or ran into anything lol)

Certainly it's a budget camera, bearing Nikon quality and knowing that their picture quality - what it's all about really - and menu system is excellent, you do get what you pay for. I certainly welcome and use many of the features that my D200 gives me, but you have to start somewhere right?

Hope that helps some.

Last edited by bytethis on Nov 20th, 2006 at 01:31 AM

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Thanks alot Suzan and Ponder. I'll take note of that. Right now I'm in the dilema in making decision between D50 and D40. I need the camera before Dec. 16 for my office mate's wedding. I'm thinking, if I will wait for december for the release of D40 or I will buy D50 today.

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-=wynngd=-

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I can definitely vouch for D50 - value for money and has more features than I've figured out. My recommendation would be if you're going to upgrade, upgrade the lenses. The camera itself is good at doing everything I've thrown at it. I have the kit 18-55 which does do good shots, but I also have a AF-S Nikkor 70-300 4.5-5.6 D ED Lens (it was a nicer lens than the 55-200 made for it) and a Tamron SP Di 90mm AF Macro too which I'm still getting used to but really like. They are also coming down in price as they've been out for about 18 months or so, so you may be able to get a good price on one now.

Good luck on your decision making. (And I used Graham's (bytethis) advice a lot when I was out hunting too - or actually dropping nikon sized hints at my husband who was looking for 40th b-day present for me. ;)

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Suzan...
www.photoswithfinesse.com

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HiYa Wynngd,

You know what they say about hindsight... I'm so sorry to hear about your hard drive, I knew about the camera.... but — that does lead to a new one!

I ALWAYS

Put my card in a card reader (don't attach the camera to a computer... easy enough to knock one or the other off the desk)

Copy to my desk top

Copy to an external hard drive

Delete dups n duds

Copy to a dvd

Keep a copy somewhere else (outside of your home)

Back up changes to my hard drive daily on to another external hard drive with super duper — so as not to lose current work

I know that seems like a lot, but I just can't afford to lose files.

New camera.... or maybe used??? Check out Nikonians at www.nikonians.org

Go to the I want to sell section

I've bought and sold a lot here, with great success. This is a tight community, and if you buy from someone that's been a member for a while, you'll be happy. I just bought a used D70 to convert to IR, with only 4000 actuations on it, for $400.00.

If you, or any one else reading this is interested in a used camera, try to find one that has under 10,000 actuations. Less than 5000 is great. Less than 2000 is like new. You can find out how many actuations a camera has (how many times the shutter has been activated) in a few programs, including PSCS2.

If anyone is interested, I can post how to do this elsewhere, as not to hijack this thread.

Good luck camera hunting! I know new is always sooooo very cool, but you can get a lot more bang for your buck with a like new used one.

Carolyn

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Thanks alot Carolyn! I'm looking at it right now and I already alot my weeks till December for camera hunting. Your message give me an idea to revive my projects before of building a desktop computer for my pictures only. Right now I'm using a laptop provided to me by my company. Yeah after I get a new camera then this will follow. Thanks alot to all of you guys are all a big help to me...

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-=wynngd=-

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Thanks Alot Guys!!!

I just want you to know that I already decided to buy D50 instead of D40. After intensive research in the difference between the two cameras I concluded to go for D50. I already order a kit and I will get it on Friday.

Thanks alot Graham for your comment it helps me alot too...

I can't wait to start shooting again...

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-=wynngd=-

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