UPDATED: Bargain Back-Up

A bargain at $179 until March 6th, 2010

I had a need for an emergency 1Tb back-up solution for a LOT of video files.  This is not a strategic purchase, just something short-term.  But I amazed myself by finding this at B&H Photovideo:

A Western Digital 2Tb My Book, Raid 1 USB2 drive for $180!!! Yes, that’s right – 1Tb of RAID-protected storage for less than $200 (there is an instant $40 rebate until March 6th.).

Buy yours now!

UPDATED: Feb 15, 2010.   My drive arrived and was quickly unpacked.  A CD included support software for PC and Mac.  All user documentation was also on the CD.   I installed the Drive Manager and used the software to reformat the drives (2 x 1Tb) from NTFS (for PC) to HFS (for Mac).   The RAID configuration was set to RAID 1 (which mirrors the drives i.e. whatever is written to one drive, also gets written to the other drive).  This means that a 2Tb MyBook will only give me 1Tb of actual storage capacity BUT, if one drive fails, I have a copy of all my data and can easily replace the failed drive.

The whole installation process was done in less than 15 minutes including cable-tidying.  Copying 250Gb of video files over took a bit longer!

Using USB2.0, the drive is fast enough, so far, and near silent in use.  It does not get more than “warm” in operation despite having no fan.  The blue light at the front of the casing offers a variety if indications, from total drive capacity remaining, to entering stand-by status.  The light is not intrusive.

There are many, many horror stories about external hard drives.  Over the years I have found that every hard drive manufacturer has its ups and downs.  There was a time when Seagate was king.  Now I wouldn’t use one if it was given to me.  G-Tech has established a reasonable reputation but I recently had a 500Gb unit fail twice, the second time being after it came back from G-Tech repair.  Hitachi drives (formerly IBM drives) seem to have somewhat more reliability.  Western Digital used to be thought of as mediocre.  And Maxtor – well, don’t even get me started on Maxtor.  LaCie uses Maxtor drives for at least some of their units.  The LaCie Porsche-designed 250Gb external hard drives (I have 3) get very hot, and shut down when too hot.  But keep them cool and they are reliable.  But a Big 1Tb unit I bought some time ago has since been “donated” due to constant reliability issues.

So, there is no one drive manufacturer that I could recommend.  Instead, I resort to RAID 1.  There are pros and cons to RAID configurations but I like to keep things simple.  I just want a good storage option, and I do not want to play tech-engineer when I do not have the time.  So although I need to double my storage investment, RAID 1 is my preference i.e. all data gets written to both disks so that I always have a copy should one drive fail.  Now if both drives fail, that’s a whole other problem, but, so far, knocking on wood, I have managed to maintain my archives going back many years.

Transition to Video Journalism – Update April 2009

It has certainly been an interesting few weeks in my transition from still journalism, to video journalism and documentary film-making.  There is a lot to learn and many decisions to be made.  There are so many different resources for information and advice, with quite a lot of contradictory content to deal with.  But as I have persisted in exploring the best on-line guidance for my situation, there is one source that continues to rise above the rest.

Ken Kobre heads the photojournalism program at San Francisco State University, in California.  His book, Photojournalism: The Professional’s Approach, is in its sixth edition.  This book is widely regarded as a must-have for budding photojournalists and reference for more seasoned photographers.

Ken has become a leading force in guiding photographers in to the world of video journalism and his collaboration with Dirck Halstead, www.digitaljournalist.org, has resulted in several valuable posts on this subject.  One that should be particularly noted is “10 Tips for Dramatically Improving Your Video Journalism Stories”,

Another very useful source is our good friends at B&H Photo Video in New York.  The newsletter “What’s In The Bag” gives a very good overview about the essential equipment for a documentary videographer.

One of the most important things I have learned and experienced is the recording of good sound.  It is similar to the joy of getting a really excellent photograph – to hear perfect sound coming through your headphones, especially when using wireless equipment to capture audio from a distance, is a wonderful thing.  Years of working on the capturing of good images is now being extended to the capture of good audio.  So the B&H video “Anatomy of an Audio Bag” is a great place to start picking up the basics.

I have been upgrading my hard drive storage to faster drives, and more of them, in a rack-mounted configuration.  I like G-Tech drives but the configurations from OWC seem to be very capable of the hard drive performance I need to edit video.

More to come on equipment selection, use, and the status of my projects.

Saving a 2Gb CF Card from Flood Waters

Don’t try this at home!! Well, unless you want to try to save a valuable CF card with 300 images on it, from a dunking.

It was storm week in Northern California. The Russian River, which flows through Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, had risen up over its banks. Nearby roads were under several feet of muddy water and car transportation was replaced with boats and canoes. Living about 60 minutes from the flooded area, I had the rare luxury of the news coming to me, instead of the other way around. I spent a number of days in and around Marin and Sonoma, shooting images of flooded roads, homes getting bailed out, and people carrying shopping through knee-deep water.

I am always very careful about handling my camera equipment in adverse conditions. Every time I moved from the rainy day back to my car, I would wipe the water off the cameras and lenses, to reduce the risk of damage to the optics or electronics. But sometimes, especially when you are tired, no amount of conscious care will help avoid an accident.

After two hours of sleep and a 3:00am start, I was heading back to Guerneville with the thought of getting there for high tide. So by 11:00am, it had already been a long day. In the middle of changing CF cards, while standing in water up to my calves, a National Guard truck came past, sending a swell of water towards me and causing me to lose my balance. Thankfully I caught myself but let go of the 2 Gb Lexar CF card that I was changing. The card, with about 300 images on it, had started the day with me and included some interesting shots of people in canoes at night, paddling along the streets of Guerneville. I found the card in the muddy water and immediately swung in to “save the card” mode. Despite being a piece of electronic equipment, I found a source of clean running water and rinsed the card of muddy sediment. I didn’t want mud stuck inside the tiny holes of the card, or anywhere else inside the casing. I then dried the outside of the card, shaking as much water out of it as possible. I always carry a can of WD40 with me and I gave the card a light spray. WD40 helps attract and absorb water and I wanted to do all I could to reduce the risk of water deposits on the card’s electronics.

I then pulled out a Ziplock bag (another essential item for working in wet conditions) and popped the card inside along with a pack of silica gel. I sealed the bag, helping to ensure that the silica gel would absorb dampness only from the card, and placed the bag close to a warm air vent in my car. I monitored the bag as I drove, making sure it was not getting steamed up. Thankfully, the silica gel was doing its job well.

By the time I got home, the card felt pretty much back to normal but I had not yet checked to see if it was still working or if the images were intact. I did not want to put the card back in to a camera body to test it – if there was any short-circuiting to be done, I wanted it to occur inside a $20 card reader and not a $4000 camera.

Gingerly, I slotted the CF card in to a regular Lexar USB card reader (not the newly received Firewire stackable pro card readers which are awesome), and waited for the card icon to pop up on my Apple Powerbook desktop. Within seconds, there it was. OK, stage one complete. I opened the folder and it listed 297 images, every single one I had taken, and all were 4Mb or 5Mb in file size, no zero-byte files. I transferred the files to my hard disk and ran them through Photo Mechanic. All were complete. PHEW!! The card had taken a swim and survived. I knew that if I had been using a MicroDrive instead, the images would almost certainly be gone. I started using MicroDrives a few years ago but quickly reverted to CF cards when I learned, the hard way, how fragile MicroDrives can be.

After getting all the files off the card, I used Image Rescue to run some card checks and no problems were found. However, with 10 2Gb cards and several 1Gb cards, I put a dot of red paint on the edge of the recovered card and put it away for emergency use only. In a profession where your job depends on the reliability of your equipment, there was no point taking any risks.

So if you suffer a similar accident, act quickly and you can minimize the risk of losing your photographs.