Just like in the days of film photography, when we used to save our negatives in either plastic or paper film sleeves, and slides in boxes, in this digital age of recording images, many people save their photos on their computers, camera storage cards, flash drives and also external hard drives. If we take the trouble to record images in the first place, doesn’t it make sense to save those images for later use? We use camera to capture or record moments in time, moments that have special meaning to us. As for myself, I’ve been recording images for over forty-five years and very often want to look back into my seemingly endless photo files.
Right from the beginning of working with film cameras, I used to keep three-ring binders filled with pages of film sleeves. On each page the date, film type, and any other pertinent information could be scribed. It had to be organized for easy searching later on. Many photographers used to also make contact sheets (8” X 10” photo paper with negatives placed on them and then exposed to light) and when developed, would render a tiny copy of each image. In this digital age, our cameras record all the data captured from the camera sensor for all images recorded. This is called metadata. So, when working with photo-editing software in a computer, all the information the camera sensor captured can be seen. And now we can see the date and time, ISO setting, f/stop, shutter speed, etc.
At present, I am using five separate external hard drives. Four of them are clones of each other. Just one external hard drive isn’t enough to safely store my images since I’ve got well over forty-thousand of them. I also prefer not to keep too many photos in my computer in case it someday crashes. For the person that takes their camera out for a spin from time to time, perhaps one external hard drive will suffice, and one copy stored on the computer, providing the computer hard drive has plenty of storage space.
Perhaps at this time the reader will be thinking about purchasing an external hard drive so not to lose all of their treasured photos. I hope that’s the case. Recently I purchased a small external hard drive that holds one terabyte of files. The cost of that drive was around fifty dollars. And there are many options on the market that cost even less. Think about what you need and search the Internet for the best deal. Good luck!
Pete Vertefeuille