Nowadays, with all these numeric cameras, whether they are reflex, hybrid, bridge or compact, and smartphones, we can become photo (or video) -addicted and the trend is also pushed by the importance of social networks like Instagram. How do we save, store and share all these kilo octets of data, of memories we’d like to keep?
The physical saving
- The physical on a external hard drive (or internal) or on memory cards that we keep with us. It is the fastest solution. Better to go for a hard drive 1,2 or 4 To to be sure that includes enough space for your photos and other files. Make sure to get one that is not requiring to be plugged to an electricity wall socket. It is good to have at least two with you in case one get infected by a virus for example. Furthermore, if any of your bag with one of the two hard drive you have get stolen unfortunately during your trip, you can still have the second one. You can avoid the ultimate catastrophe of losing all your photos! It is recommended to transfer your photos from your camera to your hard drive on a regular basis, as you will able to free some space on the memory card inserted in your camera. Of course, having a laptop is more than necessary when you go for a long trip.
Even if you are not sure you will use everything, leave with enough physical savings. We never know and I would advise to take at least three hard drive or memory cards!
- You can also send out pictures to home while you are still travelling, posts are everywhere, and memory cards/hard drives are not heavy so cheap sending! Use a protection paper and give it to a close friend or family who will store them carefully until you are back.
Do copies on physical drive from time to time and send them back by post!
Saving online
This storage is used more often now. Cloud is the future! Many startups try to benefit from this increasing and dynamic market, in B to B business. More and more companies go paperless now, which has a huge environmental opportunity as well as growing business around the solution of big data management. Anyway, you can also benefit from this dynamic for yourself, for your leisure.
The big advantage is that these information are (in theory…) protected and no (few) risks to lose this data. The negative point is that you need to have (fast) internet to drop your files into them and share if you want with a customized audience. Each person can login to the platform and access the documents without being able to change/delete these documents for example.
You can transfer the data from you web browser of from your internal storage (memory card, USB key, external hard drive…) when you have an internet connection, just logging to the system. Another way to do it, and this one is very good, is to download the software of this cloud storage system on the desktop of your laptop and then you can quickly drop off files in this folder. And when your computer is connected to internet, your storage space on the cloud will be automatically updated with the new documents you have in your desktop folder. Quick and efficient. Among the most appreciated tools:
- Dropbox (5 Go free at the beginning, around €10 per month for 1 To)
- Google Drive (quick transfers, 15 Go free at the beginning)
- Skydrive (Microsoft, 7 Go free at the beginning)
Then if you want more space you have to pay! But again, it could be a smart investment if you want to avoid disasters!
You can also invite friend to use the online storage system, like with Dropbox, in order to benefit from more space. Anyway remember to synchronize your desktop folder with your online account in order to save some time.
Another tip is, if you make videos, to store them on online video sharing platforms: Youtube, Dailymotion, Vimeo. But be aware quality can be squeezed in order to adapt the video to the best working environment. That is why it is good to save 4K or HD videos somewhere else. For high quality videos, Vimeo is the best platform, for popularity it is Youtube. Dailymotion is slowly dying. Anyway a good way to stay connected to your followers! You can also add some settings to make your videos private, easy to lock them with a password you will share with your friends or adding their emails to allow them to watch the video. Therefore, it is an excellent way to include the videos in your blog and give live to it. Social networks are made to share your best pics and videos!
A tip. in order to transfer photos/videos that are located directly on the memory card, it is advised not to connect direclty your camera to your laptop but to use a USB device in which you will insert the memory card before connecting the USB to your laptop. Much faster!
Saving on social networks
As you are realizing the dream of your life, a world trip, it is highly possible you want to share it with family and close friends! Although storage of photos is not their primary purpose, you can social networks to upload them and share them easily while travelling!
- Facebook: Obviously the most popular one to keep in touch, promoting your blog and post pictures. For the video, use Youtube or Vimeo and post the link.
- Twitter: Same function as per facebook, but with a slightly different audience.
- Instagram: Becoming more and more popular, post your (short) videos or photos, “hashtag”and wait for the likes! You can also use the famous filters directly from your smartphone.
- Pinterest: Post photos found online and group them by theme. Not my favorite, even if not bad for advertising.
- Tumblr: Kind of microblogging for photos and videos.
Tip, resize your photos to adapt them the storage system you want to use decreasing the space they will take and speeding up the transfer. In order to do so, try the small program Resize that you can download to reduce the size of the pictures!