1. Storage & backups
2. Gadget overload
3. Costs of digital

Storage & backups

When I was shooting film (ie. 35 mm slides), I had a system I was very comfortable with. From sending slides out for processing, to editing, to filing and labeling, and even storage of slide scans. Pretty much any slide I kept could be accessed in a matter of minutes, with or without the help of my database on the computer. I felt pretty safe in their security and the ability to access these images a year from now, or even 10 years from now. The physical slide was always there, stored safely in its protective sheet in a filing cabinet. If my scans were ever lost, I just rescan it.

With digital capture of course, there is nothing tangible that you hold in your hand or throw on a light table. You simply have a file saved on a flash card or your computer. And of course, as you continue to shoot, your image collection requires a greater and greater amount of storage space. This is where care of that digital original comes into play. Fortunately, the system and naming convention I started using with slides is very adaptable to use with digital originals. Slide ID's are now file names, and file folders are now directories. Storage on a hard drive is the easiest way to keep them accessible. But hard drives fail - so backups become critical. The cost per megabyte of storage is certainly growing cheaper each day, but hard drives and backup hard drives are still a lot more expensive than slide sheets and file folders. This is a hint at what I will vent about later in the costs.

And for your backups, is one hard drive backup enough? Who knows what all those sectors, bits and bytes are doing when you are not looking huh?! Ok, throw in CDs / DVDs for safe measure. With the growing file sizes in newer cameras, even the once massive storage of a 4 GB DVD doesn't seem so much anymore. ($$ throw in 1 DVD burner if you don't already have one.) One single flash card can carry that data now. In one single day of photographing, you might fill many flash cards. So the respective backups are just about as many DVDs. After years of shooting, you will have a lot of disks! And of course, as computer technology advances, so does the media. DVDs will seem like stone tablets in another 10-15 years. So you have to keep a stone tablet reader around to convert to all the latest media. Meanwhile, my slides are still sitting comfortably in their sheets in my cabinet, welcoming a visit to the light table anytime I desire.

So I am backing up in redundant ways - redundancy seems to be the safest route to keeping your sanity. It does take a lot of time though, which fortunately can be somewhat automated if you are backing up to other hard drives. DVDs require more user input to swap them out. Now, a 100 disc DVD recorder... that would be something! I am now considering some of the newer Terabyte (yes, Terabyte!) RAID systems that are coming out that allow access via the internet and your home wireless network. RAID has redundancy built into its structure and operation supposedly protecting itself. Oh yeah, they aren't too cheap either.

Field storage can also be an issue. You spend thousands of dollars on a trip and end up shooting thousands of images. Ok, now how do you store them all in the field, and also maintain more backups to make sure you bring them safely home? So, you need to bring a laptop with you with ample hard drive space, or burn them off to CDs/DVDs, or perhaps bring one of the many portable image storage devices out there now. (The Epson P2000 is very nice!, add more $$$). And everything is dependant on batteries, and usually all unique to the device.

You can usually tell who is shooting digital in the field. They are the ones that seem to disappear at night, or during mid-day. No socializing, no eating, no more scouting - they are tending to images: downloading, chimping, backing up, cursing. Sometimes a Ziploc bag full of exposed rolls of film just seems so much simpler.

I suppose if we had a 100% reliable, safe, archival, unconditionally trusted form of digital storage that didn't need redundancy, all of this would become so much easier. I could also become very rich if I could invent it! After all, we didn't really have backups to those exposed rolls of film either. If you dropped one off a cliff, your images are gone. But there was a bit more comfort knowing if you held it in your hand, it was safe.

Gadget overload

I have been a minor league gadget guy even before changing over to digital capture. I like technology and am comfortable with computers. But digital has taken this to another level that even overwhelms me at times. Field shooting has you gobbling up flash cards, waiting for the highest capacities to drop in price. Portable image storage devices help in cases where you don't want to lug along a laptop computer. Did I mention you might need to buy a laptop? Then you have flash card readers, multiple AC adapters and battery packs for all of these things you are taking along with you. A DC/AC inverter so you can power them / charge them from a car on the road. With film, all I carried were AA lithium batteries for my F5 and my flash - that's it! For a longer trip, this is all in addition to your normal load of camera gear. Make it a diving trip with all the underwater gear, and you better start thinking about having a pet mule.

So you really have to be careful in evaluating what you need vs. what is just nice to have. Digital photography has certainly been a great boost to the technology markets in creating more revenue, more inventions, and more advertising for the things 'you can't live without.' For me, I try to keep it as simple as possible...emphasis on try. A terabyte RAID-5 network drive? Ugh!! Digital photography and techno-babble sometimes go hand-in-hand. Sometimes I just want a loupe, a slide, and a small light table, please.

Costs

I know better than to put out some itemized list and try to compare it against shooting film. It adds up differently depending on how prepared you are with respect to having an updated computer, how much film you shoot, and the essentials you might need up front.

There is a saying that that 'film is cheap.' Shoot as much as you can. Of course when you are spending thousands in travel expenses and having unique opportunities, the cost of film is relatively small, which is the principle of the statement. But I never really thought it was "cheap." Buying 100 rolls of Velvia for an extended trip, with processing isn't pocket change. Then, considering that you might throw in the trash a significant percentage of those images - it becomes a bit more painful. I have a large box of discarded slides that I keep around as a reminder. Each slide represents a quarter. So this is where some of the justification can come in for all the expenses with digital. There are no direct costs in hitting a delete button.

You also have to carefully evaluate what camera suits your needs vs. keeping up with the latest and greatest on the market. Professional DSLRS are still more than a lot of people pay for used cars. You sometimes have to close your eyes and take a deep breath when coming across all those magazine adds for megapixel mania. Digital cameras are tied in closely with advances in sensor and computer technology. New DSLRS are introduced quite frequently, and it can be easy to get sucked into the newer is better rage. Are those extra megapixels going to do something for you? Your "old" camera is still capable of making the same great images as when it was hot stuff. Is your monitor adequate enough to have it as the key device to view and edit your images on? Have you invested in a monitor calibration device yet? And of course, if you plan on upgrading your digital camera, there comes a time when your old computer just doesn't seem to have the steam it used to. When new computer expenses are added to camera expenses, your credit card starts to feel the love all over again.

Backups can become costly as well. External hard drives and high quality, archival CDs/DVDs are inexpensive when it comes to security of your images, but they still add up to the bottom line of total expenses. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars here that perhaps you didn't give thought to when saving every penny for that new DSLR. It isn't quite as simple as buying a few flash cards with the camera and that's it.

So why put up with all of this?

Well, that can be a tough one to answer. I have certainly asked myself the same question many times over the past year. My rants above can certainly be countered with just as many positive things about digital capture. I personally don't think there is anything wrong with sticking with film or jumping in head first to digital. Ultimately, it is the image that counts and your enjoyment in making it. If it helps fulfil your personal vision, it is all you need. Period, end of story, that's it, the whole enchilada. It doesn't matter how you got there or what camera you used to create it.

I personally get a lot of enjoyment about the instant feedback that a DSLR provides, as most do. I love to experiment and try new things, so my learning curve benefits from knowing what works and what didn't right away. I experimented plenty with film, I just had to wait quite awhile before knowing what worked and what didn't. By then, the opportunity or light was gone. I just had to remember what worked the next time I was out.

Then there is the whole human error aspect with respect to exposures, flash, camera settings, etc. I might be in front of an opportunity that won't repeat itself. I would like to know then that I didn't screw up, which I tend to do on occasion. For professional reasons, I didn't want to be playing catch up down the road in learning how to cope with being digital in the field and in processing images. I also admit that once you start, it is very hard to go back, that drug and the addiction sets in. Regardless of its merits or perils, I think I am hooked whether I like it or not.

The industry is slowly going digital. Not only do photographers have to change the way they do things, but publishers, editors, and printers. People were predicting a long time ago that film would disappear by now, and it hasn't. I think the main reason is that digital simply isn't perfect, or everyone would be jumping at it. Working with film is comfortable, you don't have all this new stuff to deal with and learn about. But if someone wants to tell me that digital is the Utopia that everyone should be switching to, perhaps they would be interested in a nice piece of swamp land as well?

See you in the woods, with whatever medium you choose...