Lost Camera

I lost a camera on a trip to Germany ages ago (pre Euro). It was in Munich during Oktoberfest. I'm pretty sure I left it on a local bus but it may have been nabbed. I went to lost and found but (stupid me) couldn't remember exactly what model camera I was carrying (I had many at the time). They look at you funny when you ask if they have your camera, "It may have been a Nikon, or Yashika, or Minolta, or Cannon...."

I figured I'd go the rest of my trip without a camera but cameras in Austria were very inexpensive at the time, so I only went a few days camera-less. We had film then so I only lost the relatively few pictures in the camera at the time.

I try to learn a lesson from this type of experience. For me it became my "one handle" philosophy. I travel lighter each trip but now I'll always keep everything in one bag so I can carry it with one hand, rather than have multiple handles in each hand (luggage, camera straps, shopping bags, maps, brochures, etc.). It makes keeping track of my stuff much easier. I'm less likely to misplace anything and a lot harder target for those who take things that don't belong to them.

I use multiple memory cards so I would never lose more than a couple of days of my trip…and I never set anything down that is not attached to me. This doesn’t help the poster’s friend, sadly…

We use multiple memory cards as well but they are fairly large capacity so losing one would be problematical. We both take photos so it wouldn’t be a total loss but still. My husband also backs up our photos every night on a separate device.

I bring enough memory cards to dedicate one to each day. At the end of the day I put the day's memory card in my luggage. The cards have become so inexpensive that I can afford to protect my photography without the need to upload to the cloud nightly. I don't show anyone the photos until I return home because I'd rather not advertise the vacancy.

I have my phone set up to send all photos to cloud storge, so as soon as I am in a wifi spot the photos automatically get backed up. Another bonus to this is this is the people at home can see the photos that I am taking right away. Last summer I took our sons to NYC, but husband stayed home. Our TV plays the photos as a screen saver, so he could see the photos on the TV and each night it was easy to share what we had done that day because he could see the photos.

I back up my photos to a dedicated photo storage device every night before going to sleep (at least I am supposed to, I'll admit there are some days when I have skipped the task).

If you take a LOT of high resolution photos and videos (guilty as charged, here...), uploading all that data to cloud services is just not realistic (it can take many hours). Between my backup storage device and the original memory cards, I feel like I've got it covered adequately while I'm traveling (then I back up to multiple devices once I get home, because aside from the chance of having your camera lost/stolen, hard drives do fail, and more often that one might expect...so if you want to keep those photos and videos, you need multiple, independent backups).

@David That is exactly what my husband does.

David, you mention some really important considerations. I maintain at least 2 backup storage devices to keep 2 copies of my archives. Terabytes are not expensive compared to loss of memorabilia.

Many people are unaware that they need to maintain a file format that will carry forward through technology changes. Many of my acquaintances are unaware that some formats are lossy and come to me, the IT guy, when it's too late.

I keep a master copy of everything in TIFF format and only convert copies of them to JPEG for temporary portability purposes. So far that's worked well for me as move the entire archive from one storage device to a newer one.

@Silas, I agree completely (I've been dragged into an IT support role too many times and know how much fun that can be...).

Now, I'm pretty serious about my images, many people just shrug and can't be bothered. That said, I always keep files in their original, non-lossy format (mostly RAW, occasionally other formats such as PSD or DNG, depending on how they were generated). Most devices I use these days generate a RAW+JPG (so I get two versions of every shot straight out of the camera...even before the backups start). The automatically-generated JPGs are handy for casual viewing while away, and sharing with others before I get home. Once settled at home, I'll review everything but only mess with a small number of shots; I typically tweak those in Lightroom or Photoshop, but only work on copies, always preserving the original, unmodified originals.

I'm in the school that says you need 3 copies if you care about those photos: the originals + 2 backups...one of which really should be offsite (a different physical location, in case your house containing your backups burns down....it could happen!); cloud storage is OK for that offsite backup (though you really want fat pipes for that). I have a LOT of photos (mostly from travels) preserved, going back over 30 years, all readily accessible (and fully backed up!).

I admit to sometimes shooting in burstmode, which makes the frame count and storage requirements explode, and certainly complicates managing things. I remember the first time I really went crazy with bird photography (pink flamingos in Sardinia), I came home from that trip with something like 30,000 frames. Must...resist...holding...down...shutter...button... I try to avoid that except for when shooting wildlife, especially exotic birds. Last trip to Thailand we had a bunch of Hornbills that settled into the trees right outside our cottage every afternoon. I got a few really nice shots of them, but...there goes another terabyte. Yeah, that burstmode setting has allowed me to get close-ups of flamingos preening, puffins in-flight appearing to magically hover, and hornbills "kissing", but that long lens does get heavy.

Storage is cheap. Losing your treasured photos is not. That reminds me, time to run the backup on the big external drives...

David, I agree with you completely and also shoot in RAW with the JPEG for temporary purposes. And, yes, I am always nonplussed to discover that I've mistakenly done the nonstop shoots.

2 backups really are the minimum and I keep one in a well-protected site such as a safe-deposit box and one with my youngest nephew who is the most interested in maintaining the family items and fortunately has the necessary skills.

I mention TIFF only because I've inherited all of the family photos, slides, negatives and historical documents. I have converted all to TIFF format for long term management. My cousin purchased my grandparent's property and was surprised to learn that I had the original title and definition of the farm property from 1921 in storage! I've also stored the articles from historical societies about our family which facilitates the transfer of knowledge. All of these things were not available to us just a few short years ago.

Every day, every single day on a trip, I download ALL photos to a day-labeled drive on my laptop (which I take). So, if September, they go in

pictures\dated\2022-Italy\09-24

Then I back them up to a portable 1T hard drive.

I will be screening the photos more carefully on this trip, and doing all the editing every night. I use .dng raw and .jpg finished. I edit the .dng using GIMP and RawTherapee. These are free-ware photo editing tools.

I also use ImageMagick for on-the-fly conversions. You can convert .jpg to .tiff or .png using a command-tool command.