I recently bought a new camera and this morning I was trying to further my familiarity with it when something I've suggested to other people for many years came to mind and I thought I would pass it along. I've had some interesting jobs in my lifetime and the last career type job I had was insurance claims adjuster. From handling thousands of claims I have for a very long time suggested people do the following. With any camera start taking pictures in your home; each wall in each room. Open closet doors and photograph what's inside. Open dresser drawers and take pictures showing the volume of contents. Photograph the walls in your garage, work bench, tool box - everything. Store the pictures however is easiest for you. I know it sounds like a difficult task but think of it this way. If you ever have a catastrophic loss you would have documentation showing the volume of clothing (for example) that you owned. You wouldn't have a record of every single item you owned but you would have a record of the lifestyle you lived, the type and quality of the items you owned. Also it would help you remember a particular item a photograph would remind you of that you might otherwise have forgotten. Having a picture 'library' like this would help you immensely in the event of a huge insurance loss. It would go a long way in validating your claim with your insurance company.
Where should you keep the photos? I'm not comfortable with the cloud yet. If I lost my computers and thumb drives in a fire, for example, the photos would be gone as well.
A neighbor, friend or relative probably wouldn't mind keeping your thumb drive. Mine is in a safety deposit box.
Keep it where you keep the deed to your house. I.e. safety deposit box. If you don't have one I recommended they are cheap.
A handy long-term storage solution is a short section of pvc pipe capped (with pvc cement) at both ends, buried in your yard. Preferably somewhere easy to remember. Its cheap, air/water tight if you glue it properly, will last forever, and opens easily with a hacksaw. If your property has a shallow water table and/or floods often, bury deeper as its boyancy could work it back to the surface over time in frequent wet conditions. An old sock full of dessicant (or rice) will prevent moisture from condensation.
Another consideration is that it would be wise to use multiple thumb drives. I've had critical backup thumb drives fail several times. They were fine when I put them away. With one in particular, a few years later when I needed it, it was defective. An interesting story. Going back many years now but still relevant: Physicists were going to use an early computer, probably the IBM 370, to do a highly complex calculation. They had two options. One was to run the simulation that would yield an exact solution. This would require several months to run, IIRC. The other option was to run a simulation that would yield an approximation of the answer. There would be a known margin of error but could be run in a few days. It was determined that the approximation was likely to be more accurate than the simulation yielding an exact answer. The reason was that over a period of several months, there was a significant chance that a cosmic ray would strike, resulting in a flipped bit in memory. So the approximation would be more reliable than an exact solution! I rarely hear this mentioned but remember learning about it in college. A quick check confirmed that it is a known issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error#Cosmic_rays_creating_energetic_neutrons_and_protons Cosmic rays are cited as one of the primary causes of computer software failures.
I made a huge mistake about 6 months ago. I saw at Barnes & Noble the new Polaroid One Step Instant camera.My Mom died last summer and the estate { personal property } was divided up among my brothers.My Dad was a Camera buff and had a dark room at our Cleveland home.He gave up developing years before he moved. My Mom liked to take pictures.My Dad had his trusty Baby Rolleiflex as part of the stuff my mom held onto.I thought I'd go to a camera shop and see what it was worth.If not much then I'd use. No Luck.Film for that camera ceased to be made years ago.Even If it was available { like maybe New York City Film shop } the film would have expired.Film goes old { expires in a short period of time }. This Polaroid One Step is junk.The film is expensive IF you can get it. The Prints are small and the detail and color are faded.Not sharp and clear.YouTube had some reviews and no one seemed bugged by the sheer poor quality of prints.Some suggested the color film had a slight blueish tint.Some also said you have to work to aim the camera. If you don't then you might end up shooting a foot instead of a person. Barned & Noble did not have Film.No one in my entire county { I called } had it.Target was able to order it for me.I also complained to Barnes Noble for selling me a camera and not having film for it.They had about 6 One Steps.They eventually ordered some.
Well, I would trust the cloud, but the other option is to save it in multiple formats--save it on all your computer hard drives. Get a USB hard drive. Save it on thumb drives. Store the HD or the thumb drives off site--safe deposit box or friend's house.
I used to be heavy in cameras when the mode at the time was film. When digital became the thing I lost intereset. I think it was probably fear of the unknown. About a year ago I took the leap and bought a digital camera. There's no doubt it's very complicated and confusing compared to film but I'm gradually learning most of the things the camera is capable of doing. I have a friend that is a professional photographer and she has been guiding me along. She said one thing that I found very comforting and that was she acknowledged that no way did she know every capability of her camera and she doubted she ever would.
I dated a Gal after college that was a photographer.Since my father was also a photographer I was slightly interested in learning. Taking pictures and being a film buf requires a level of understanding of how and when to take a picture.The level of sunlight.Therefore being in the right place and the right time and also understanding camera settings like aperture and exposure rates.But like good moviemaking things like proper lighting are key.I find that some of the best films I ever saw were in B & W. Like - Hud - { 1964 } as an example. The Perry Mason TV series [ 9 seasons } were all very well shot. In B & W. As was the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series. The Perry Mason Movie series in the mid -80's was almost deplorable. Terrible lighting { too dark backdrops } and bad camera angles. The 80's were far and away The worst period for Movies & Music.
My concern about burglary is growing along with my collection of guitars. I frankly think I need a big gun safe.
Interesting. I think it's the other way around. Digital is easier, but partly that's because I'm not worried about wasting film every shot I take. (and yes, I used to shoot film before digital).
With film you had ASA, Shutter speed, F stop and focus. With digital there's much more involved. I think part of my problem is being 84 years old. Us old farts don't adjust to change as well as younger people do but I'm having a good time trying.
All I adjust on my digital camera is ASA, shutter speed, F stop and focus. Mainly I just use mine on semi-automatic mode, and I change the shutter speed, while camera adjusts the F stop for me. I usually manually focus as well (I do nature photography, and it's hard to focus on a moving bird with auto focus). What's great about digital, is that you can afford to experiment. For example, I will sometimes take 10-12 pictures of the same thing with slightly different settings. The great thing is that not only is that easy to do, when I look at the picture on my laptop, I can find out the settings I used--it records the lens used, the F-stop, the ASA, the shutter speed, etc., and saves it.
Some good points. No doubt it's a hoot to shot multiple shots of the same thing taking into consideration things like depth of field and such. Another thing I'm finding I like about digital is the ability to jump over to B & W when ever inclined. Playing with ISO is something I haven't really gotten into yet but it sure seems to be a nice alternative to being stuck with a roll of film with only one ASA. I think I've pretty well gotten over the 'fear of digital' stage and I'm getting into some of the finer things which I'm enjoying.
Personally, I'd burn it to a DVD. Several, in fact. As long as it doesn't get scratched up, it can't fail like those other methods. It's really the best archival media you can use. If you seal it into a mylar bag with an oxygen absorber, it will last longer than you and your kids.
Garden variety writable DVDs and CDs are less reliable for longterm storage than are flash drives. Now, there is a type of DVD/CD intended for archiving, but it requires a special drive to write to. This article explains that, as well as outlines good data storage protocols. https://www.pcworld.com/article/298...edia-and-methods-for-archiving-your-data.html
Your article isn't critical of the fact that optical burning is the best method, it's simply critical of the quality of the medium. This is true for any medium you might choose. It doesn't invalidate the platform. Archival DVD's exist now that use an inorganic material in the disk and they will not degrade, at least anytime soon. These, for example, are about $3 each and have a 1000 year life, if well protected. They've been out for years now. https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-1000-year-dvd-is-here/
Believe it or not this is precisely what people in the tax industry used to tell those who are claiming catastrophic losses on their tax returns. This because very often they do not have insurance but were allowed such deductions on their tax returns using Tax Form 4864. 1040 Schedule A line 20: Form 4864: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4684.pdf
By the way, once you take those photos, please be very sure to keep copies under lock and key in a special bank vault, a lawyer's office, or anyone who has fiduciary status with you.
