Sometime around 22/10/06 (at 05:21 -0700) Paul Fretheim said:
After 5 days of hiking in somewhat dusty conditions, the hard drive
malfunctioned and most of her work was lost. I don't know how
frequent a problem that is with using digital on long treks, but I
was glad I was using film.
Ouch! I feel very sorry for her, that must have been a massive blow.
But I have to say that I wouldn't have trusted a hard drive if I could
have helped it. For those sorts of conditions with digital equipment
I'd always go with solid-state memory from a trusted manufacturer.
Possibly one designed to be particularly robust.
I do have a small portable battery-powered hard drive designed to copy
the contents of memory cards, but I try to never rely on it as the
only place for images to be stored. The more demanding the conditions,
the more a true *backup* medium is required.
Of course, in hot conditions I'd get at least as worried about film as
I would a good-quality memory card.
I shoot with a D70, a Nikkor 10.5mm lens and a 360Precision head. I
use a 2GB card as standard with a couple of 512MB cards and a few
smaller ones in my bag as well. I still have my lovely old Canon A1,
but since I bought my D70 a year ago (from a friend who upgraded) I've
really enjoyed the freedom of shooting without budget restrictions! :-)
(I will need to get a higher-res model at some point to match the full
potential resolving power of film, but I am actually very pleased with
the D70 even if 6MP isn't a big deal these days.)
Do you use anything with the monopod to turn the camera to portrait mode?
k
