Equipment Backups
[by Paul Bartholomew]
It kind of goes without saying that having a backup camera is very important. The chances are high that you will eventually run into equipment malfunctions. Try to have a plan B in place. Did you think about a backup tripod? If your work is mostly accomplished on a tripod, everything will come to a halt if a little item such as a lock decides to break. Think through your equipment and be prepared for the smaller items too.
5 Responses to 'Equipment Backups'
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Great advice Paul, quick question. How do you deal with taking software on location? Such as your tethering software, laptop OS, Photoshop, etc.. Do you have it loaded onto a hard-drive and how can you seamlessly load it back onto your laptop if there are troubles? Thanks for any insights. Jeff
Good point about the laptop because that’s my only equipment failure so far and is the most difficult. I have a Pelican 1490 case for my laptop that also holds extra cords and a Lacie drive. I use the Lacie drive for backing up my direct capture. I keep a copy of all software and OS in the case too. Good point about keeping the OS and software on an extra drive. Faster than installing from disks too and you should be able to use the migration manager on Mac. Be sure to have the codes or SN#s because you will most likely need them for most software such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Keep in mind that Photoshop is limited to 2 computers and requires registration for each. You will have to call Adobe so they can update their system and allow you to activate the new laptop and/or drive if it’s your 2nd computer it’s installed on. That may take forever. Normally you can deactivate Photoshop yourself but it’s not happening if the laptop is totally dead. My other workaround is to download the trial version that is full featured and it will save you from being on hold with Adobe tech support.
My laptop died on day 2 of a 7 day photo shoot and was totally gone. Luckily I was in Manhattan only 8 blocks from the Mac store and bought a new one since I was due for an update anyway. Future shoots I doubt I’ll be that lucky. Perhaps keeping an older generation laptop as a backup? It’s not cheap any way we look at it. Also, keep a copy of Diskwarrior because it does fix some things beyond the OS disk provided by Mac.
I think I rambled on a bit. Feel free to call or email if you have any more questions.
If you maintain a clone of the system you can deactivate the Adobe software when booted from the clone, even if the original drive is dead or the laptop is gone. Better yet, you can just boot from the clone and get back to work if the original drive has failed. If you’re toting around a large enough portable drive, it’s not a bad idea to use 2 partitions on it – one for a clone and the other for your direct capture. SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner are two good software options for cloning OSX.
Thanks for the helpful advice I will definitely look into the cloning idea. jeff
That’s a very nice idea of a backup camera, I think it will be very helpful, thank you very much.