Friday, September 2, 2016

Traveling and your camera... Part 4

So with the last thought in mind when it comes to traveling... What do you do about your memory cards? What are some things to consider when traveling with them?

(free photo stock traveling with your camera)
As I got ready for my trip this was something that I struggled with a bit. The first thing that I struggled with is how many do I really need? I really cannot give a good answer to this question. This is honestly something that only you as the photographer can determine. Some things to consider would be the type of trip, the number of photos that you plan to take, and are you planning to have a back up. What I mean by a back up is a second card with all of the same exact shots on it. I have a Nikon D7100 that has to memory card slots and I can use these slots in multiple ways. One being a primary card and the second card is written to at the same time as a backup. On the off chance that the first card becomes corrupt or fails. This is a trick I picked up from wedding photographers and this is something that they do all the time in the effort to prevent losing parts of a wedding due to card failure or corruption. The size of the card also matters as well. If you get an 8 GB card you are going to run out of space considerably faster than if you had a 128 GB card. In my case I opted to take three 64 GB cards. In hind sight I should have taken four just to have an even number as I was using one card for back up while I was shooting. 

My next area of consideration is the airport security. As a child I had a film camera and I remember an amazing trip that my grandmother took my cousins and myself on. We were given the great experience of going to Washington DC. I remember my father taking me to the store and we bought several rolls of film and when we got home we loaded the first roll into my 35mm camera. At the airport I hand carried my camera on the plane ( I wanted to photograph everything!) and I remember putting my camera on the belt for the X-ray machine. The man at the X-ray machine grabbed my camera and asked if my camera was already loaded with film. My grandmother informed him that it was and he immediately stated that it could not go through the X-ray because all of my film would be ruined along with the photos. The man kindly inspected my camera and meant me on the other side along with my cousins and gave us our cameras back. I understand that the technology has come a long way, but before I left I still did my homework to ensure that my cards would not be damaged in the same fashion as my film would have been. Based upon my research I can say that the cards are safe. Although I do prefer to have them in their card holders and buried deep within my bag in order to protect them as much as possible. 

As I mentioned I carried my cards on to the plane with me, and this a recommendation that I will give to anyone. The memory cars are like any other electronic item. They are susceptible to changes in climate, extreme heat, extreme cold, and moisture. These three things specifically are not controlled in the belly of the plane. This is the same reason why you will see people who are flying with animals get removed from flights. When the temperature is to cold or to warm the animal that is in the belly of the plane could die, and as a safety precaution they are not allowed to fly if it is determined that these extremes may be reached during the flight. I must admit that in travel I tend to treat my cards the same as I do my pets. I do not want to see them damaged in any way and therefore I want to keep them as close to me as possible. This way if something happens to my cards I am the one at fault for the loss or the damage and therefore I can only hold myself to blame. 

Thank you all so much, and if you have any information that you would like to see added to this post please feel free to email me, or leave the information in the comments below. 

Until next time my friends! Safe travels!


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