Photo Tip #8: I like lots of chips.
Posted: 12 May 2009 .
In this age of digital phototography we are no longer carrying pounds and pounds of film but just a tiny itty bitty little memory chip. Although this is great and will help take pressure off of your back there are some drawbacks. The first, and seemingly not so obvious, problem is that it’s tiny! So what? so you can loose it that’s what! But you’re thinking Zim, “I only have one memory chip and it lives in my camera and it never comes out!” If that is the case then for the most part this problem wouldn’t worry you, however my tip is that you should carry 1-2 extra chips. “But Zim, my little chip is capable of taking 10,000 pictures!” Yes, this is true, but let me remind you that you are carrying a piece of electronic equipment which can fail on you at anytime for any reason. And that memory chip? It can do that too. So do you really want your entire trip to be held on one chip?
Then there is the other question, what if you loose that camera? if you do, all off the photos go with it. So you change your chip occassionally and put the used one in a safe place. But since it is sooo small you may want to put it in some sort of plastic case or wallet or something bright in color!
So big chip may not be the best thing to have because you have a greater risk of loosing more images. Lastly, backUP, backUP, backUP. Make sure you don’t just keep putting information on that chip. Be sure to burn it to a cd or a couple of hard drives.