Redundancy

Now, most of the photographers have probably seen the above video. I assume it’s made it’s way around the net by now.  If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the above clip.  It’s quite funny but very tragic at the same time for the bride and groom.

The physical humour initially makes us snicker and think, “Oh my, what a clutz!” that the photographer is. However, we then notice, especially after a second viewing, that the wedding photographer went into the fountain with BOTH of his camera’s.  It’s not the fact that his small fortune in camera gear is probably toast. Camera gear can be replaced. The tragedy is that wedding moments can’t be “re-purchased”. The wedding photographer was wearing a belt with a pouch. I would assume( hopefully, I am wrong) that the pouch contained the only copy of CF cards that we was using that day.

I think we can learn a lesson from this unfortunate event of  Mr. Clutzographer. We experienced photographers know about the importance of  back up solutions. There are several ways to “back up” our files from our desk top but do we “back up” on the fly? After seeing the above video, I think it’s in our better interest to “back up” on the fly.

Many new pro-dSLR camera bodies come with the capability to run two compact flash cards at the same time. With a Nikon system, not sure about Canon but I assume it’s possible, the camera can be programmed to save the digital file to BOTH CF cards. In other words, you can create an instant “back up” directly on to the second CF card. This is a safer way to shoot in case one card is mal-functioning.

If I were to shoot a wedding, especially one with a near by water feature,  I would shoot with two cards recording for sure. Then after each “segment” of the wedding, give one card to your assistant/second shooter or even your wife or husband. The point is to get the second copy of the files away from yourself in case you have an incident such as the clutzy wedding photographer in the above video. Then the second card should be transferred to a laptop or other device which could be safe guarded by a third person.

A good “back up” workflow would involve “redundancy on the fly”. At least two copies of the files should be immediately sent to different locations and possibly uploaded up to a cloud for safe keeping. If something un-for-seen does happen to you and your CF card, at least there are back ups of earlier segments in the wedding. The habit of keeping all the files of the day on one card is a risk that I would not take. For the sake of the bride and groom, let’s hope Mr. Clutzographer had a redundant system on the fly to salvage the wedding.