Six Steps For Safe Digital Photo Storage

You are starting to get an impressive and personally important collection of digital image files. So how do you ensure that these images will be safe and protected? Try the following digital photo storage suggestions:

1. Always download your memory cards to the hard drive of a virus-safe PC as soon as you've finished a day's shooting. It's wise to not reformat the card until you've confirmed that the download was successful.

2. Back up the images to an external hard drive. External drives are economical, and typically cost less than fifty cents per gigabyte of photo storage—a tremendous bargain. Plus they are separate from your computer, meaning that they are less likely to fail at the same time your computer's hard drive might.

3. For added safety, back up your images again to a new location. This can be an additional external hard drive that you can store in a different location or an online sharing/storage site like Phanfare or one of the other popular sites.

4. Burn a DVD (or CD, depending on the number of images you need to archive). In fact, burn two or three—DVD media is very cheap.

5. Copy every image to the Shared Folder on your family's network hard drive. Don't have one? Give one a try. They're reasonably priced, reasonably hack-safe and are very easy to install and configure. Best of all, they allow everyone in the family to back up—and share—all of the images.

6. Make a print! The picture that lasts the longest is the one you hold in your hands.

Getting A Digital Camera That Is Right For You

As you will soon find out buying a digital camera especially if it is your first time purchasing one can be extremely difficult. But if you want to ease the problem of trying to decide on how to buy a digital camera without all the hassle then read below.

The first thing you should do is try and learn about the terminology that relates to digital cameras as well as the basics and find out which features are crucial in any new digital camera.

It is important that when you are looking to buy a digital camera for the first time you know what much of the lingo (or language that the sales staff is speaking) is about. So it is important that you understand what such words as megapixel mean, zoom, memory card, memory etc. Also look at what features each camera has to offer you. You do not want to buy a digital and then find when you get it home that it only great for close up work and the zoom feature on it is no good at all. Also look at what the quality of prints the camera produces will be like you may find that it produces great 8 x 10 prints but anything smaller or larger just look awful and the quality is terrible. So it is important that before you make your digital camera purchase you are aware of the features which matter to you the most.

So when you go shopping for your first digital camera there are some questions that you should be asking yourself so that you do not end up buying a camera that you don't really need.

1. Ask yourself what you will be using the camera for and the type of photography that you will be doing?


2. Next ask yourself in what type of conditions you will be using your digital camera? Will it be outdoors, indoors etc.


3. Are you after a camera that you can do more with rather than just staying in auto mode all the time?


4. What particular features are you looking for in your digital camera? Do you want a long zoom, one that is able to stabilize images or one that comes with a large LCD display.

Another thing to do in order that you buy a digital camera that is really what you want and need is by reading as many reviews as particular makes and models. The web is full of sites that provide reviews on digital cameras and there are even photography magazines which do in depth reviews in to all makes of cameras including digital ones. Hopefully what has been provided will help you when you want to know how to buy a digital camera that is really the right one for you.