Oookay, so you're going to trust "important" photos to a disk which is likely to break down at any moment? You don't want / need to share them?

Not having at least three copies (preferably in RAW) of *anything* you value is pointless.

Not storing at least one copy offsite is even sillier.

Not checking that the backups still work occasionally is asking for trouble.

Not trusting a company - hmm, I can give some credit on that one, but that's the way things go.

I personally have at least two copies of everything with minimal exceptions. Of course most of my stuff's online - I share with my parents and others whom I trust and then publish what I feel is appropriate. Yes, I can get to private photos *if* I have the URL, but there's a line between "I'm paranoid" and "I want others to see what I've done".

None of the online backup sites really work for 'togs apart from the real photographer ones and they cost a fortune. Which is why something like 23hq - which doesn't overly compress or charge the earth - is worth treasuring.

Bret

so you've heard about deep-fried butter, then?

Bret

I'm thinking about a short trip to Copenhagen at the beginning of December. Don't know if we will have the little one with us or not; still, looking for a hotel is proving more difficult than I thought.

Anyone got tips for me? We'll probably be there from late Friday to late Tuesday.

Bret

The 7D's butt gets kicked by a K5 over ISO2000. Experience says this.

Bret

we had lamb and it was really rather good...

Also a very nice selection from Findus in teh veg department - "texas oven vegetables" or so - worked *very* nicely with some extra olive oil, garlic, herbs and some salt & pepper. Surprisingly good. All the more so, considering there's parsnip in it

Bret

I have a freshly charged battery in mine - I had to swap them out 2 weeks ago - and since then, I've taken 444 shots (RAW+JPEG). I am still on green on both batteries. I don't use video, I tend not to review on-cam much and I've been using either 24-70, 100-300 or 50mm. 0 flash.
These are all original Pentax batteries.

Bret

for the first cycles, a battery will not have 100% capacity, end of. Live View also really eats batteries - staying away from reviewing, I have well in excess of 700 shots from one. Video will kill a battery inside 3-4 hours.

The bar behaviour is *not* an idiosyncracy. The power available is so little that the voltage drops under pressure and then you have the "low battery" warning; restarting is not as heavy and therefore shows you green again. I've seen it a lot - LV says "RED!" but restarting without it brings back to orange.

I would strongly advise against running batteries much below 2% capacity on a regular basis but doing it that low occasionally is a very good idea. Also: fully charge them, especially the first few charges.

Bret

^^ this. You have to be able to provide something close to the pic that the requester had in their mind when they asked you to do the job. Your own opinions on "good" or "bad" are unimportant at that point - the client is right.
Being able to do this - and mixing it with a couple of shots you're proud of for yourself - is a huge thing IMO.

Bret

the olvi A's not bad

Bret

then there are those like me who take pictures now and again for their day job and then take on occasional jobs for themselves. Semi-pro? Don't really care....

Bret