Gary, A very fair point. I did add a little caveat to my OP which was

I must admit that I haven't found the eyefi card to that reliable either. I hadn't really noticed much impact on the battery but, TBH, hadn't really looked.
Sometimes it seemed to work like a dream, other times it just didn't work at all. The initial connection always seemed to take ages but once it was connected seemed to work quite well
My main reason for including this idea was because of our last trip. I know exactly when the SD card failed as it immediately gave an error message. We were driving through a Norwegian town at the time and my wife was taking snaps of the buildings. If (and I do mean if) it an eyefi cards was fitted (and working) we would have had all the images taken that morning and right up to the point of failure.

I must admit I hadn't thought about the battery limitations, especially in the X5, which runs on AAs. This might cause a rethink or at least a test of battery life when in use.

I'm ALS hoping that, when it finally becomes available, the flu card might be more reliable.

Andrew, keep watching I'll show you a lot more of the East Anglian coast and countryside through 2014.

After all this discussion I'm not so unhappy about getting so wet taking these

So tweaking the exposure gives this:




Although it may have a better exposure and histogram AND is probably closer to the actual scene it doesn't quite portray the atmosphere of the original IMO. The original, as posted, gives a greater impression of how it felt at the time: dark damp and miserable

An interesting discussion covering;
- was it worth taking/sharing,
- the technicalities of the image exposure
- the intent of the photographer, and
- the impression that various edited versions give.

Loving this


Oh. by the way please ignore the HDR versions, I really wish I hadn't bothered with them. They were only a bit of fun.

According to this website: link you can send files directly from the eye-fi card. Which is all I am after. I can then view (and verify) the files using a browser window on the netbook or through an app on my iPad.

Mmmm, I think I'd rather visually confirm the files are there. Still they're worth a look.

Personally I quite like being the only one around without a Canon or Nikon. I don't really care if they produce a FF or try to take on the pro market so long as they stay in business and continue to support the cameras that I have (unlike Olympus and my previous 4/3 DSLR:evil.

I'm fairly sure that Ricoh have some plans. We can guess, double guess, complain, hope and chatter till the cows come home but only they will decide what business model they want to follow.

Hopefully it will involve a long line of ever improving cameras that will utilise the equipment that I own or offer a straight forward upgrade path.

As for now, Ricoh/Pentax produced the right camera and lenses to suit my budget and shooting requirements. So long as they continue to do that I shall support the brand. As soon as they stop (just like Olympus did) I shall look for something else.




PS. I shall be buying a K3 in the next few weeks/months just to prove my support

Thanks for the idea but that would involve more kit and take longer than what I am suggesting already. The nature of our trips, Sahara Desert, Iceland Interior, etc. means that there are no postboxes

I had heard of these Raspberry Pi and it does sound like and interesting option. However you would need a display of some sort to check that the files had transferred.

I think you're probably right and this is what we will do. The Eyefi and Seagate drive would just add another level of 'redundancy' to the system without much additional effort.

Borrowing a PC would be problematic where we travel. The netbook will allow the use of any usb storage and because of the amount of data it would have to be a HDD rather than memory sticks. As I said I will change the cards every day and I am hoping to have a K3 which has 2 slots.
Following the failure of a Duracell SD Card last trip I will now always use Sandisk cards.

Yep, I think you're probably right.

There isn't really a problem I was just looking for other ideas. The iPads will always come with us as we use them for so many other things whilst on the road such as updating various websites/facebook etc. of our progress, reading books, viewing photos etc.


Thanks for all the comments but it sounds like I have a reasonable system. However I'll still keep the research going as you never know I might find something better

Perhaps they should forget pro togs and sponsor Ranulph Fienes, Bear Grylls or Ray Mears instead?

I realise that there is another storage thread but this one is more specific.

Every year my wife and I go on an extended driving holiday/expedition which can mean 2-3 weeks without internet (so no cloud option for storage).

During this time we take stills and video and can easily generate 300+ Gb of data.

On our last trip one SD card failed and we lost nearly 2 days worth of images and I don't want that to happen again. We will have a K3 (I hope) or K5iis, an X-5 and, at least, one GoPro to backup each day.

Although we are in a Land Rover I still want to keep the amount of equipment we carry to a minimum and I don't want to spend all evening, around the campfire, messing about with complicated backup systems (I'd rather be drinking:lol. In addition, with so many other expenses associated with these trips I want to keep the costs down if I can.

I've looked at stand alone options such as the Hyperdrive but they are quite pricey.

We already own iPads (which we will take with us) and a Samsung netbook and portable HDD (WD My Passport 1Tb). So it would be good to use the things we already have.

Unfortunately the iPad doesn't have enough memory and I can't find an option to use it in conjunction with external storage. I have explored 'jailbreak' options (such a ifile and SD card readers) but still haven't found anything definite.

This leaves me with the netbook. So what I am considering at the moment is this system:

1. Buy a seagate wireless plus and set this up in the car somewhere safe.
2. Fit eyefi (flu) cards in the X-5 and 1 slot of the K3 to stream jpg and video files directly to the Seagate HDD (like this).
3. Set the K3 to save RAW to one card and jpg to the eyefi
4. Each evening, using the netbook and a separate usb HDD,
.a. Manually copy the RAW files from the K3 card
.b. Manually copy the video from the GoPro
.c. Store the cards safely (putting new ones in the cameras each day).
.d. Manually copy the jpg files from the X-5 and replace the eyefi back in the camera.
.e. Verify the contents of the seagate drive

Hopefully this system will give me:
- one HDD with all the jpgs and Pentax videos on,
- a separate HDD with all the RAW K3 files, X-5 jpgs and the Pentax and GoPro videos
- the original SD cards, for each day, still intact.

Assuming the eyefi (or flucard if they're available by then) work as they should then, even if a card fails, the last image taken should be on the HDD.

Hopefully it won't take too long each evening to copy the 3/4 SD Cards onto the HDD.

Saying all this I'm still in 'research' mode so if anyone else has a better/simpler/ cheaper/more efficient system I would be very happy to hear about it. Our next trip is in July, to the Faroe Islands and Iceland, so we have plenty of time.

I must confess that I did have to push the slider, in LR, to the right more than normal on these. The end exposure becomes very dependant upon how bright your monitor is rather than the camera settings. But it's a fair point

Everyone seems to be focusing (no pun intended) on the equipment. However don't forget that to offer anything (FF, APSC, compact) worthwhile to the pro market Pentax will have to provide a worldwide equipment support system with easy replacement/repairs equivalent to CaNikon's if they want to attract 'the big boys' over to the marque.

That would be an ongoing 24/7 global expense.