Got Goals?

My 2 main goals:
1: set up a proper backup strategy for all my digital needs, mainly photo, and stick with it instead of having multiple old external HDs laying about and not knowing what's on which drive.
2: really learn the capabilities of the equipment I've already got before I buy something new.



Erich
 
Those are good wishes, Erich. ; That's what I did last year and found it too easy to keep forgetting about them. ; This year I am defining my goals better, writing out how I will know when I have finished them and putting deadlines on each. ; As they say, Goals are Dreams with Deadlines. ; ;D

I am currently looking for a way to use NAS (Network Attached Storage) as part of my backup strategy instead of using Firewire or USB drives. ; That way backing up will be easier and I will do it more often.
 
Yeah, I'm considering something like the Drobo Mini for both more storage and redundancy, but they ain't cheep!



Erich
 
Drobos are expensive. ; Have looked into Western Digital and LeCie options but mixed reviews on both of their NAS products. ; They both have 3TB NAS boxes under $200 which work with both Macs and PCs. Neither are a RAID system.
 
I got a buffalo NAS drive for home. I got the one with two 2tb drives in it so I activated raid 1 rather than getting 4tb of space.
 
I've been using a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ for over a year. ; With four 2 Tb drives, it gives me roughly 5.5 Tb of storage. ; The initial backup of my photos took over 50 hours, but after that the differential backups go pretty quickly. ; The one thing I haven't tried yet is copying everything from the NAS to a USB drive for offsite storage. ; I figure that might take 20+ hours (reading a RAID drive is much faster than writing).

I recommend using plain RAID-5 rather than the proprietary formats like Drobo (and even my Netgear) offer. ; If your NAS box fails but your drives still work, the data is much more easily recovered.
 
well i thought i'd start out the year by having the goal of waking up everyday, we'll see how it goes past that
 
My goal is to properly master my new Sony mirrorless camera system. I am absolutely blown away with what it can do in such a small lightweight body.

I suppose the secondary goal would be to emerge from a Disney trip without severe pain in my back and legs from lugging all of my other gear around all day.
 
Embrace the delete key- and get a handle on all the digital images in various locations. ( 2 laptops- 1 tb pc- 4 external hd.... :-\
Come up with a workflow- prints more pictures- burn more movie/dvds......Dh is NOT!! a computer kinda guy and always wants to look at pictures of our trips---Its a lofty goal- and I expect it will take all year to go back over everything since I went digital. 1 laptop has now been delegated to my side business only so purging off of that is top on the list.... Thats just my photography goals- ; getting the ; pine straw raked from the 100+ pine trees before spring is another...lol
 
"lightslicer" said:
Embrace the delete key- and get a handle on all the digital images in various locations. ( 2 laptops- 1 tb pc- 4 external hd.... :-\
Come up with a workflow- prints more pictures- burn more movie/dvds......Dh is NOT!! a computer kinda guy and always wants to look at pictures of our trips---Its a lofty goal- and I expect it will take all year to go back over everything since I went digital. 1 laptop has now been delegated to my side business only so purging off of that is top on the list.... Thats just my photography goals- ; getting the ; pine straw raked from the 100+ pine trees before spring is another...lol
Click to expand...

These are another set of cool wishes...put some dates on those and work towards meeting them. ; Here's a set of blogs I wrote about organizing photos. ; This is how I do it but it will get you thinking about how you want to:

Naming Photos: http://land.allears.net/blogs/photoblog/2008/09/whats_in_a_name_1.html

Hard Drive Organization: http://land.allears.net/blogs/photoblog/2008/09/organizing_your_photos.html

Metadata: http://land.allears.net/blogs/photoblog/2008/09/in_progress_metawhat.html

Keywording: http://viewsinfinitum.com/2010/04/30/the-dreaded-keywording-task/

Working with Large Photo Libraries: http://land.allears.net/blogs/photoblog/2011/08/ready_812_working_with_large_d.html
 
i use lightroom, currently version 4.3, on a macbook pro, and i too follow a very similar workflow as scott, i am a little more haphazard in the beginning as i always import from the card to an external drive, which one depends on which one or ones it took along on the trip. i have a pretty large supply of cards, and am always adding to my supply as cards get bigger and prices drop. i do this so that on a long vacation with the potential for thousands of photos i have enough cards in a large enough size so that each day can have it's own separate card. i do this so i can return home with the cards still intact, so if i have a drive failure at any time prior to final backup i will not have lost that days photos, i may have to completely redo the workflow, but i still have all the originals to do that with. i put basic keywords onto the files, plus copyright metadata during the initial import, my next step is the first cull run through, getting rid of the real dogs for good. nnow when i download i will set up a folder named by year-destination. such as 2012-pixelmania. then within that during import i import by day to subfolders labeled by date, and in the case of such as the alaskan cruise by some distinguishing feature. date-skagway. i batch process as much as possible in lightroom, adding further keywords specific to the subject matter and deleting those that did not make the second cut. i also batch rename the finalists , and lately have been numbering them in sequential order. when i am done i upload the finished ones to my phanfare site, followed by some to flickr, there it's more specialized as i have just a few collections of specific stuff, such as my ongoing quest for all the major league parks. i then export all the keepers over to my netstora twin hardrive cabinet in original form. the lightroom export function allows for setting up subfolders and choosing format, such as dng, original, jpeg, psd.
it may seem like a lot of work, but once you develop a workflow that works for you, and if you keep to the steady naming conventions, and really really tag with keywords, you can then in lightroom/aperture and i'm sure many other editors find specific photos very very easily
 
My main goal is backup, like Scott, is to figure out a backup strategy employing the use of a NAS. ; Since my wife is the biggest consumer of my pictures for her projects, I need a way for her to find and consume the pictures she needs.


I have been leaning toward Synology's products because I got a lot of hits about it when searching for solutions in a hybrid household like mine (Windows & MacOS)


Other than that, I need to start taking pictures again. ; I've gone so stagnant the idea of selling my equipment has become a serious consideration
 
yep, I have some:

get a new computer that is more condusive to photo editing (my laptop is not cutting it at all)

Learn more about how to use Photoshop Elements

as others have stated, get better at backing up and organizing files

learn more about what my camera is capable of

re-read Scott Kelby's books (they are such a quick read)

use my flash (and then by default learn more about how to use it)
 
I want to take inventory of my WDW pics, looking for "holes". ; It seems that after every trip I find pictures of a place or event that has some shot that's missing. ; I feel like I need to make a list of these things, study it, then take the time to capture what I want on the next trip.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
My goals for the year (in no particular order) are:

1) ; Add another Drobo to my storage so I have three complete copies of all of my photographs
2) ; Go through the website and clean out some of the lesser quality images and add keywords to the shots that are missing them.
3) ; Add some older shots to the website that didn't make it over from the old one.
4) ; Shoot more "human element" shots on my train trips. ; I tend not to notice the shot opportunities involving the crew unless it is a staged shot, but have seen some incredible shots taken by a couple of my friends that I completely missed.
 
My goals for this year are to:

Save up for a Wide angle lens.

Become better at Fireworks photography, incorporate new angles.

Create better HDR images.

Take more pictures and don't be afraid to show off my work.
 
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