Lightweight Portable back-up for Photos

Thanks to all Karijini photographers who attended the Outback Photo Workshop at Rosie O'Grady's in Fremantle last Sunday. Lively, interactive worksop with lots of good ideas exchanged. We are all looking forward to a great outback tour in a few weeks.

One of the best tips came from Rob Lewis on backing up your images while on tour in the outback. Rob uses and recommends the Hyperdrive ColorSpace UDMA2.

The ColorSpace is advertised as the world's fastest and most advanced memory card back-up.

The ColorSpace can store 120GB of images, runs on batteries and costs $299.

For heavier shooters or for photographers on extend adventures you can also buy 250GB, 320GB, 500GB, 750GB and 1TB versions.

That means you can store an average of about 8 GB a day for two weeks. It has a small screen so you can view all your images. Rob says the batteries have an excellent life and you will probably only need to recharge once or twice in two weeks.

The other advantage is there is a huge space saving over a lap top computer or an iPad.

Full Moon in the Kennedy Ranges

One of the advantages of a dedicated photography tour is that we are all 'in the mix' 24/7. Its not like being in a class where you head home at 5pm. The additional advantage of an outback camping photography tour is that we are sleeping under the stars. We can shoot well into the night and pre-dawn and be well away from the influence of urban night light.

Tony Taylor alerted me that we will enjoy a full moon while we are camped in the Kennedy Ranges. This gives us some great opportunities for lunar landscapes. In many cases the best moon shots and especially lunar landscapes are taken the night before the full moon. This is due to the synchronicity between the sweet spot between sunset and last light and the moonrise.

If this sounds like a lot of 'gobbeldy gook', don't worry. I am going to produce some easy to follow charts for you.

However, you will need to get a handle on the manual controls on your camera. The moon is not quite as easy to expose correctly as it first looks. Furthermore, if you want to create an artistic moonshot you need to alter the perception of moon scale.

Jurien Bay Storm. Nikon D700. 6 secs @ f5.6 400 ISO

Techniques for photographing lunar landscapes, the moon, lightning and fireworks come under the general category of time exposure or long exposure. Its something you might like to check out by reading your camera's instruction book. 

If you would like some detailed instructions on these techniques before departure you may be interested in my UWA Intermediate DSLR workshop on 23 and 27 June. You get to practise all your manual controls about 76 times. The workshop also includes a night practical shoot where you practise the principles of photographing lightning, fireworks, stars and lunar landscapes. For more information click HERE.