A question for fellow RAW shooters

thanks everyone for your replies and very overwhelmingly the consensus seems to be to keep all RAWS.

seems I need to invest in some drives and work out how to get lightroom to store them there instead of hard drive..oh and of course a back up too.

---

- -
Mike

Pentax K5 / Pentax K5 11/ Pentax K200D / Canon Rebel T1 i / /Panasonic Lumix GX1/ Canon G10/ Pentax Q / Olympus OM1n

I only keep the ones of images worth keeping.

I keep the ones from which I have produced a photo I am happy with but my approach is to slightly reduce the size of the jpeg with the view that I still have the full size raw file

Oh yeah - an external drive and an internal slave drive help with the storage

---

K10D, K5 plus plenty of clueless enthusiasm.

My Flickr site link

You should do what's right for you really rather than just going with the majority.


You don't need to involve lightroom.

here's how I do it.

1] I keep all my RAWs in date catergorised folders on a large internal data drive. I keep a copy on a second identical drive as a 1st level back up

2] When the drives are close to filling up, I buy two more large data drives and install them in the computer

3] I then copy everything from the two original drives onto the 2 new drives.

4] At this point I have 4 copies of everything.

5] I then remove the original drives from the computer and store them safely.

6] At this point I have the two new drives on the computer and assign the them the original drive letters. This means lightroom sees no changes

7] I then delete all RAWs from these new drives, but IMPORTANTLY i do not delete the folder structure.

8] I then have plenty of space for the next lot of photos



The beauty of keeping all folder structures on the new drives ( even though they are empty 0 is that if I need to go back and edit something that's on a stashed back up drive, I just need to hook it up to the computer and copy the stuff to the original folder location and Lightroom sees it all original edits are applied.

---

Bodies: 2x K-5, Sony TX-5, Nokia 808
Lenses: Pentax DA 10-17mm ED(IF) Fish Eye, Pentax DA 14mm f/2.8, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8, Pentax-A 28mm f/2.8, Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.2, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8, Sigma 135-400mm APO DG, and more ..
Flash: AF-540FGZ, Vivitar 283
Smeggy's Forum and Pics

Just got a 1tb drive back up to an external hard drive and blu ray discs (25gb each)

I keep all my raws.
Just got a 1tb drive back up to an external hard drive and blu ray discs (25gb each)

I kept all my film negatives, so I keep all my RAW files too! Though, that said, I do delete that ones taht are just no good, i.e. my feet, the inside of the lens cap....

I generally file negatives in a separate sub directory from the JPGs. Everything is backed up to an external drive. Since you can buy drives of several TBs, and connect them to a wireless router as a network drive, you have lots of storage options avaliable. Also a 1TB hard drive is only about £60-£70.

---

Bodies: K5IIs, K7, MZ5n, LX, MV
Lenses: DA*16-50, DA18-55WR, DA18-135, DAL35, M50 F2, A50 f1.4, FA50 f1.4, DA*50-135, DA55-300, Tamron 70-300, DFA 100 WR Macro, M135 f3.5, Sigma 120-400 APO DG HSM, Tokina 500 f8.0
Flash: Metz 58, Metz 48
Accessories: BG4, Pentax right angle finder, Pentax mirror adaptor lens, O-ME53 Viewfinder Loupe
Auto 110 System: Auto 110, Winder, 18mm, 24mm, 50mm, 70mm, 20-40mm, AF100P, 1.7x telecon

I delete the really bad stuff from the camera before even uploading it. But once it's on the computer, I very rarely delete it.

thanks again everyone.

I've not gone wireless yet lol so I need some additional usb ports and some drives

---

- -
Mike

Pentax K5 / Pentax K5 11/ Pentax K200D / Canon Rebel T1 i / /Panasonic Lumix GX1/ Canon G10/ Pentax Q / Olympus OM1n

Haven't you got enough SATA ports?

I can't imagine backing up stuff over a wireless network ... Life's too short. I wouldn't do it via USB unless I had to

2TB SATA2 drives are only about £55 to £70 these days

---

Bodies: 2x K-5, Sony TX-5, Nokia 808
Lenses: Pentax DA 10-17mm ED(IF) Fish Eye, Pentax DA 14mm f/2.8, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8, Pentax-A 28mm f/2.8, Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.2, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8, Sigma 135-400mm APO DG, and more ..
Flash: AF-540FGZ, Vivitar 283
Smeggy's Forum and Pics

1. from camera to acr , where initial deletion is done.
2. save to internal hd ,year folder, sub folder with where and date. also saved to external hd(raw only)
3. pp in photoshop, lightroom, photomatix whichever is required.
4. save results as jpeg to internal hd, year folder, then sub folders where and when. also saved to seperate external hd (jpeg only)
need to buy more drives , thought about the nas route but it just seems a very expensive box. i do have an old computer but not sure if it would be man enough ,don,t know enough about cpu requirements for server use will have to do a bit of reading

---

K5 and the odd lens or 2

Wireless-n at 300mbs is not too bad! Can also use wired to the router.

USB 3 is fast, very fast! Key criteria when I upgraded my PC kit.

---

Bodies: K5IIs, K7, MZ5n, LX, MV
Lenses: DA*16-50, DA18-55WR, DA18-135, DAL35, M50 F2, A50 f1.4, FA50 f1.4, DA*50-135, DA55-300, Tamron 70-300, DFA 100 WR Macro, M135 f3.5, Sigma 120-400 APO DG HSM, Tokina 500 f8.0
Flash: Metz 58, Metz 48
Accessories: BG4, Pentax right angle finder, Pentax mirror adaptor lens, O-ME53 Viewfinder Loupe
Auto 110 System: Auto 110, Winder, 18mm, 24mm, 50mm, 70mm, 20-40mm, AF100P, 1.7x telecon

LOL - It's 10 times slower than SATA2 and 20 times slower than SATA3. Why pounish yourself? Like I say life's too short.

---

Bodies: 2x K-5, Sony TX-5, Nokia 808
Lenses: Pentax DA 10-17mm ED(IF) Fish Eye, Pentax DA 14mm f/2.8, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8, Pentax-A 28mm f/2.8, Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.2, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8, Sigma 135-400mm APO DG, and more ..
Flash: AF-540FGZ, Vivitar 283
Smeggy's Forum and Pics

I keep everything - RAW converters improve over time, as do my skills (hopefully!)

On my working machine I keep approx the last 6 months, and everything gets replicated to two 2Tb Firewire drives that are stored in separate locations. Still use BeyondCompare (even on a Mac, but through PlayOnMac) to keep in sync.

Was on WiFi connected NAS - but that's waaaay to slow. Now using FW800, but wish I could justify the Pegasus Thunderbolt 4Tb RAID (does 500MB/s sustained!!!)

Like others, I keep my own directory structure, organised by year, and then dated and described.
If you use Lightroom, make sure you tick the box in catalog preferences to save the XMP file!!! (That way LR dumps the settings to the drive - and this can be backed up and sync'd along with the RAW files)

Matt

---

http://www.mattmatic.co.uk
(For gallery, tips and links)

As per above I winnow out all the dross, then store the RAW files on external hard drives 3x 2TB. Images that I post process are then stored
in seperate folders according to size.
I/we sell prints at four different sizes so each image is stored in a folder dedicated to that size.
Fairly complex and definitely memory hungry but for us the advantage in being able to call up an image of 20" x 16" and print it straight away is
of paramount importance. Time saved equals more time out earning an income.