I have found something for remotely backing up. Although it doesnt provide a lot of space (currently 2742 MB and always increasing, you can get this piece of freeware at http://viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm, and then use your gmail account as a storage medium!

Tom.

Try a fill flash or a refelector, especially if the sun is up high and the eyes are deeply set.

To respond to some of the messages above. I also have spent several thousands of dollars with B&H and have found them to be trustworthy. The prices are not bad either. I know many people in my Nikon D70 group who have also used Adorama.

changing the subject with a request. I have a black great dane named Baby Dog and I was wondering if anyone had any tips for shooting photos of him in the sunlight at the beach. I tend to lose his eyes in his blackness. I usually use some fill light in Photoshop to fix it, not always the best results though. Is there a trick to this?

I’ve always wanted to get into photography. A few years ago I got my first digital camera, a Canon, and loved it. In the last few weeks I’ve purchased a Canon 350D as I’ve decided to really get into this addictive hobby! Do you have any recommendations or advice on where I should start to develop my photography skills? And what equipment would you recommend. Any advice you have for beginners would be very wlecome!

Keep up the fantastic work!

Ian

This monday night (2 days ago) I placed an online order with B&H Photo for an 8GB CF Card. As I was ordering on Monday night (very late) I knew that it would not ship till Tuesday and I REALLY wanted to make sure that I had it in my greedy little hands by the weekend so I selected the UPS 2nd Day air option so I would have it Thursday.

Tuesday afternoon (about 3pm pacific time) I went online just to check the status of the order, and much to my surprise it showed the order was “processing”.

I thought this was very strange and I called them to see what the hang-up was.

The guy on the phone said that something very strange happened and several web orders including mine got kinda “stuck” on the web and didn’t properly get into thier order system.

He processed my order on the spot and upgraded me to Next Day Air service at no additional cost so that I’d still be sure to get the card by Thursday.

Somehow (even though it was after 6pm eastern time when I called) they managed to get the order out on Tuesaday night and I got the card today (Wednesday), a day earlier than I originally thought I would.

This is why B&H keeps getting my business (and lots of it!). It seems that fast, reliable service is important to them.

STAY AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE!!!! They are very dishonest. They actually went as far as posting fraudulent positive reciews for themseleves on resellerratings.com

Here is the email that I sent to Broadway Photo after my experience with them:

—————————————————-
I’m hoping that this email has reached someone in management, I think it’s important that you know about the experience that I had with your company today.

I was looking at the Broadway Photo ad in the June 2006 issue of Popular Photography and I noticed a Canon Powershot S3-IS camera for $299.99. I thought this price was too good to be true but hoped that maybe it was being sold at cost as a loss leader or something. So I called Broadway Photo and inquired about the camera. Here is what the sales rep told me:

1. It’s an “import model” (whatever that’s supposed to mean, Canon is a Japanese company)

2. It does not come with a warranty (however I could buy one)

3. It does not come with batteries (however I could buy some)

4. It does not come with software (however, of course, I could buy some)

5. Delivery would be about 4-5 weeks.

I did not even ask if it came with a memory card or not, but I imagine it didn’t …but I bet he would have sold me one. It seems to me that this could be considered a less than honest way of doing business, these details should have somehow been in the advertisement.

Your website says “Shop with confidence, All products we carry are factory fresh and come complete with all manufacturer supplied accessories and carry a 1 year labor, 90 day parts warranty.” This is in direct contradiction to what your sales rep told me on the phone (see notes 2,3 and 4 above).

This would have been my first purchase at Broadway Photo and probably not my last … however now I will never again consider Broadway Photo for my photography purchases..

FYI I spend many thousands of dollars a year at B&H Photo, they will continue to get my business. I’m not angry, not bitter … I just thought you should know what happened when a potential new customer came to call on your company. Thank you,

Allen Rockwell,
Allen Rockwell Photography
http://www.allenrockwellphoto.com

Here’s a quote from one of their happy customers:

“Order was canceled. When I called to confirm they told me that the price was for the camera only! Cables, battery and everything else was extra. There’s nothing on their site to tell you that they were removing everything that came with the camera and charging you extra. Shoved the price right up to near MSRP! I felt conned to say the least. Extremely rude!”

I guess sometimes a deal that seems to be too good to be true isn’t.

You were talking about the great price you found online for the 5D. Well check out http://www.royalcamera.com. I checked today and the body only is listed as $1719 plus $50 s&h. How do they sell it so low? Well they jack up the prices of all the accessories, warrenties, etc. Check it out.

As I mentioned on the show, I have backup drives at home and at my office. At the end of each month I also backup my images for the month on DVDs. Tedious, I know, but it makes me feel comfortable to backup on both magnetic and optical media.

When I initially loaded up all my photos to Aperture it uncovered that some (many, but not a bulk) of the files on my firewire drives were corrupt. The same files were corrupt on the second firewire drive. These were older photos from 2002/2003. So I went back to my CD backups (before I had the dvd burner) and restored those files and imported them into Aperture. The CD backup files were all good. phew! Anyway, for me, backing up to an optical medium saved me. I have since put all my files on DVD as well as two external hard drives.

The time and money for performing backups is well worth it.

Michael GW Stein

The machine is totally dead and needs to be reformatted _IF_ it is to be saved.

The good news is that I had backups for all my websites, email files, SQL databases and files. I was able to get another server, upload all my files and be totally, 100% back in business within 24 hours. Not a bad recovery from such a total disaster.

So, as Scott says “Backup, Backup, Backup”.

BTW Scott, you MUST get an offsite solution … if your house was to burn down (I know, a horrible thought… but it does happen) and your computers burned and your backups burned you would be screwed.

I’m a little crazy about backups, here’s what I do.

1. I copy all my photos (and my Aperture library) from my desktop to my laptop almost every day. And I keep my laptop with me wherever I go.
2. I backup all my desktop files to a external firewire drive every few days. My partner knows that if the house catches fire he is to grab that drive on his way out.
3. I have ANOTHER firewire drive that I do a complete backup to once a week and I keep it in my truck at all times … so no matter where I am, I have a backup that is no more than 1 week old.

As I said, I’m a little crazy about backing up … but I’m pretty sure that I’ll never loose my data :)