Best practice on archiving real estate images and saving space?

Persian-Rice wrote in post #16865901
Scott, I'm shooting residential real estate and blending. I'm almost exclusively working with a higher end market which gives me a little more flexibility in terms of time. My workflow works for what I'm doing.

Although, I think your one comment answers it. I also never go back and re-edit after delivery, especially 3 months later. I don't think I really need all those raw files. My plan to keep a raw and a tiff will be enough to get everything on one, possibly two, drives. I also have 1080p jpeg files on the server for the virtual tours which I can always recover. I think I'm going with that.

Thanks everyone.

I don't understand why you're taking so many photos. The top real estate photographer here just takes a single shot and uses 12 lights all around the room to fill in the dark areas. You have a little screen on your camera that you can zoom in on to double check the trouble spots before moving on because you'll know where they are. That's probably the smartest way to save on archival space... 5 raw files + a tiff is crazy.

CRCchemist wrote in post #16868694
I don't understand why you're taking so many photos. The top real estate photographer here just takes a single shot and uses 12 lights all around the room to fill in the dark areas. You have a little screen on your camera that you can zoom in on to double check the trouble spots before moving on because you'll know where they are. That's probably the smartest way to save on archival space... 5 raw files + a tiff is crazy.

I shot off camera flash when I first started and it didn't last long. My in home time was far too high with that method. Even tough my shot counts where much lower, to reduce inconvenience for everyone I went the route of shooting brackets and to be safe on either end of the exposure scale, I shoot 5. I'm in and out 1.5 hours and I'm happy with that considering the home sizes.

I'm delivering between 50-75 images and I'm averaging >1 home per day. So you're right, its crazy when you add it up. 60 tiff, 300 cr2 per shoot. Each home I shoot I'm storing at least 14gb per home and usually it's more than that.

I'm trying not to change my shooting style as it produces what I and the clients want.

Persian-Rice wrote in post #16869851
I shot off camera flash when I first started and it didn't last long. My in home time was far too high with that method. Even tough my shot counts where much lower, to reduce inconvenience for everyone I went the route of shooting brackets and to be safe on either end of the exposure scale, I shoot 5. I'm in and out 1.5 hours and I'm happy with that considering the home sizes.

I'm delivering between 50-75 images and I'm averaging >1 home per day. So you're right, its crazy when you add it up. 60 tiff, 300 cr2 per shoot. Each home I shoot I'm storing at least 14gb per home and usually it's more than that.

I'm trying not to change my shooting style as it produces what I and the clients want.

Wow. That's a crazy number of images you are taking for just a few homes every day. I guess you have no choice but to buy a obscene number of hard drives every year in order to preserve the CR2 files and TIF files. Even if you deleted each JPG, they are only 35 MB max, but usually about 15 MB so there isn't even a point to deleting those when the other files add up to 300 MB. Deleting 5% of the space you are consuming (by just deleting the JPG) for each image isn't going to slow you down from having to buy hard drives every year.

CRCchemist wrote in post #16870901
Wow. That's a crazy number of images you are taking for just a few homes every day. I guess you have no choice but to buy a obscene number of hard drives every year in order to preserve the CR2 files and TIF files. Even if you deleted each JPG, they are only 35 MB max, but usually about 15 MB so there isn't even a point to deleting those when the other files add up to 300 MB. Deleting 5% of the space you are consuming (by just deleting the JPG) for each image isn't going to slow you down from having to buy hard drives every year.

That's why i'm wondering if there is a point to keeping all of the raw files.
The tiff file is the original blended copy and I think the EV 0 raw file should be sufficient proof that I'm the true photographer, both files are exclusive to me as nobody has access to them. That would allow me to delete 200 raw files from each shoot.

I guess after all these posts the real question is, are there any good reasons to keep all 5 bracketed images over a single image from each stack? Will I really ever need them again?

I don't think a raw file will hold up as legal proof of ownership. EXIF data it too easily edited. If your concern is that someone takes your images and uses it the best solution would be to register a copyright for all images.

gjl711 wrote in post #16872678
I don't think a raw file will hold up as legal proof of ownership. EXIF data it too easily edited. If your concern is that someone takes your images and uses it the best solution would be to register a copyright for all images.

There is a work order my clients sign with every job I get which states the terms of ownership of the images. Here in Canada, my client owns the images unless otherwise signed and agreed upon beforehand, photographers here only own their non-commissioned personal work. Is this document sufficient proof of ownership? So I don't need to actually keep the raw images for further proof?

Persian-Rice wrote in post #16872742
There is a work order my clients sign with every job I get which states the terms of ownership of the images. Here in Canada, my client owns the images unless otherwise signed and agreed upon beforehand, photographers here only own their non-commissioned personal work. Is this document sufficient proof of ownership? So I don't need to actually keep the raw images for further proof?

If the client owns the images, isn't it a moot point? But it sounds as if now would be a good time to get some legal advice.

Persian-Rice wrote in post #16872742
There is a work order my clients sign with every job I get which states the terms of ownership of the images. Here in Canada, my client owns the images unless otherwise signed and agreed upon beforehand, photographers here only own their non-commissioned personal work. Is this document sufficient proof of ownership? So I don't need to actually keep the raw images for further proof?

Whoa whoa whoa WHOA!!! You realize now with that information you just gave us, that you're talking about deleting your clients property, right?

No sorry for the confusion, my work order signs the rights over to me. In Canada it is owned by the client by default. All my photographs are my property.This is actually pretty funny. Maybe I should ask my lawyer if i should delete the photos.

Persian-Rice wrote in post #16872902
No sorry for the confusion, my work order signs the rights over to me. In Canada it is owned by the client by default. All my photographs are my property.This is actually pretty funny. Maybe I should ask my lawyer if i should delete the photos.

You are going to need to do that, unless you had a tech-savvy attorney that understood what you're doing here draft your contract and account for the following analysis. Because I see three pieces of property here. I hope your contract is specific about each of the pieces of property in the following chain to eliminate a compelling argument by the plaintiff that they lay claim to one of the pieces of property by the default rule. The first piece of property are the original out-of-camera CR2 files that are the scaffolding that you are using to create the second piece of property, the TIF file, which leads the the ultimate deliverable, the third piece of property, the JPG file.

Does the default rule apply to any of those pieces of property, if any? I don't know. I am an attorney in the US so I don't know Canadian jurisprudence. Only that there is enough ambiguity above to justify a thorough analysis by an attorney that practices in your jurisdiction.