Photo management while traveling (long term)

For the past trips I would take my Canon EOS, a few SD cards, shoot raw and review/organize/post-process images back home using Photoshop Lightroom. All my previous trips did not exceed 2-3 weeks and a couple of higher capacity SD cards were enough to fulfill storage needs.

This time I am planning to spend significantly more time (at least 3-6 months) on the road in Asia-Pacific. Sooner or later I will need to offload photos from SD cards to some other storage. I may also want to share some photos with others (do not want to give up ability to shoot raw, so this implies conversion to jpeg) and do at least some initial review / tagging while traveling. I do not plan to bring any mobile device larger than smartphone. Most of the time will rely on public wifi hotspots, some legs / weeks will be in remote places without any access to the Internet. This presents some challenges.

Currently I am evaluating these options:

A) External HDD

Pros: the cheapest option (actually would not cost anything as I have suitable drive already); Internet access is not needed;
Cons: provides just the storage; easily lost/damaged together with an entire archive;

B) Lightroom CC cloud storage

Pros: files are transfered to "safe" external location; ability to access, organize and share images from any connected device; ability to edit photos from any connected device; integration with Lightroom Classic and other software;
Cons: requires reliable net access; costs money;

C) general cloud storage (Dropbox, Goodle Drive etc.)

Pros: files are transfered to "safe" external location; ability to access, organize and share raw files from any connected device;
Cons: requires reliable net access; lower functionality compared to option B for similar cost;


At the moment I am leaning towards Lightroom CC due to extra features and flexibility, hoping I can find reasonably fast Internet connection every couple of weeks.

What other options may be worth considering?

I put a copy on my notebook HD, an external HD, upload everything as wireless is available, and maybe if I'm really paranoid, bring along some USB sticks. Folder names are "date_shortDescriptor" across the board. I don't care about organization as much as multiple backups. I have Digital Ocean VPS' for other purposes, so I FTP everything to one and copy between servers through SSH. Dropbox, etc. is similar without the syncing.

Editing/sharing and storage are two different subjects to me; I edit local and upload to whatever sharing medium as desired.

Slow format an external HD and run tests on it to burn it in or reveal a defect. I don't do SSDs for storage - except for the USB sticks, but they would be the least reliable and only used for paranoia.

If I where to be gone for months, I might even clone the notebook drive to have something to swap into at a hint of trouble, but I get a little overboard with things.

I don't know about Asia-Pacific, but in Europe the internet cafes have excellent facilities but do cost money. I've transferred images from card to external drives (your option 1) without any issues, and uploaded to a cloud depository (your option 2).

There is another option to the internet cafe and that is use of a local library. In Europe larger libraries have computers for use of the public. Sometimes you have to "join" but I've never had to pay to join, just some simple paperwork. I also use the library for computer access in the States.

Thank you for your suggestions. Somehow it did not occur to me that I can use both external drive and cloud backup, which would give me the best of both worlds.

Yes, Europe is different story. With recent caps on roaming fees and further significant cuts planned in the future cellular mobile broadband becomes more and more feasible option here as well.

I think it all depends on the value you put on the images. I would take a small laptop and external drive to edit, backup to external drive and cloud. If you don't have a laptop and are on a budget, I'm sure that a refurbished or used one can be found rather cheaply. Would you rather sit in an internet cafe doing these tasks or at your hotel room, pool or lobby doing it?

Taking a laptop would be great. But I should have explained in the beginning that I plan to backpack most of the time and spend as much time in the tent in the wild as under the roof. Therefore gear I take with me must be as light, rugged and power efficient as possible. On the past shorter trips I used to take tablet, but found that smartphone fulfills all communication/navigati​on/information search needs, weights less than 200 g and I am able to charge it using solar. Given my preferred mode of travel it is difficult to justify extra weight of laptop in return for having larger display and full desktop experience. Would rather take extra lens instead. Yeah, these are the dilemmas of wanting to travel in a smart and digital way but be as independent from modern conveniences as possible.

My top priority need is to be able to deposit photos somewhere once SD cards get full, second priority -
to be able to share some photos with friends or family when I am back to civilization. Ability to lightly edit photos before sharing (e.g. adjusting exposure, WB, colors) and doing some initial management (if I am stuck somewhere and have time) from any device are nice to have features, but not the top priority.

As far as your phone, are you using iOS or Android?

At least as far as Android, I believe with DSLR Controller you could direclty upload the images to the phone. Couple that with some of these large capacity microSD cards (in the phone) and perhaps that would be one copy.

It appears as though there is a version of DSLR Controller for iOs as well. See https://dslrcontroller​.com/

Or this, https://www.imore.com …hotos-your-iphone-or-ipad

If you are avoiding laptops due to weight there is the WD wireless storage device with a built in card reader, they now do a solid state drive version. You can via an app I think check the images on the drive as well and with the SSD its less prone to knocks. Getting somewhere with internet access where you could upload images would be good another alternative though more expensive would be to get a load of SD cards and once you have backed them up post them home recorded to a family member or friend. People have hacked the WD drive to swap drives, so you could send that to a safe space once filled also some old 'netbooks' are very small useless for running lightroom but don't take up much space and weigh about the same as an iPad if not less.

This should work for you

https://www.nextodi.co​m/products/nvs2801-plus/

alex66 wrote in post #18722635
If you are avoiding laptops due to weight there is the WD wireless storage device with a built in card reader, they now do a solid state drive version. You can via an app I think check the images on the drive as well and with the SSD its less prone to knocks. Getting somewhere with internet access where you could upload images would be good another alternative though more expensive would be to get a load of SD cards and once you have backed them up post them home recorded to a family member or friend. People have hacked the WD drive to swap drives, so you could send that to a safe space once filled also some old 'netbooks' are very small useless for running lightroom but don't take up much space and weigh about the same as an iPad if not less.

I tried one of the WD units out. It was terribly slow and kind of a kluge

Jethr0 wrote in post #18722638
I tried one of the WD units out. It was terribly slow and kind of a kluge

alex66 wrote in post #18722635
If you are avoiding laptops due to weight there is the WD wireless storage device with a built in card reader, they now do a solid state drive version. You can via an app I think check the images on the drive as well and with the SSD its less prone to knocks. Getting somewhere with internet access where you could upload images would be good another alternative though more expensive would be to get a load of SD cards and once you have backed them up post them home recorded to a family member or friend. People have hacked the WD drive to swap drives, so you could send that to a safe space once filled also some old 'netbooks' are very small useless for running lightroom but don't take up much space and weigh about the same as an iPad if not less.

What was suggested is to go right from the built-in card reader to the WD drive. That takes the wireless out of the picture at least for the first level backup. The SSD might even further speed that process up.

SD cards are pretty cheap nowadays and lighter and smaller than anything. When I recently traveled to South Korea for about a month, I had several 32GB SD cards. Personally, I prefer to have several 32GB cards over less larger capacity cards just in case something happens to a card, i.e., don't put all the eggs in one basket, so to speak. A 32GB can hold 3,276 10MB RAW photos. Even at 20MB RAW photos, it holds over 1,600 photos. I only needed two 32GB cards for a month long trip.

John from PA wrote in post #18722668
What was suggested is to go right from the built-in card reader to the WD drive. That takes the wireless out of the picture at least for the first level backup. The SSD might even further speed that process up.

You need some kind of controller, for the reading of the card reader and to control the writing to the HD/SSD.

Wilt wrote in post #18723210
You need some kind of controller, for the reading of the card reader and to control the writing to the HD/SSD.

It's all built into the device. See https://www.wdc.com …assport-wireless-ssd.html

Oh, good, originally when the suggestion was made, it sounded like a suggestion for the OP to simply connect the two rather than suggesting an off-the-shelf solution. Glad to see this is available, a nice way to deal with getting images onto a secondary storage device without a PC, as once existed between CF and HD (the original Hyperdrive by Sanho). I wonder how many GB of images can be transferred on a single charge (10 hours of operating time).

BTW, the HyperDrive ColorSpace UDMA3 - Photo/Video Memory Card Backup Device does the same (memory cards to mass storage device), and handles up to 1TB SSD or 2TB HD