At Ottawa’s 2010 Capital Pride festivities, I found myself thinking back to my Oxford days when I would generally only take a couple of hundred photos a month on my 3.2 megapixel digital camera.
By contrast, I took around 400 shots during the course of the parade and the party that followed. Initially, that struck me as a bit excessive and made me nervous. Then it occurred to me that a 4 terabyte external hard drive sells for about $400 these days, meaning that the cost of storing one gigabyte worth of photos is around 20¢ – ten for the external drive, and ten for the internal one it is backing up. The biggest constraint I face is the cost of replacing the 750GB hard drive in my iMac, given that the things really have to be stripped apart for that to be accomplished.
The cost per shot of digital is pretty amazing, compared with film. Of course, there is a new danger that accompanies that. With big memory cards and high speed internet connections, you risk putting more photos online than your friends or readers would ever wish to see.
With big memory cards and high speed internet connections, you risk putting more photos online than your friends or readers would ever wish to see.
Scanning through big datasets to pick out what is interesting or important is now a critical life skill.
It was great seeing you at the parade! :)
As for posting too many photos, I try to be selective and post the ones that are the most interesting and/or entertaining. :)
Making that selection does depend on your audience, however. Some people would be quite happy with 5-6 photos from an event like pride, while others may want to see dozens.
It was good to see you too, in any case.