Choosing suitable, reliable digital photo storage devices is SO important to the professional...

Wouldn't you like to know that your digital photo storage devices will take care of things regardless of whether you are an amateur or pro? You may spend hours, days or even weeks taking some great shots only to have your storage media give up on you.

You have spent good, hard-earned money on camera equipment only to skimp on the media, it is like spending millions building a grand museum, only to hold jumble sales in it!

Well, maybe that is a bit harsh, but I have a point here. Did you ever do the shameful thing done by most of us at some point? Open the back of a camera only to realise it still has film in it! Makes my stomach churn to think about it, thankfully it never happened during a wedding.

The nearest thing to this in digital photography, is to erase all your photos from the memory card accidentally. In my early days of digital photography, I had someone do that to my camera whilst they were "playing" with it. Luckily, I had recently read an article on how to retrieve deleted files from digital photo storage devices.

In fact, you may not know this, but you CAN actually retrieve ALL the photos you have ever taken on one card, no matter how many times you have formatted it!

See below for details of this all important software. If you are seriously into digital photography, you need some backup should the worst happen!

How would spending more help me here?

Buying cheap storage media is similar to buying cheap cassette tapes way back when. They were the first to make that strange noise as your tape player methodically "Chewed" up the music tape you had lovingly recorded just weeks earlier.

The better compact flash card manufacturers, like Lexar for example, give a lifetime guarantee on their professional range such as the now ancient lexar 1gb high speed compact flash card. Like anything, you get what you pay for, and more gigabytes and faster speeds cost a bit more but are worth it.

So what digital photo storage devices would YOU recommend?

This depends entirely on your situation, camera type and amount of use it gets. Here are some examples;

1. 2-4 MP camera used occasionally at parties, events and family gatherings - Memory of 256MB or above with write speed of 12x or above. This will hold over 100 photos on the highest quality setting and allow your camera to reset quickly after each shot. When did you last take 3 spare rolls of film to a party? Don't forget you can also delete the bad ones! You couldn't do that with film!

2. 4-6MP camera (compact or SLR) used as a carry around, at a friends wedding or holiday etc - Either one 1GB card with write speeds of 24x or above (Sandisk Ultra or Lexar Professional), or 2 x 512MB cards of similar size and speed. Why 2? If one does falter, you have a back-up and no panic.

3. 6-8 MP and up (Digital SLR) Serious hobbyist, semi-pro or professional - 4 or more 1GB cards (or bigger, up to 32 GB) with write speeds of 160x and above. This will give you the write speed you need to keep your camera firing, capacity for over 1,000 photos and the back-up of a few cards.

4. 12-23 MP and up (Semi/Pro Digital SLR) Wealthy hobbyist, semi-pro or professional - The megapixels grow, so does the need to store it. For these cameras I personally have 2 x 8gb cards and 6 x 4gb cards as well as all the smaller cards I "used" to use!

However, the alternative and in my opinion BETTER alternative, is to have just 4 or 5 decent cards and a

Portable Digital Photo Storage Device and Viewer

(Oh, and they play MP3 music and videos too!)

Once you have read up a bit on these, you will see that a good digital photo storage device will become an invaluable piece of kit in your bag.

When I first used my Flashtrax in around 2005, I was at a wedding. During a lull, I had just downloaded all the pics so far onto the device, and was running through the photographs to check for focussing etc.

Well, within minutes, I had a group crowded around me oohing and ahhing at some of the pics, and I am sure that it had an affect on the numbers of orders I got. A week after the wedding, I put a selection of photos together on a slideshow, and put it to music. I then loaded it onto the flashtrax and took it to the parent's house. They ordered 4 DVD's there and then!

Excuse the pun, but the more "Exposure" you give your work, the better you will do. Good digital photo storage and viewer will help you on your way.