I just returned from a wonderful 2 week trip to Iceland, but one with a few challenges or speed bumps. Upon arrival, we discovered one of our credit card companies put a block on our card (despite our calling them before we left to tell them we would be in Iceland) in the process of renting our pick-up truck/camper shell so we used our backup card for the balance of the rental fee(the block on the 1st card was solved the next day). We then started to drive the Ring Road with a few side trips, Latrabjarg Seabird Cliffs being a major one. Three days into the trip my brand new Hyperdrive Colorspace portable external 250GB hard drive failed ("hard drive not found"). Fortunately I had a P4000 as a backup plus 2 160GB WD Passports as backups. No images lost. Same day, my wife's Canon 300/4IS lens failed (image in viewfinder was literally jumping around-lens to be sent in for repair), backup was my Canon 100-400IS. Next day, I discovered that in the process of using my Arctic Butterfly brush to sweep my 1DsIII sensor clean of a few dust spots the autoclean wasn't getting rid of, I smeared a short thin line of grease on the sensor. My backup 5D was put to use, until we drove back to Reykjavik to buy a liquid sensor cleaning kit, since my home-based Eclipse 2 fluid can't be transported via passenger jet.
Three days later, a 12GB CF card didn't download properly onto the P4000, which prevented my laptop from being able to see it and copy it to my 2 160GB Passports. Fortunately, I had not reformatted the card because(based on my SOP)the images hadn't been backed up to 2 other drives yet. I redownloaded the card a 2nd time to the P4000 and this time the laptop recognized it and the images were successfully transferred to the 2 160GB drives. Three days later, during a whale watching tour on the north coast, a wave broke over the bow and drenched everyone on the bow. We all had waterproof clothing or slickers of some sort on, however, my wife did not have her brand new Canon T1i covered adequately. I had my hand extended to her holding a plastic bag for her to put over the lens/camera combo in anticipation of water spray increasing due to increased wave height at the time the wave broke over the bow. My 1DsIII was already covered, her new T1i is now toast. Her Canon Xsi backup was now put into service.
During the trip I continually kept trying to stimulate the Hyperdrive into action with no success. One day after getting home, it magically decided to start working again, sort of, at least it is now telling me there are images on the drive and it even downloaded a test card successfully, however it refuses to connect to my computer so it is still unuseable for image storage. I hook it up, it connects via the USB button on the menu, then immediately disconnects. I am in the process of attempting to get the Hyperdrive folks to send me a new replacement, as I don't think I could ever trust this unit to go on another trip with me again.
So here's a teaser shot taken on day 3.
1DsIII, 500/4
Ditto Jody... that is some seriously bad mojo. Was it a Chase credit card? On a two week trip to Canada, they put a hold on my card on three separate occasions, even after I called to tell them I was going to be up there for two weeks. Knuckleheads. I canceled the card, figuring they'd put a hold on it if I ever went to New Mexico....
Glad that you had plenty of backups in place. Nothing worse than not even being able to capture images. Looking forward to seeing more.
Don, you sure had a lot of problems! I travel a lot too and it's common for cards to be blocked from some countries by the c.c. company, all you can do is call them before you go as Don did and advise them of where you are going. Carrying a second card is also a really good idea. We had problems in Italy this year and had to phone back to resolve them. And that isn't easy either.
Posted by Todd Caudle on July 30, 2009 at 11:52 PM
I'm tempted to say you can now travel at will, with nary a care in the world. But let's not tempt fate. I love the shot, Don, and can't wait to see much more.
Posted by Jesse Speer on July 31, 2009 at 11:23 AM
Beautiful backlighting. And quite the story! Sorry about the troubles, but I'll be looking forward to your collection.
Posted by Scott Fricke on July 31, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Glad to hear you had all the redundancies in place. I spent 3 weeks in Iceland in 2006 and it was the best trip I've ever been on, I am looking forward to seeing more of your photos.
I always try to impress my seminar participants on the necessity to have backups - this is a great story that I'd like to use in the future (without naming names, of course). Is this OK?
Discussion
13 repliesThree days later, a 12GB CF card didn't download properly onto the P4000, which prevented my laptop from being able to see it and copy it to my 2 160GB Passports. Fortunately, I had not reformatted the card because(based on my SOP)the images hadn't been backed up to 2 other drives yet. I redownloaded the card a 2nd time to the P4000 and this time the laptop recognized it and the images were successfully transferred to the 2 160GB drives. Three days later, during a whale watching tour on the north coast, a wave broke over the bow and drenched everyone on the bow. We all had waterproof clothing or slickers of some sort on, however, my wife did not have her brand new Canon T1i covered adequately. I had my hand extended to her holding a plastic bag for her to put over the lens/camera combo in anticipation of water spray increasing due to increased wave height at the time the wave broke over the bow. My 1DsIII was already covered, her new T1i is now toast. Her Canon Xsi backup was now put into service.
During the trip I continually kept trying to stimulate the Hyperdrive into action with no success. One day after getting home, it magically decided to start working again, sort of, at least it is now telling me there are images on the drive and it even downloaded a test card successfully, however it refuses to connect to my computer so it is still unuseable for image storage. I hook it up, it connects via the USB button on the menu, then immediately disconnects. I am in the process of attempting to get the Hyperdrive folks to send me a new replacement, as I don't think I could ever trust this unit to go on another trip with me again.
So here's a teaser shot taken on day 3.
1DsIII, 500/4
Glad that you had plenty of backups in place. Nothing worse than not even being able to capture images. Looking forward to seeing more.
I always try to impress my seminar participants on the necessity to have backups - this is a great story that I'd like to use in the future (without naming names, of course). Is this OK?
Regards, Ken