Last week, I was I was working on updating the website with the latest work from Los Angeles. During the middle of uploading, my MacBook Pro froze and crashed on me. Immediately, my concern shifted to the health of my system, which included my two WD My Passport drives and the MacBook Pro itself. When the system restored itself, both hard drives had all their data intact (thankfully), but wouldn’t mount, or connect, either drive to the laptop. So it recognized that the drives were there, but the crash made it so the information couldn’t be read.

Had these been my only back up drives, I would have been in serious trouble. Instead, I knew I had two AC powered WD My Books with all the information of both drives ready to restore whatever information might have been compromised.

As a working professional, there is nothing worse than losing your data. That data is valuable, and if it’s a source of your livelihood, should be protected thoroughly. If your clients are hiring you and are relying on you to have a reliable method to back up your data, make sure that back up has a back up. The worst thing that could happen is losing all your data and having no way to recover it, whether you’re using an on-location resource, off-location option or cloud based storage (or preferably all three!) because you failed to make a copy for a worst case scenario.

I’ve spent much of the past few weeks either traveling for work, or getting ready to get married in October. This weekend, I wanted to take some time out and get a feel for all the new tech that’s come out in the past few weeks, and get some hands on time to get a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of things I might be interested in.

I took a few photos with the Sony A7R III (above), using the 24-70mm f/4 lens, just to get a feel of how that system differs from the Nikon D7100 I’m currently using. I’m a still shooter AND a videographer, so while the D7100’s still shots have been fantastic and still hold up well today, especially when paired with nice glass - as expected of a camera that once was the flagship of the DX line - it’s live autofocus for video has left me out in the cold a few times.

That’s not to say I’m ready to switch systems just yet. Above, is a shot of my Apple Watch Series 1 shot with the Nikon D500 and the 16-80 f/2.8 - 4 lens, an option I’ve been considering since, while it’s a crop sensor, and has a nasty 2.25x crop in 4k, it’s still a Nikon, which means my current lenses are already compatible without using an adapter. It’s an updated sensor in a more professional body with a higher frame per second count. One could object to why would you need 10fps, when shooting photos of people, but I like to make my shots dynamic using hair movement, and having that higher fps allows me to capture that motion.

For one last spin, I picked up the Sony A7 III. Everything I loved about the a7R III, I loved about the a7 III. A body that felt better in the hand than it’s predecessors, as well as a slight difference to how my final images come out, with less megapixels (which means smaller file sizes), in a more affordable package.

No matter what choice I eventually end up making, having this moment of play with the new cameras on the block allowed me to see what’s possible outside of what I currently use and what each option can offer.