Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#1

Post by sheraz » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 4:38 PM UTC

I'm at the age now where my peers are starting to have children. Digitally documenting a baby's life from pregnancy to kindergarten has created a storage and sharing problem for many -- especially among the early adopter crowd.

I have spoken to some new dads who say they have filled more than 2TB of space already. Shooting HD video and RAW format on that new Nikon seems to have created a storage problem not easily solved by the cloud.

I ask HN -- are you in this group? Do you think the 2TB dad is an edge case?

What are new moms and dads using to manage the family photo album these days given the file sizes, delivery formats, and sharing problems?

Re: Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#2

Post by bartonfink » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 4:48 PM UTC

I created a Facebook account for my daughter the day she was born as a way of sharing pictures with family members and friends without forcing them to go someplace else. It's a big hit even though I'm sure we're violating some ToS by having signed up an infant.

Re: Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#3

Post by traxtech » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 4:49 PM UTC

SmugMug for the edited photos and videos + two backups copies of the raw medias on HDD (one home, one on a family house).

2TB is low. Each time I go to a photo trip, I bring back almost 8Gb of raw photos.

Re: Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#4

Post by zarroba » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 4:52 PM UTC

I think 2 TB is an absolute edge case. Even if you have that amount of data you wouldn't need to share everything.

I love the concept of www.storytree.me. For me the storytelling element is the most compelling factor when choosing the platform to share these type of albums.

Re: Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#5

Post by sheraz » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 4:58 PM UTC

zarroba wrote: post #4

I think 2 TB is an absolute edge case. Even if you have that amount of data you wouldn't need to share everything. I love the concept of www.storytree.me. For me the storytelling element is the most compelling factor when choosing the platform to share these type of albums.

That was my gut feeling as well, but I my suspicion is that virtually unlimited storage is turning us into digital pack-rats, either because of fear of losing a file or because we are too lazy to cull the bad photos from the good ones.

Re: Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#6

Post by sheraz » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 4:59 PM UTC

traxtech wrote: post #3

SmugMug for the edited photos and videos + two backups copies of the raw medias on HDD (one home, one on a family house). 2TB is low. Each time I go to a photo trip, I bring back almost 8Gb of raw photos.

Do you delete the photos that are just plain worthless? Blurry, cropped poorly, etc? Or are you just keeping all of it because storage is cheap?

Re: Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#7

Post by traxtech » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 5:04 PM UTC

sheraz wrote: post #6

traxtech wrote: post #3

SmugMug for the edited photos and videos + two backups copies of the raw medias on HDD (one home, one on a family house). 2TB is low. Each time I go to a photo trip, I bring back almost 8Gb of raw photos.

Do you delete the photos that are just plain worthless? Blurry, cropped poorly, etc? Or are you just keeping all of it because storage is cheap?

Storage is cheap, but I delete about 1/3 of the photos : I don't want to have to mentally discard them when I browse an album later.

Re: Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#8

Post by japhyr » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 3:07 PM UTC

I am in this situation. Our baby is turning 1 next week, and we have about 250GB of pictures and video from his first year. We are keeping them on a couple external drives, but that's not all. We are also trying to make a printed photo book every so often.

I try to imagine my kid at 18 or 30 years old. He's going to want to have his baby pictures. What file formats from 30 years ago are still readable? Are we really going to keep converting our TBs of pictures to whatever new formats come along? Maybe, but having printed books around is going to make me worry a lot less about those external hard drives over the years.

My parents kept a lot of the negatives from when I was a kid. We have never gone back to the negatives; we only ever look at the albums my mom put together when I was a teenager. I think it's pretty much the same thing.

Re: Ask HN: Family albums in 2012, what do you use?

#9

Post by sheraz » Fri, Mar 16, 2012, 3:15 AM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #8

I am in this situation. Our baby is turning 1 next week, and we have about 250GB of pictures and video from his first year. We are keeping them on a couple external drives, but that's not all. We are also trying to make a printed photo book every so often. I try to imagine my kid at 18 or 30 years old. He's going to want to have his baby pictures. What file formats from 30 years ago are still readable? Are we really…

I don't think we will have to worry too much about old file formats like JPEG, TIFF, and GIF. The formats are well-documented, and the GIF format is 25 years old this year.

Also, I found this to be very relevant: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/12/movage.php