How do you process and store your Drone photos, videos, logs etc?

[SupermaNZ]

Thanks folks for continually sharing your workflow and how you manage your disk storage for your drone photos/video/data

Didn't know about this! Thanks for the heads up too!


Didn't know that either! Must try


That facebook link gives me the following message

But I assume you're reference to the sphere/360 images from the drone?

Apologies - I've corrected access to the second link

 

[Traveler99]

The biggest way to save space IMHO is to edit your video into a finished product and when you’re satisfied it captures the best of your video clips then delete the unedited files. Only keep the best of the best!

 

[Xitor]

2TB NVME Boot drive - 500GB of that for OS and 1.5TB used for V: drive (video) for editing, color grading, etc. (where I need faster drive). 3TB Spinning disk on computer for projects, libraries - backup up inactive projects and keeper files there. 2 x 4TB External - One at my house that I rotate / sync occasionally with one I keep off site in case of fire or data wipe out at home. Sure I'll need to upgrade soon, or just continue to use 4TB high speed USB and rotate them so its not so expensive to have dupes and I don't have too much on one data volume. What I need next is an index of where everything is online and offline.

 

[Robert Prior]

External 12 TB drive for photos and video, backed up to two more external drives. Processed images and video* uploaded to the cloud as well.

Images and video are indexed (and partly processed) with Aperture, which is a no-longer-suppirted app from Apple that kicked Adobe into developing Lightroom. Every image is keyworded and I can search by keyword, title, caption, description, date, location etc.

I shoot a lot of panoramas, so frequently have finished images over a GB — and I have over 40 years of photos in my library.

*Don't shoot much video, so that's not a significant chunk of disk space yet.

 

[Robert Prior]

The biggest way to save space IMHO is to edit your video into a finished product and when you’re satisfied it captures the best of your video clips then delete the unedited files. Only keep the best of the best!

I disagree.

As your editing skill (and software) improves you can often get more out of a video clip than you could when you first processed it. Some of my best shots looked nothing special when I took (and processed) them, but years later both my skill and my software improved enough to make them spectacular.

Also, you never know when an unneeded photo (or clip) is just the thing you need for a current project. I've made a few hundred dollars selling my out-takes that were just the thing someone else needed for their project.

 

[Mr. Rocketman]

Network raid. 1tb total right now.

 

[Dmcvey]

It would depend on your work. In our line of inspections, there is a high probability of litigation. So not one photo gets deleted. We save every missed bad shot, every accidental shutter click. When asked to provided photos in discovery, we don't want to have to explain any "missing" photos and what they may or may not have contained. Every photo is stored straight a secure server. The original photo is never manipulated or enhanced, a copy of the photo is saved and that one is "enhanced" if needed.

Also, all photos and videos belong to the client and cannot be used for any reason outside their file without written permission.

If you are flying for inspections or similar cases, it would be good to review rules of evidence and draft a photo policy.

 

[eva2000]

The biggest way to save space IMHO is to edit your video into a finished product and when you’re satisfied it captures the best of your video clips then delete the unedited files. Only keep the best of the best!

Easier said than done at times though!

My apologies - I had the Facebook link set to 'Friends'. It will be working now here.

Cheers, those 360 sphere look awesome

I disagree.

As your editing skill (and software) improves you can often get more out of a video clip than you could when you first processed it. Some of my best shots looked nothing special when I took (and processed) them, but years later both my skill and my software improved enough to make them spectacular.

Also, you never know when an unneeded photo (or clip) is just the thing you need for a current project. I've made a few hundred dollars selling my out-takes that were just the thing someone else needed for their project.

Yeah that happened with me right now messing first time with Affinity Photo trial and as I learn more, I'm better able to get images right too. Haven't edited videos yet, DaVinci Resolve is next on my play/learn list

I shoot a lot of panoramas, so frequently have finished images over a GB — and I have over 40 years of photos in my library.

*Don't shoot much video, so that's not a significant chunk of disk space yet.

Yes I am finding panorama workflow resulting in ALOT of disk space used! Especially if you shoot in JPEG + DNG RAW and intend to process the panoramas using the DNG RAWs!

 

[Robert Prior]

Yes I am finding panorama workflow resulting in ALOT of disk space used!

I save all the original images that go into the panorama. That way I can reprocess if I notice problems, want to try a new technique, or whatever. Given that many of my HDR panoramas have 104 images in them, plus several versions of the final panorama, that is a lot of space.

Hence the 12 TB drive, for an 11 TB (and growing) photo library.

Robert Prior

An avid amateur photographer, Robert Prior has been shooting 360° panoramas for years, and has recently expanded to aerial panoramas as well.

roundme.com

 

[Vreracing]

As soon as I get home I pull the SD card out of the drone. I insert it into my laptop. A folder for the sd pops up. On the left column I go to my passport's external hard drive. I right-click open in the new folder. I go to the drone folder I made. I add a subfolder with that day's date on it. I go back to the SD card folder. CTL A then CTL X then CTL V on the new folder. It takes about 10 minutes to do this. Pull the card out. Put it back in the drone and I'm ready to go. Many of the people on this forum have probably gone through capturing DV data off of a Mini DV. That was agonizing.

 

[eva2000]

I save all the original images that go into the panorama. That way I can reprocess if I notice problems, want to try a new technique, or whatever. Given that many of my HDR panoramas have 104 images in them, plus several versions of the final panorama, that is a lot of space.

Hence the 12 TB drive, for an 11 TB (and growing) photo library.

wow 11TB photo library! Has me thinking not just about size of drives but speed of writes to drive now too - you have enterprise like NAS drives with 200-250MB/s speeds versus consumer drives at 40-80MB/s. To transfer 11TB i.e. backups too it would take ages!

I currently transfer data between my latops with USB-C to 2.5gbe ethernet which gives me 1.8gbps to 2.1gbps transfers. So maybe a 2.5gbe based NAS drive?

As soon as I get home I pull the SD card out of the drone. I insert it into my laptop. A folder for the sd pops up. On the left column I go to my passport's external hard drive. I right-click open in the new folder. I go to the drone folder I made. I add a subfolder with that day's date on it

Seems many folks including myself are saving to date-based folders. Any apps for Windows/Mac that can do that automatically in some way?

 

[BleugrassBoy]

I use all Apple stuff.

I save the highest quality files to my iMac and they’re imported into my Photos app and then uploaded to iCloud. The original-quality is stored in my iCloud (2TB/$10mo) while thumbnails are shown on all my devices. I can pull the full quality down to the device I want if I want to do something with it - and at some point it reverts back to a space-saving thumbnail.

I’m pretty happy w this solution.

Disclaimer I do not do any extensive color grading or anything with anything other than the stock Photo and IMovie apps.

 

[SupermaNZ]

wow 11TB photo library! Has me thinking not just about size of drives but speed of writes to drive now too - you have enterprise like NAS drives with 200-250MB/s speeds versus consumer drives at 40-80MB/s. To transfer 11TB i.e. backups too it would take ages!

I currently transfer data between my latops with USB-C to 2.5gbe ethernet which gives me 1.8gbps to 2.1gbps transfers. So maybe a 2.5gbe based NAS drive?



Seems many folks including myself are saving to date-based folders. Any apps for Windows/Mac that can do that automatically in some way?

DaVinci Resolve media management does this. Go to 1:40 on this training video to get an overview of Smart Bin management. You can create as many Smart Bins and sub-bins as you like.

 

[Steve Wells]

I’ve explored various options. I’m on an on iPad workflow and use a NVIDIA streaming box to preview on by 4K big screen TV without loss of resolution and store everything on a cloud backup (google drive). Typically i start doing a transfer from my SD card to my ipad and the copy it to a removable USB3 SSD that i can then carry to my NVIDIA streaming box to preview. I remove what ever footage isn’t worth saving then. After than i plug the USB3 SSD into my ipad and transfer everything i care about to google drive. I use Lumafusion for color grading and editing and then push that also to google drive and to the USB3 SSD for preview on my TV.

Telemerry is being stored on the cloud also via Airdata through their lowest end subscription.

All this cloud workflow works fairly well for me because I’m fortunate to have Gb symmetric fiber internet and a decent wifi.

Few things i learned: The preview on a 4K TV has lots of paths were resolution is messed with. I started using iCloud and previewed using an apple TV and realized they were compressing. I tried doing screen mirroring from my ipad to my Apple TV and again resolution lost. I ultimately used an NVIDIA shield which seemed to work best and allowed playing back full resolution video rendered to my 4K big screen better than a bunch of other options i tried.

I’ve played with Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive and ultimately landed on google drive. I had google photos for my non-drone stuff and really liked it and this kept me on a single plan currently with 2TB available and using about 1TB. Some of my best photos/videos i also push up to google photos so i can have reminders over the years of some of my favorite work.

Hey Question: Have you guys noticed that the meta tagging on videos gives a different datestamp than the photos when transferred using the microsd card with an external reader? (Measured by when your look at the photo library all the videos are first and all the photos second when sorted by date/time). I was questioning whether i had the wrong workflow and they expected me to leave the SD card in the drone and use the DJI ap to transfer photos and videos and have noticed that when i do it that way the meta data isn’t screwed up.

 

[SupermaNZ]

I’ve explored various options. I’m on an on iPad workflow and use a NVIDIA streaming box to preview on by 4K big screen TV without loss of resolution and store everything on a cloud backup (google drive). Typically i start doing a transfer from my SD card to my ipad and the copy it to a removable USB3 SSD that i can then carry to my NVIDIA streaming box to preview. I remove what ever footage isn’t worth saving then. After than i plug the USB3 SSD into my ipad and transfer everything i care about to google drive. I use Lumafusion for color grading and editing and then push that also to google drive and to the USB3 SSD for preview on my TV.

Telemerry is being stored on the cloud also via Airdata through their lowest end subscription.

All this cloud workflow works fairly well for me because I’m fortunate to have Gb symmetric fiber internet and a decent wifi.

Few things i learned: The preview on a 4K TV has lots of paths were resolution is messed with. I started using iCloud and previewed using an apple TV and realized they were compressing. I tried doing screen mirroring from my ipad to my Apple TV and again resolution lost. I ultimately used an NVIDIA shield which seemed to work best and allowed playing back full resolution video rendered to my 4K big screen better than a bunch of other options i tried.

I’ve played with Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive and ultimately landed on google drive. I had google photos for my non-drone stuff and really liked it and this kept me on a single plan currently with 2TB available and using about 1TB. Some of my best photos/videos i also push up to google photos so i can have reminders over the years of some of my favorite work.

Hey Question: Have you guys noticed that the meta tagging on videos gives a different datestamp than the photos when transferred using the microsd card with an external reader? (Measured by when your look at the photo library all the videos are first and all the photos second when sorted by date/time). I was questioning whether i had the wrong workflow and they expected me to leave the SD card in the drone and use the DJI ap to transfer photos and videos and have noticed that when i do it that way the meta data isn’t screwed up.

Hi Steve

You may have checked on this already, but I'm wondering whether you installed the required 4K Apple TV cable (Go to Settings > Video and Audio and select Check HDMI Connection. 4K video, especially HDR10 and Dolby Vision, requires an HDMI cable compatible with these formats. Apple recommends HDMI cables that have the Compatible Dolby Vision mark as they have been tested with Apple TV 4K and a wide range of TVs). Then:
Adjust video settings:

1. Open Settings. on Apple TV.
2. Go to Video and Audio.
3. Do any of the following: Set the video output format: Select Format, then choose the resolution, frame rate, and dynamic range settings for video playback.

(remember frame rate for your DJI may be 29.97 not 30 fps).

 

[SpitFire]

Hi there Eva2000, I use a 4TB external HD to keep all my drone files. The biggest problem I had was keeping track of the files and settings for the directory, so that I could locate them when needed. I also use an electronic logbook to keep track of my flights. I hope you get sorted.
Regards

I also store my photos, videos on a 4TB external HD, that is also my biggest problem finding them again. So, how did you set up the Directory??

 

[Gagey52]

I set my directory as follows
Year
Client
Project
Location (YYMMDD)
This works for me.
Regards

 

[Robert Prior]

I also store my photos, videos on a 4TB external HD, that is also my biggest problem finding them again. So, how did you set up the Directory??

I have mine in folders named 'year-month-day location/event'.

I also extensively tag in Aperture, so can easily search based on that, but for the actual file locations it's basically chronological with a word or two to trigger my memory.

 

[dplefco]

As a brand new Mavic Air 2 pilot with zero experience with photography or videography including SD cards, massive storage or directory management, etc. this is a really helpful thread so thank you all.

It seems the most economical approach to storage is external HDD. I understand from reading that the SDD are more reliable due to no moving parts, but the price premium is prohibitive. How often to portable/external HDD's fail? Does one get a warning sign typically? Is there a way to recover the contents when that occurs?

 

[BleugrassBoy]

As a brand new Mavic Air 2 pilot with zero experience with photography or videography including SD cards, massive storage or directory management, etc. this is a really helpful thread so thank you all.

It seems the most economical approach to storage is external HDD. I understand from reading that the SDD are more reliable due to no moving parts, but the price premium is prohibitive. How often to portable/external HDD's fail? Does one get a warning sign typically? Is there a way to recover the contents when that occurs?

FWIW I have had external spinning drives that lasted years with no problems. And I have also had a couple that failed catastrophically with NO WARNING. (I lost nothing because my files were also backed up to the cloud - so you should do that regardless of what hard drive you choose). As for your second question…. there are ways you can TRY to recover data from a failed drive - but you may or may not be successful and you will spend a lot more in time and money and stress than it’s worth. Bottom line: get a good brand of hard drive - AND have a cloud backup. Good luck!