Backup and store your data as soon as you get the opportunity!!! I could end the article there and that would be enough. But then you would miss out on the heart wrenching story.
The reason I decided to make this post is because I was a dunce and lost about 5 hours worth of video data recorded on my now lost GoPro hero 2.
The 5 hours of unseen video was taken on my gopro during a hike/ climb I went on with my sister and cousin a few weeks back. We got up around 4am and were half way up camelback mountain as the sun was rising. I had gotten some amazing footage of my sister and cousin doing some backflips and handstands in the most amazing places on the mountain. Something you don't see every day. I had also taken my DSLR with me to get some better high quality photos. One of my favorites is this bad boy! I actually used it as an entry for the Me On GNC contest.
Basically there was some amazing action going on during this hike, and because of my stupidity it is now lost. Not the DSLR photos, but the GoPro ones. I was smart enough to back up the DSLR ones. Regardless I've digressed...
The next day we all decided to go Salt River Tubing on the Arizona Salt River. It was a really fun time, nice and relaxing with some amazing scenery, and I was lucky enough to have my GoPro with me. I had beautiful video footage from our trip down the salt river. I even witnessed and got on camera a fight between some very drunk and angry tubers... A woman literally cheap shotted a guy in the back of the head and he almost threw a mini boulder at her, all of which was caught on camera.
Now the tragedy happens... We're about to round the last curve of the river, right before the pick up point at the bottom when we hit a few small rapids, and in an attempt to save the cooler/tube carrying all of our IDs and car keys ect, I dropped my GoPro into the river. The next 15 minutes were spent standing without a tube in the river, with the very strong current filling my shoes with rocks and thrashing my legs up, all the while looking for my never to be found GoPro. It was devastating. Another of my cousins, who was traveling the river with us, stayed out to help me search, but he too had no luck. He also only had 1 tube with him, and the last curve was rather shallow with a strong current and rapids. Too shallow for me to float on my back threw them, so we had to somehow position ourselves on his single person tube. Overall, very traumatic experience, and made me learn a very valuable lesson the hard way.
Which brings us back to my opening statement... ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA!
It doesn't matter so much that I lost my GoPro. It sucks, because thats $400 down the drain. The real loss was what was on that SD card.
This doesn't just apply to this particular situation. Now I'm directly talking about what could happen to you. Imagine that was someones wedding photos or video, or a proposal video, or even a child's birth [not that we want to see that]. It's the fact that every time you capture something through your camera lens, no matter what it is, it could be something that happens only once in a lifetime. Irreplaceable data, now lost forever. So I suggest you download your files to a hard drive as soon as you have the chance, and make copies of those on a separate location.
Thanks for putting up with my sob story, but I hope you came away with a good message from this story.
Again, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and if you did please share it with your friends, or leave a comment describing when this has happened to you!