Would you pay $1500 for some photos

[Harryb]

Hi Y'all,

If you read any of my recent posts you may be aware that my PC went down and its hard drive got fried with around 5 weeks of unbacked up shots. I got a new PC and asked the techs to try to recover the data from the fried HD. After a week they said they would have to send it to the main office because the read and write heads had been wiped out. the heads would have to replaced in a "clean room" and set to match the old heads. Total cost around $1500. :yikes


Initially I told them don't bother because I had just bought the D300, the new PC, and soon my plastic would be charged for my pre-ordered D3. Linda told me that I should tell them to go ahead had have the data recovered. That's what I wanted to hear because I have this weird pathological attachment to my work.

Anyhow the recovery was a complete and expensive success. I ended up with around 188 "keepers" from the recovery. here's a few of them

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241533134-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241533151-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241533182-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241533191-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241533254-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241533703-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241533760-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241533912-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241534126-XL.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241534221-XL.jpg

[aktpics]

Looks to me like money well spent.

[aj986s]

X2. You recoverd some very nice pics.
Not sure where you are in the income mode with photography, but you may be able to write the expense against income, even over a period of several tax years. A discussion with a tax advisor would be best for details.

[Ric Grupe]

Ooooooooh!!!

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241534126-L.jpg

Only you can say if it was worth it. I get to look at them for free! Thanks, Harry. :D

[Rhuarc]

Glad they were able to recover the stuff for you Harry! Great looking stuff as always! :clap :clap

[grimace]

Looks to me like money well spent.

I agree!!

[Harryb]

Looks to me like money well spent.

Thanks Alex

[Vickster]

Brilliant decision! Somethings just can't have a monetary value attached to them. My husband and I own a small business and we lost our hard drive and all our company information. It couldn't be recovered and I had to rebuild our whole bookkeeping system from scratch using old records, YIKES! Anyway, we started backing up online with a company called Iron Mountain. It's not too expensive, couple hundred a year but it does an automatic backup of all our info once a day. Never will we lose everything again. I now want to use the same system for backing up my photos.
You made a great decision to safe those shots, they are stunning, all of them!

[Harryb]

X2. You recoverd some very nice pics.
Not sure where you are in the income mode with photography, but you may be able to write the expense against income, even over a period of several tax years. A discussion with a tax advisor would be best for details.

Unfortunately I'm retired and not a pro. Its hard to write off expnses when you do nothing. :cavig

I will talk to my accountant and give him a chance to earn his fee.

[Icebear]

Well see, for guys like you who take photos as special as these ALL THE DAMN TIME, you might need to ask whether it was worth the $1500. Me . . . any one of those would be worth that $$$ to me if I'd shot it. Man, they're beautiful, especially the splashy one (#2).:bow

[Giphsub]

Harry, that hurts, but definitely money well spent! Awesome shots... AGAIN! :clap

[Frog Lady]

definitely money well spent! Awesome shots... AGAIN! :clap

:agree and my analytical side of me says that was less than $8 per recovered picture - waaaay less than they would be worth to almost any one. The 1st three, in my book, are absolutely spectacular! :bow

C.

[Maestro]

You can't put a price on your own personal pics. Heck just the mental anguish and second-guessing you would have gone through if you had told them to forget it would have been horrible so in the respect the $1500 was well spent.

Wonderful pics too. I really like the kingfisher that you caught and that coot is wonderful. Do their bills get that color when in breeding colors? :dunno I've only seen them with the white bills. That was a coot, right?

[Harryb]

Ooooooooh!!!

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/241534126-L.jpg

Only you can say if it was worth it. I get to look at them for free! Thanks, Harry. :D

To me it was worth it Ric. Glad you liked that shot.

[Osprey Whisperer]

Holy expensive osprey feathers Batman. Sorry to hear of your misfortunes Harry. That sucked. I was pissed when my HD gave way and it set me back $125 to get things fixed ..new drive installed and "most" of my files recovered. Don't know what I was missing..but it was all backed up 3 times anyway. Guess I'll keep being paranoid about losing image files. Glad you got it all recovered. Now about 2 new cameras. Man you suck. :D :thumb

[PrescottPhotog]

Hi Y'all, Total cost around $1500. :yikes

Heck Harry.. just the ones you posted here were worth the bucks to get them back. Beautiful photos !!

I'm sure you (although it was the hard way) taught us all a very important lesson.

[leaforte]

It was worth it to me. Thanks for taking the plunge.

[DsrtVW]

Nice Saves there. I would say they were worth it. It just worth it for the memories of each shot. When i look at my shots it brings back the day and the enjoyment.:thumb :thumb :thumb Thanks for sharing Harry

[NanaMo]

Harry, knowing the quality of photos you take I would have said "goferit"! :noob

Wise decision and well worth the money......you have to have be so please with the decision.

Keep shooting :photo:photo:photo(and backing up....:noob)...Chris is right ....thanks for the lesson and happy you got your photos back.

Maureen

[kgarrett11]

Great shots Harry. If the others are like these then it is worth the money. By the way, I also ordered the D3 from Adaorama and there are about 300 ahead of me. They are getting in about 10 a week so I am hoping that I will get it about June or July.

[pyry]

I'm backing up right now...

Harry, those sunset shots are priceless! :clap

[Moni]

Hey, I thought of this thread when I read this article in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/technology/personaltech/10basics.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

It talks about recovering deleted photos if you accidentally delete them. Not the same thing but twigged my memory nonetheless.

[saurora]

Really nice shots, Harry! I'm thinking Linda must be a pretty nice gal!!! :thumb

[BigAl]

Those are stunners Harry :thumb

Can't comment on the cash, but it sounds *very* expensive. If I do a rough conversion, that would work out at around 1000 beers at my local pub :cry

[ian408]

Sounds about right for the work that was done. Great shots to have back too.

[ChrisJ]

Beautiful shots! If it had been my drive, I think I would have done the same, especially with those pictures to save...

[Harryb]

Glad they were able to recover the stuff for you Harry! Great looking stuff as always! :clap :clap

Thanks Wendell, it was a relief when they told me they had been successful.

[Vycor]

Some of those photos are worth $1500 by themselves.. omg that one of the sunset with the birds, amazing

[Harryb]

Brilliant decision! Somethings just can't have a monetary value attached to them. My husband and I own a small business and we lost our hard drive and all our company information. It couldn't be recovered and I had to rebuild our whole bookkeeping system from scratch using old records, YIKES! Anyway, we started backing up online with a company called Iron Mountain. It's not too expensive, couple hundred a year but it does an automatic backup of all our info once a day. Never will we lose everything again. I now want to use the same system for backing up my photos.
You made a great decision to safe those shots, they are stunning, all of them!

Thanks, I also I had other files on the HD other thans pics that I wanted to save. One contained a list of deep pocket political donors that had taken hours to put togther. It was good to get back all that data.

Right now I'm leaning towards a terabyte back-up system.

[Harryb]

Well see, for guys like you who take photos as special as these ALL THE DAMN TIME, you might need to ask whether it was worth the $1500. Me . . . any one of those would be worth that $$$ to me if I'd shot it. Man, they're beautiful, especially the splashy one (#2).:bow

Thanks but you also have to realize I took over a 1000 shots to get less than 200 "keepers".

[Icebear]

If you get 200 keepers out of a thousand shots, you really are a photographic genius - not that there was any doubt in my mind.

[Harryb]

Harry, that hurts, but definitely money well spent! Awesome shots... AGAIN! :clap

It was painful but worth it in the end.

[Harryb]

:agree and my analytical side of me says that was less than $8 per recovered picture - waaaay less than they would be worth to almost any one. The 1st three, in my book, are absolutely spectacular! :bow

C.

Thanks Connie. My rational side said "don't pay, go out and get some more shots", my emotional side won out of course.

[Harryb]

You can't put a price on your own personal pics. Heck just the mental anguish and second-guessing you would have gone through if you had told them to forget it would have been horrible so in the respect the $1500 was well spent.

Wonderful pics too. I really like the kingfisher that you caught and that coot is wonderful. Do their bills get that color when in breeding colors? :dunno I've only seen them with the white bills. That was a coot, right?

Thanks Stephen. That's a moorhen, a close relative of the coot.

[Harryb]

Holy expensive osprey feathers Batman. Sorry to hear of your misfortunes Harry. That sucked. I was pissed when my HD gave way and it set me back $125 to get things fixed ..new drive installed and "most" of my files recovered. Don't know what I was missing..but it was all backed up 3 times anyway. Guess I'll keep being paranoid about losing image files. Glad you got it all recovered. Now about 2 new cameras. Man you suck. :D :thumb



I'm going to be very paranoid about my image files in the future. I'll let you look at the new cameras at MI V if you behave.

[dbaker1221]

hey Harry, I'm glad you got them back.. they are gorgeous pics. :barb :barb

[Osprey Whisperer]

I'm going to be very paranoid about my image files in the future. I'll let you look at the new cameras at MI V if you behave.

I'll bring my thick rubber gloves. :D

Remember at MI3 I had several dozen gigabites of images that I transfered to one of those portable memory devices....and about 2/3 of them ended up corrupted and I lost several hundred images. I am paranoid...and have been since. Usually burn originals right upon arriving home onto 3 different brand hard drives and 2 DVD copies. Probably over kill...but some of these shots I doubt will ever be repeated in this life time. Now all we have to do is worry about defective memory cards or a camera that doesn't write correctly to the cards <crosses fingers, legs, toes, eye and knocks on all wood items in teh house>

[Harryb]

I'll bring my thick rubber gloves. :D

I don't recall anything about you actually touching the cameras. I said look. :D


Remember at MI3 I had several dozen gigabites of images that I transfered to one of those portable memory devices....and about 2/3 of them ended up corrupted and I lost several hundred images. I am paranoid...and have been since. Usually burn originals right upon arriving home onto 3 different brand hard drives and 2 DVD copies. Probably over kill...but some of these shots I doubt will ever be repeated in this life time. Now all we have to do is worry about defective memory cards or a camera that doesn't write correctly to the cards <crosses fingers, legs, toes, eye and knocks on all wood items in teh house>

I remember that very well and it was on my mind during my recent troubles.

[Harryb]

Heck Harry.. just the ones you posted here were worth the bucks to get them back. Beautiful photos !!

I'm sure you (although it was the hard way) taught us all a very important lesson.

I can't speak for everyone else but I sure learned my lesson.

[Harryb]

It was worth it to me. Thanks for taking the plunge.

Glad you liked them

[BBiggs]

Beautiful shots! I think that what you had to pay was worth it! You may never get shots like those ever agian.

[Harryb]

Nice Saves there. I would say they were worth it. It just worth it for the memories of each shot. When i look at my shots it brings back the day and the enjoyment.:thumb :thumb :thumb Thanks for sharing Harry

You are so right. I could have gone out and got some other shots but I never would have gotten those shots again. Once the moment is gone it doesn't come back.

[Harryb]

Harry, knowing the quality of photos you take I would have said "goferit"! :noob

Wise decision and well worth the money......you have to have be so please with the decision.

Keep shooting :photo:photo:photo(and backing up....:noob)...Chris is right ....thanks for the lesson and happy you got your photos back.

Maureen

Thanks Maureen and I've learne dmy lesson. I'm very diligent about backing up now.

[Harryb]

Great shots Harry. If the others are like these then it is worth the money. By the way, I also ordered the D3 from Adaorama and there are about 300 ahead of me. They are getting in about 10 a week so I am hoping that I will get it about June or July.

Thankls and I just got my D3 yesterday and I think you're gonna love it. Also Nikon has increased its production of D3s so you might be getting it a tad earlier than you're sexpecting.

[Harryb]

I'm backing up right now...

Harry, those sunset shots are priceless! :clap

Thanks and keep on backing up your own work.

[Harryb]

Really nice shots, Harry! I'm thinking Linda must be a pretty nice gal!!! :thumb

Linda is the best. :lust

[raptorcaptor]

That's a steep price, but I think in your case it was worth it! You would have just bought another lens with the money anyway!:D