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Sunday, 21 October 2018

The way round the lack of a second card slot on the Canon EOS R - Wi Fi Smartphone Backup


One of the big criticisms of the Canon EOS R is that it has only one SD card slot. There are numerous uses for a second card slot - raw / jpg, stills / movies etc. but for me the most important is as a backup. I have had cards fail on me. Admittedly not many (two) but I like the security of having my images recording to two cards. These days however there is an alternative method. Saving images to a smartphone. I already do this on my Leica M10, when I think I've got something I really don't want to lose. The M10 also has only one card slot.

This is done by establishing a local wi-fi link between the camera and the smartphone. In the case of the EOS R you first need to download the Canon Connect App from the App Store (iPhone) or Play Store (Android). There is then some setting up on the camera, which is fiddly but doesn't take long. See video above. Your smartphone then has to be set to the Canon EOS R's wi-fi network. This works anywhere and doesn't involve going through an external network. Once this link is established you can then upload full-size jpgs. to your phone. Not raw files unfortunately. Because they are native Canon CR3 files which the smartphone won't recognise. My M10 creates .DNG files which can be uploaded to my phone.

You can do this transfer as and when you like. I've set my EOS R to pair up with my Huawei P20 Pro and what I do is take a break from shooting and save some files. Now the disadvantage is that you are not doing this in camera at the same time, or getting raw files. However there is an advantage in that you are saving the files to an external device. There is always the possibility that if the problem with a card not saving files properly is camera based, then both cards may get corrupted. The other advantage is that if you have the images on your smartphone and you happen to have access to a wi fi network or have a lot of uploading capacity on your smartphone contract, then you can upload the images to the cloud giving a second security option.

Personally I would like to see all cameras have a second card slot, but I can see that smartphone backups have much to recommend them. It's unlikely that both a camera and smartphone would fail at the same time, just as it's unlikely that two cards would fail in the same camera. However, if like me, you are often away from home creating unrepeatable images, then two devices having the images stored is a good thing.

Finally I would point out that film cameras don't shoot a backup film at the same time and creating images on film is much more prone to failure because of the lack of instant playback and the complicated chemical process involved. I have lost far more images shooting on film than on digital over time, some my fault, some not. Digital has an excellent history for me in getting my images safely backed up. But then sod's law means that our cameras are going to fail at exactly the same moment as we get that once in a lifetime shot!!! So it's always a good idea to take no chances. This is technology after all.



Stock photography by david martyn hughes at Alamy






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