Bringing the prize back home: pro solutions for image storage, transfer and recovery on the go

Richard Walch knows all about the importance of capturing the moment. He specialises in extreme sports photography, typically shooting fast-moving action in the most demanding conditions in the snow or on the water. He also knows that after getting the shot, the most important thing is bringing it back. For him, photo storage is a critical part of the photo shoot.

"If you shoot in a studio and lose the data, it would be dramatic but you could reshoot. The work I do is something you cannot repeat. If I'm out on location and lose the data, how do I say to riders who might have risked their lives, 'Sorry, guys, maybe we can go back tomorrow'?"

Many photographers need to bring back shots of unrepeatable moments, even in less dramatic genres such as wedding, wildlife or documentary photography. So we spoke to Richard and industry experts from Canon and SanDisk to get their best advice on image storage, image transfer and, should you ever need it, photo recovery.

Richard emphasises the importance of using the most reliable, high-performance media for the job. "I come from the era of film," he explains. "I used to pay €15 for a film and processing and would go through 15 rolls daily, so that's €225 per day. Spending €100 on a storage card is comparatively good value." Using a cheaper, slower card isn't a good idea, he says, because it then becomes the bottleneck in your workflow, slowing you down.

While some photographers carry multiple cards with smaller capacities and swap them when necessary, Richard's approach is more direct. "If I'm sitting in a helicopter and need to change the card, the chances of losing it are quite high!" he points out. "So I might load two 512GB SanDisk Extreme PRO® CFexpress® cards in the morning and not touch them for the rest of the day. I can't lose the cards because I don't have to touch them."

The SD (Secure Digital) card is the industry staple, according to Ruben Dennenwaldt, senior product marketing manager at SanDisk. However, there are several varieties. The Standard SD card has a maximum capacity of 2GB, SDHC 32GB, and SDXC 2TB. Current Canon EOS R System cameras all support all three varieties. Most models also support UHS-II, which is an interface specification that SDHC and SDXC cards may include. Its name stands for 2nd-generation Ultra High Speed interface, and it delivers increased data transfer speeds up to 312MB/s. (The EOS R100 and EOS R50 support the slightly slower UHS-I.) This means you can choose a card with the speed and capacity suited to your needs. For the best speeds and highest capacities, Ruben recommends SanDisk's Extreme PRO cards. "These are higher-performance cards that allow burst-mode photography, high resolutions and uncompressed video recording."

A number of pro Canon cameras also support CFexpress Type B cards. "This format has a theoretical maximum speed of about 2,000MB/s and delivers sustained write speeds of up to 1,400MB/s, which means you can record 4K video uncompressed in RAW format, or even 8K depending on the camera," Ruben says. CFexpress cards can be used in the Canon EOS C500 Mark II and EOS C300 Mark III, and alongside an SD card in the EOS C400, EOS R5 C and EOS C50 pro video cameras. Among stills/hybrid cameras, the EOS R6 Mark III, EOS R3 and EOS R5 Mark II have one SD Card slot and one CFexpress slot, which (with a 2025 firmware update in the case of the latter two) supports CFexpress Type B cards up to a breathtaking 8TB capacity. The EOS R1 has two CFexpress slots supporting up to 8TB after the firmware update.

In many areas, such as sports and news photography, rapid image transfer is a key requirement. For photographers who need to submit their images to an editor or picture desk as quickly as possible, this is an integral part of their workflow.

"File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the backbone of many large agencies, allowing large files to be sent easily to a controlled server," says Mike. "It's super robust, super slick and works globally. At major sporting events, the photographers will be using FTP to transmit their images."

Canon's professional range of cameras, including the EOS R1, EOS R6 Mark III and EOS R5 Mark II, offer FTP/FTPS functionality in conjunction with Wi-Fi capability. It means photographers on location can connect their cameras to a venue's Wi-Fi network or use their mobile phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot and transmit images to an FTP server, with a range of file transfer management functionality available, including the time-saving option to select files offline and have them transmitted automatically when the camera reconnects to the network.

Ethernet is also an important option for professionals, with most pro sports venues providing direct Ethernet access for an even more stable connection where wireless networks could present the risks of interference or connectivity blackspots. The EOS R1 has a built-in 2.5G BASE-T Ethernet port, and the EOS R5 Mark II offers Ethernet connectivity via an optional Battery Grip BG-R20EP or Cooling Fan Grip CF-R20EP.

Canon also offers the Content Transfer Professional (CTP) app, designed to streamline the workflow of professionals who handle a variety of content and may need to transmit to several different recipients. Connect a compatible camera to your smartphone via Wi-Fi or USB cable, and you can use the subscription-based app to add captions and metadata to images and videos, crop and resize, sort and filter, then transfer the desired files using the mobile network. The app can store up to 20 individual FTP addresses, and there are options to transfer files automatically, transfer to multiple servers at the same time, or send stills to one destination and video clips to another.

As a key part of the process, the CTP app can add metadata pre- or post-capture in industry standard formats including IPTC and NewsML-G2, including details such as photographer, location, subject and event. You can add caption information using a voice memo, which is saved and transmitted with the file. Agency photographers on-site routinely add these kinds of data for their picture desks and editors, and you don't need CTP to do it – but as Mike clarifies, "the app is there to help save you time, when time is money."

Alternatively, the free Canon Camera Connect app on a smartphone or tablet enables you to browse the contents of the camera’s memory card and transfer images to the device for editing or sharing. It’s also possible to configure cameras to send images automatically to your device as you shoot – ideal not only for backup but also for speedy upload to social platforms.

With a Wi-Fi-capable Canon camera, you can take advantage of the media transfer and storage options offered by Canon's cloud service, image.canon. When the camera is connected to the internet via Wi-Fi, it can transfer your images seamlessly and automatically to the cloud, where it will store all your media, including CR3 raw images and 4K movies, for 30 days, giving you plenty of time to download to your computer back in the studio or transfer to your favourite services. Social media sized images are created for you and stored in your personal library.

Excitingly, image.canon can automatically forward your media to computers, mobile devices and third-party cloud services or applications such as Google Photos, Google Drive, Frame.io, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Flickr and YouTube¹, depending on your accounts and settings. In this way the service ensures that both image transfer and storage happen securely and effortlessly, wherever a shoot takes place.

"Image.canon is not intended as a cloud storage solution itself but rather as a gateway that provides a service to automatically route your images into your preferred cloud storage systems," Mike explains. "It's an invisible back-end solution to make your workflow seamless from camera to cloud storage to desktop."

For advanced workflows where fast turnaround is key, for example, it is possible to send proxy files to Frame.io from an EOS R1 or EOS R5 Mark II via image.canon, so that editors can start working on the proxy files while the full-res or RAW video files are being delivered.

"If you're a professional photographer, performing backups and handling data in the best possible way are absolutely crucial," says Ruben. "Your project and your income depend on it."

Ruben notes, however, that recorded media, including storage cards, rarely fail, and suggests that misplaced media and accidental deletion are more commonplace. He points out that prevention is better than cure. "Pay attention to backups," he advises. "SSDs are perfect for offloading content when coming off a shoot, ideally twice so you have two backups."

Even if the unthinkable should happen, all may not be lost. There are several software packages available to help with photo recovery, such as RescuePRO® Deluxe, a free download and one-year subscription to which is provided with SanDisk Extreme PRO cards. "It's data recovery software that gives you a fair chance of recovering lost files," says Ruben. "If you deleted images or videos by mistake using your camera or a card reader, the chances are pretty high of recovering them." That's because data is not erased as soon as you delete it; as long as you don't panic and don't save anything new to the card, which could overwrite the data you want, there's a chance it can be recovered, although of course there's no guarantee that any or all of the lost data will be retrieved.

Richard agrees. "Working mainly on location, I'm more afraid of losing cards than cards becoming corrupted," he says. His advice is to think through your workflow and devote time to safeguarding your images and backing up media. A sound image storage routine can avoid any need for photo recovery later.

"Take it seriously," Richard concludes. "Invest time in your own workflow and make use of up-to-date technologies. Then, the chances of something going wrong are reduced to almost zero."