Did you know that Apple has stopped including disk drives standard on their computers? This is one of the primary reasons custom USB Drives are becoming all the rage for professional photographers.
It seems that presenting your digital negative on CD’s or DVD’s will soon be a thing of the past! Which I’ll admit, makes me a little sad because I loved my disk packaging, but what can you do? Change is inevidable! Custom USB’s will become the go-to option for presenting digital negatives thanks to companies like Apple who no longer place disk drives on their latest computers. It won’t be long before more and more companies get on board, leaving photographers in need of a different option for presenting their digital negatives.
To inspire you, we’ve put together several USB presentations from members of my business training program, The Thriving Photographer™. They’ve been showing them off in our private groups and I was so inspired that I asked them if I could pass on the inspiration to you. Take at look at some of the wonderfully packaged UBS options that are available.
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Renee Angela Photography
USB Ordered From: Miller’s
Turnaround Time: 2-3 days
Cost of USB: $30
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USB Ordered From: USB Memory Direct
Turnaround Time: about 10 business days from order date.
Cost of USB: 8gb was $12.31 (Style- Walnut Engraved)
“They were great, I got a virtual copy almost instantly!” – Jennifer
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Turnaround Time: Less than two weeks
Cost of USB: $9.85 each (Style – Leather Butterfly)
Custom Bag: The Pink Dandelion – $3 each when ordered in bulk
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Michelle Smith Photographer
USB Ordered From: Miller’s
Turnaround Time: 2 business days after uploading order
Cost of USB: $50 for the 8gb Drive + Case
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Evangeline Images
USB Ordered From: Miller’s
Turnaround Time: Received it the next day
Cost of USB: $18
“Very easy to create a simple and elegant design and lighting fast delivery.” – Carrie
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Picture This Portrait Studio
Picture This Portrait Studio
USB Ordered From: Photo Flash Drive
Turnaround Time: Shipped nine days after the order was placed
Cost of USB: 10 @ $23.77 each for 16GB
Packaging: Silver Camera Charm from Hemp Beadery
($2.99 per dozen- ribbon not included)
Custom Bag to match brand colors Mel and Me & Co. ( $35 for 10 bags)
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Sarah Sunstrom Photography
USB Ordered From: Flashbay
Turnaround Time: one week
Cost of USB: 4GB Trix Flash Drive (WHITE). $10.89 each with $25 for shipping.
Total for 25 of them was $289.75.
“They had the graphic ready to approve within 30 minutes and I had my
shipment within a week. Highly recommend them!” – Sarah
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USB Ordered From: McKenna Professional Printing
Turnaround Time: about a week and a half
Cost of USB: $21.04 with velvet bag
Packaging: Double sided card for print release printed by Millers
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a brunn photography
USB Ordered From: Flashbay
Turnaround Time: Order to delivery about a week
Cost of USB: 50 @ $10.09 each
“Flashbay had a quick response to my inquiry and their customer service was outstanding.” – Amanda
Leah, I’m still on the disc bandwagon. I asked my techie husband about the debate and his point was that neither one is archivable. They’ll both end up losing data which is my worry. However there is a wonderful new product called M-discs that are 100 year archival. Check them out. http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/
I will offer this when I can afford to buy the machine. Looks like a regular DVD. You can even customize them. Works in a regular player. 100 years archival. That sounds good to me.
Those sound really cool, I will go look into them when I have some time! You’re absolutely right! None of the options are archival safe, I always educate my clients to get these files onto their hard drive and then a back up hard drive for that very reason. The concern I still have with the M-discs is that if there is no CD slot in their computer, how will they load them? Almost all of clients have Apples, if they have the newest version, they don’t have a disk drive on their computer anymore.
And thanks again for making a GREAT point about archival! Both a USB and a CD (or DVD) are not the means for saving the images but rather the means for delivering them, once delivered clients need to be educated on how to best transfer for the images for archival and preservation.
Thanks for the heads up and sharing your thoughts!
Can I ask….Where did Anna Dobrenski Photography get the cute matching little bags for her USB from?
Thanks!
Dayna,
We have updated the post to reflect the missing information on the Anna Dobrenski Photography Custom Bag. In case you didn’t see the change, here is the information – The Pink Dandelion http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShopThePinkDandelion $3 each when ordered in bulk. Hope this helps. 🙂
Can you tell us what size would be good for portrait sessions? Not weddings?
I think with each vendor, you can find out how many images can be put on the different sizes. It would depend on how many finished images you present.
I couldn’t reply directly for some reason, so I’m replying to Brandi here!
Thanks for showing off the M-disc, we’ve never seen that before and it looks pretty cool. There’s definitely a need for this product in some applications, and I could certainly see photographers offering an archival disc as an option.
That being said, remember that (like Leah mentioned) educating your clients about archive practice and data safety is more important than anything else. Having an archival disc is definitely cool, but the optical format is only going to last for so long.
Imagine if you had a 5 1/4″ floppy that was rated for 1000 year archival use. Sure, the data will be safe, but in most cases the data has to be accessible on modern hardware to be relevant. It’s REALLY hard to say where we’ll be in 20 years in terms of storage tech, so having good backup practices and redundancy are the real key.
Thanks again for sharing the M-Disc though, it looks really cool.
Hi Dayna!
I was wondering the same thing and then saw that below the photo says that she gets them from “The Pink Dandelion.” They are gorg!! 🙂
Myrna
Thank you! I’ve been looking for USB ideas to switch over to!
You’re so very welcome! I’m glad we could help!:D
Thank you so much for the info!
These are great! I will have to talk to the wife about which to go with. I guess the benefit of this is that they will have a constant reminder of your business as they use the dongle for other things. Just giving them direct wouldn’t have the same effect.