Wendy

Ho ho ho, Santa brought me a digital camera for my Paris trip tomorrow. I have 2 batteries and the charger and an adapter. Is this going to work ok or do I need a converter too. Anyone have any helpful tips or do's/don'ts? I haven't used a digital before but will have about 9 hours to read the directions! haha!

Leslie

Santa bought me one too -- well, at least my boss did. I was really excited, but found out that with 8 mg of memory, it holds only up to 32 pictures before being downloaded to a PC, which can be inconvenient when you're on vacation unless you intend to bring a laptop or go to internet cafes. A media card (which can be used over and over again) which is inserted into the camera and holds up to 128 pictures costs about $100. So, although I was really excited, I'm going to return mine and use the $300 towards the deposit on a really nice 35mm. But, I do understand that the digital cameras are idiot-proof but do burn through batteries.<BR><BR>By the way any suggestions on a decent 35mm for an amateur photographer? Not looking for tons of features, and I'm not interested in a point and shoot.

Walter

Wendy: You can double-check to make sure the "adaptor" is correct at this site http://kropla.com plus alot of other info. (Just guessing here But check the "charger" itself, it might have a decal on it saying if it is "dual voltage" (like 110v/220v) or it might have a voltage switch like a dual voltage hair dryer. Also it should say in the instructions in the charger/battery section if it's dual voltage. Regards, Walter

Wendy

Leslie, lucky me Santa thought to also get me an extra 256MB memory card so I will have more than enough room for lots of pretty pictures.<BR><BR>Walter, on the back of my charger it says input 100v-240v so I'm assuming that it is dual but I will double check in the instruction book also!<BR><BR>Merci!!

Jim Tardio

The best tip I can give you is to leave your new camera home until you learn how to use it.<BR><BR>The biggest photographic mistake you can make is to rely on a new piece of equipment you know very little about for an important event. <BR><BR>Really good digital work comes from a thorough understanding of the "white balance" adjustment...something that takes time to master.<BR><BR>At least take a more familiar camera with you just to be safe.<BR><BR>http://www.jimtardio.com

Amy

I love my digital camera! I have 3 sets of rechargeable batteries and enough memory cards so I can take over 1,000 photos. I've never had a problem using converters provided by the hotels--Europe and Asia. I strongly agree with the earlier poster you should spend some time practicing. During a trip to China this past summer we met a man using his new digital camera. He had accidently erased a weeks worth of photos. Enjoy your trip!

Dina

We had great results with our digital camera except for those few occasions when we didn't have the recharged batteries ready. We brought 2 sets of batteries, but our battery charger got fried in France, even using an adapter with it---we ended up purchasing one in Europe.<BR>We filled our 64MB and 28MB flash cards several times. The best thing to do is find a modern photo processing shop which will burn your files onto a CD so that you can start over on the empty cards. That's less aggravation than uploading to a computer, even if you can find an internet cafe that will allow you to do this (we found one in Paris). We found two other shops in France, one in Italy, and one in Greece to do the CD. Three charged only 8-12 dollars to do this, and the fourth was three times that amount.<BR>I agree that you have to do some practicing.

Gretchen

My battery charger worked in the shaver plug at our hotel. If you use the converters be sure you understand the correct plug--have heard of lots of "fries" of chargers. If your camera is at least a 3.3MP you can drop the resolution one level (still have VERY acceptable prints up to 5X7 and maybe 8X10) and you will triple your available images. Batteries are your biggest concern however. And don't forget about taking available light pics instead of flash--much more attractive.

kavey

Leslie<BR><BR>If you are looking to buy an SLR then many recommend the Canon EOS 300 as a great starter camera, which can be used 100% manual, 100% auto, or somewhere in between and also has some preset programs for specific situations.<BR><BR>I have the Minolta equivalent as I already had an older minolta body and lenses and I wanted the lot to be interchangeable.<BR><BR>If you do go for one of these, it's worth finding some review sites and reading about not only the camera features but also the lenses.<BR><BR>I went for Sigma lenses, (with Minolta fittings) as they were better for what I wanted than the default Minolta ones. You might find the same is true or not for the basic Canon lenses.<BR><BR>Wendy<BR><BR>We bought a digital camcorder for the first time for our safari to Namibia and Botswana this summer, actually we bought it in advance and tested it out on our Madeira trip in February. For Africa we went for two extra longer life batteries ontop of the 1hour one which came with it, and found we had no problems recharging, we would leave one battery in the camp with the recharger each day and swap over that evening. <BR><BR>But they camps themselves had adaptors for the recharger so I can't help on that account.<BR><BR>I would say it's worth having extra batteries just in case you cant charge up when you expect to now and then.<BR><BR>Kavey

Wendy

Thanks to all of you for your help! 1 hour and I'm off to the airport! Even though I haven't used it much I am still taking the camera but only because I have been to Paris before so worse case senario is I still have pictures from last year! haha! <BR><BR>I probably will take your advice Dina and buy a charger over there so mine doesn't get fried. <BR><BR>Thanks again to all and happy new year!!

Wendy

topping for Dan