strass

Hi all,

We can't decide what to do with our digital camera during our upcoming 11-day trip. Our memory card holds 136 images, which of course won't be enough. Should we purchase another memory card before we go, or assume that we can easily find places in Paris and Amsterdam to upload our photos onto a CD? I don't want to waste time searching for places to do this... but there will be few times after this trip when we'll need so much memory. Your experiences and/or opinions?

Kavey

Or buy a small device onto which you can empty your cards when they are full and which you can download to your PC when you get home.

We use an X Drive but there are several alternatives.

You'll need to charge it periodically just like you'll need to charge the camera but the device and cable are small.

clevelandbrown

There have been lengthy and informative threads on this. Try doing a search for digital camera and see if you can find some.

I too don't like to have to spend all my time looking for places to burn CDs. Some people recommend a CD burner of your own. If you have a laptop, just load the pictures into that. My solution is an mp3 player that has a port to load jpg files into memory. I listen to my own music on the long flights, and it still has space to hold thousands of pictures, which I load from the camera each night. I don't like to discard pictures until I get home and can display them on a nice large screen and see whether they are good or not. You might look into a larger memory card anyway; they are relatively cheap now, and there have been plenty of days when I have taken more than 126 shots. Carrying a second card is a good backup.

strass

Hi Cleveland,

So you can transfer photos directly from your camera to your mp3 player, just using some sort of cable, I guess? Hmm... that's an interesting idea. We don't have an mp3 player but it's something we'd get a lot of use out of. My husband does have a laptop but there's no way we're bringing it along!

Lorac1127

The cards are small and don't take up any room at all instead of lugging along another piece of equpment or wasting time looking for someplace to burn CD's. Vacation time is so valuable. And the extra memory can always be used again on another vacation.

We brought 3 memory cards for two weeks.

strass

I just did a search and found lots of info here on this subject... I think we're going to buy another card. I don't want to waste time looking for a shop, or worry that they'll somehow screw our photos up! Sorry to broach this well-worn topic yet again...

BoulderCO

I bought a 256MB SD memory card at Costco last week for $49. Extra memory is so cheap now (and easy to carry) why mess with CDs, laptops, etc?

FlyFish

Another option - not always possible, but worth thinking about - is to borrow cards from friends for the trip, then transfer your photos, erase, and return the cards when you get back.

amelia

Strass: I just saw that you are convinced to buy another memory card, but don't worry about apologizing for the "well-worn" subject. Just read some of the other postings where people are worrying about film speeds, and thank heavens you're just worrying about memory.

I can't believe it was only five years ago that I bought a camera specifically because it allowed me to change film cartridges mid-use so I could use different speeds. I hated almost every darn frame taken with that camera (found just getting two different speeds of disposables was a better investment!), and then finaly...FINALLY...bought my digital last year.

Don't you love it that you only have two problems: number of memory cards and battery?

Can you believe our lives are now this easy?

I make photo slideshows of our trips now. There's a neat program, really cheap and low tech, called "Slide Show to Go" you can download. It doesn't burn the CD--your computer does that--but it's very easy to use. I preferred it to Roxio Creative Media because it doesn't tend to blow up my computer.

So enjoy your memory card(s) and look forward to end of the trip creations!

almesq

I recently bought an extra 256 card from erwincomp.com, it was a SanDisk card and I think it was $38.

clevelandbrown

Actually, if I had a laptop (someone show this to my wife before Christmas) that would be my preference, because I'm always looking for something that will do multiple tasks (for example, with my digital camera I can take far more pictures, so now I take pictures of the signs identifying the site I am shooting, thus we don't need our logbook).

A laptop could serve as storage for all my pictures. It could also include all the notes and charts and spreadsheets that I currently print out and have to carry and shuffle through when I need some information. It could also carry all my bookmarks (favorites to you ms users) so I could link to the internet and find stuff I need (such as the route finder for the metro in Paris). And also hold all my music and possibly even play dvds. The only problem is hauling it around (but I haul a shoulder bag for my camera and my wife's "stuff" anyway), and the very limited battery time on laptops (carry spare batteries, or get one of the cables that hooks you into the power supply many airlines have on some seats (be careful to get one of those seats, also). I think I would be inclined to lock the laptop in the safe, or leave it at the desk, rather than to carry it around all day, and use it for uploading, planning, internet access, and recharging in the late evenings.

Zeus

If you have Office Max in nearby, they almost always have a deal going on memory cards. I recently bought a 256 MB Secure Digital card for 29.99. The catch is that they usually involve mail-in rebates.

On my recent trip to Europe, I had no trouble finding Kodak photo shops that would burn my pictures on to CDs. Usually for under 5.00. I always asked them if they would let me make sure the disk was ok by having them use the CD on their store computers. Never had a problem.

Another possibility is to sign up for Ofoto.com. Then if you find a Cyber Cafe you can plug in and upload the photos on to the internet for free. I tried it once and found it too slow. Also the Cyber Cafe guys seemed a little po'd because I sucked up almost all the bandwidth in the cafe. But then again, he was French.

strass

Thanks for the tip on Office Max. I'll also check on eBay.

tom_h

I know this is an old thread, I stumbled across while searching for something else.

I agree with most people that simply buyng more flash cards is the most cost effective. Last week the price of name-brand 1GB flash cards had dropped to around US$120 on Amazon.com.

On my 5 Megapixel Canon G5 camera, that stores about 400 pics at the "best quality" settings.

And as an alternative to lugging a PC around, the popular Apple Ipod music player will store digital JPG images with the addition of a Belkin flash card reader.

See "Digital Photo Storage Accessories" at this web site:

http://www.ipodlounge.com/articles_m...d=4137_0_8_0_C

strass

We ended up buying an extra memory card, and that worked well for us--we took 280 photos in all.

Granted, I wasn't searching for them, but I don't remember seeing that many stores advertising "uploading to CD" capabilities.

Zeus

Strass - FYI for your next trip - almost any photo shop with the yellow and red "Kodak" sign out front can burn a CD for you. In Europe it seems to me there are more stores with computers than here in the States. I had no trouble finding places that would copy my SD card to a CD. I did have to provide my cables at two places so that they could link my camera to their computer. They even let my son and I come around the counter to help them get the download started. We discovered that computer geeks have alot in common throughout the world - just show them an electronic gadget they never saw before and you have instant rapport.

AP6380

The easiest and cheapest alternative that I found to use before my 3 week Italy trip in August was

http://www.apacer.com/apacer_english...p200_combo.asp

It worked out perfect, and I only needed my one 256 MB card. Everyday I burned the pics to a cd.

jay

a 256 mb memory card is plenty. i think one costs 60 usd? we took 200 on that one alone.

kayd

Using a 3.2 meg camera set at the second-highest resolution, I recently took nearly 400 shots on a 258 compact flash card. Batteries were good for about 200 shots (my Cannon uses 4 AA rechargeables, and I always kept the spares charged and with me).
I was in Denmark and easliy found places to make CDs ($16 in Copenhagen central train station, $14 several blocks from there, $8 in a photo specialty shop in another town). Since this was my first trip with the camera and I didn't know what to expect, I had a CD made at about 200. I did not erase them, just to see how far I could go, and I never reached the card's limit. I had a spare 32 meg card (that came with the camera) as a backup.
With two cards, you should always be able to get all the photos you want. If you fill up the 258, just insert the old card and keep shooting. You'll soon run across a place to make a CD of the first card for reasonable price.
Have a great trip.

got1tiel

I think memory would be the best option although i have a bad habit of looking for outlets to burn a CD when i am on holiday. it is not as simple as you think.cybercafes might have a manfunctioned burner or their PC might be virus infected etc or not compatible with your camera.one time i spent roughly half a day on this activity alone!The cost in PC rental time/blank CDs & purchased cables exceeded the cost of a memory card besides the lost vacation time .Apart from buying more memory, picture shot discipline is also important.if you plan every day how many hi res and low res photos you can take,and try to keep to that plan then you shouldnt run out of memory. i end up taking pointless video clips of cars/birds/fountains etc.note that you can prefill a blank memory with pictures from home so you can take maps etc with you and view them with your cameras zoom facility.