Digital camera limited memory
 

Has anybody taken a digital camera without their laptop. What do you do about saving your photoes of the day and clearing the memory stick for tomorows photoes?<BR><BR>Im going to Italy and Paris.

You need to invest in a CompactFlash card with a lot of memory...are you planning on taking more than 500 photos? <BR>

I never take a laptop, but I have enough CompactFlash cards to last at least two weeks - longer if I'm conservative.<BR><BR>Unfortunately, you've fallen into Sony's MemoryStick scam: since it's a unique memory device, they can keep the prices quite a bit higher per MB than the more common CF cards.

If you have a large resolution (3+MP) camera and are going to be gone for several weeks, it might be economical to consider a digital wallet. This is basically a stand-alone hard drive(battery powered, no monitor needed) to which you can download files from various types of memory cards (including, I THINK, MemoryStick). <BR><BR>Amazon.com sells a 3GB version from Minds@Work for around US$350. For me the biggest downside is that you'd be putting all your photos in one fragile digital basket. But for a long trip, this could be the way to go.

I also use compactflash cards--my 7 cards range from 8MG to 64MG. New cards are "bigger". To make better use of the cards I also bought a Lyra (RCA) player. I fill my cards up with "books on tape" and music. Listen to the book on the flight, format the card (in the camera) and then begin taking pictures. Same procuedure for the cards I've recorded music on. Note: if you do a book on tape be sure to record it as several tracks. I'm very happy with this system.

Thanks for the great replies. And yes Sony got me.<BR>Do you think t would be possible to have the images copied to CD somewhere?

You might also reduce the resolution of your photos. Sony allows you to set the resolution at e-mail mode and another resolution. Unless you're publishing your photos, you likely won't need the memory-hogging higher resolutions.

Good advice about reducing resolution a little bit (emphasize)--maybe just one level. Don't go too low. I use an Olympus with SmartMedia card. Also have a PhotoShow zip drive that allows downloading without a PC. I am not sure it supports the memory stick--does CF and SM. It is about the size of a VHS tape plus its power cord. YOu can organize photos into albums, crop, remove red eye, etc. Can show on a TV.<BR>Also don't forget your need for batteries. I found that my battery charger would work in the shaver plug in the bathroom. On other boards I have heard horror stories of burning up chargers trying to use a converter.<BR>I have heard that folks found camera shops that would burn a CD for them.<BR>Would any friend who also has a sony loan you a card?

I've posted several times about finding shops in Europe to burn CDs, thereby clearing the Flashcard (we had two) for more photos. <BR><BR>It was a long trip; we took about 700 photos. We found two photo shops in France, one in Italy and one in Greece that burned CDs. In Naples, though, we could not find a place. <BR><BR>They took from one hour to a day to do the work. The price, however, ranged from the equvalent of $10 (in Montpellier) to more than $50 (in Bari, Italy). So don't wait until you're completely out of memory and desperate to get a CD.

Based on what Dina posted above, and comments I've heard from others, I wouldn't put all my hopes on finding a CONVENIENT place to download to CD. Seems like whenever I really need to find something while on holiday, it takes forever.<BR><BR>As for reducing resolution, that's a personal thing. If I'm paying $2000+ for a vacation, I'd rather just spend a couple hundred more $$ to get enough memory to last rather than, 10 years from now, regretting that my photos don't look better. Especially since memory cards are reusable and this will solve the problem for future vacations as well.<BR><BR>For me, it helps to remember that I often spent $100 or more (per vacation!) on 35mm film and developing before I went digital. I've had my 3MP digital camera about a year, and have already saved about half the cost of camera and 700MB of CF cards. Plus I get better photos than with my old 35mm P&S, and get to take LOTS more digital photos, since they're essentially free.<BR><BR>Dave

A friend suggested uploading photos onto a website. You could spend a few miutes resting in a cyber-cafe, coolf off, and send the pictures to family all at once. I'm planning on doing this while in Italy this summer. This I don't have to buy any memory cards.way

I purchased the MindStor (newest version of the Digital Wallet) for my current trip. I purchased the version with the adaptor which takes Four different types of media, including SmartMedia and the Sony memory stick. (Don't remember the other two.) The standard is for Compact Flash so essentially, it will work with five different type cards.<BR><BR>So far, so good. I upload my SmartMedia cards to the MindStor every evening (or mid day if necessary). When I get home, I will be able to upload all to my computer. Has a total of 5MB storage (also available in 10 and 20 MB size.) I did a dry run on the upload to computer before I left home and it's very easy. You can also use the MindStor to transfer files between home and office etc., if you wish to so it serves an additional purpose (which I don't see needing often but I might).<BR><BR>I seem to remember it was around $329 and I bought it from PCNation.

Jess,<BR><BR>If you have a 3MP camera you may be spending a LOT more time in cybercafes than you expect.<BR><BR>

Jess, Dave is right; it's a rather tedious process to upload hundreds of megabytes onto a website; we tried that too. On a 2.2 megapixel camera, each photo was about 600K, and took 20 or 30 seconds to upload. Obviously a 3MP camera would make much larger photo files.

What I plan to do is split the difference between uploading and keeping lots of memory cards: I'm taking 2 128MB smartmedia cards for my two-week trip and when I get the chance I'll upload the priceless photos to my Yahoo accounts (30MB each so I'll have a fair bit of room), while keeping the rest on the cards.

Why not ask some friends/colleagues if they can lend you some memory sticks for the trip? That way you'll have plenty of MB without the need to invest.