I am planning to take a new digital camera with me to Italy this spring.Looking forward to having more adaptabilty in a much lighter package.while there has been much info put out on this site, I am curious about using local shops to download memory to CD. Does anyone have knowledge of shops in Florence or Rome where I can do this? Next, can it be done while you wait? Do I need to take along any camera to computor hook-ups? Have I missed any obvious questions...I am brand new on digital, my F-2 with all it's equipment and film is simply more than I wish to carry?

Can't reply to Rome or Florence but last year we went to a local camera shop in Thun, Switzerland. They had a Kodak unit that accepted our Sony memory stick and while we waited down loaded it to a CD.

buy an extra memory card or stick with huge memory! or a couple of "smaller" cards. Worth the investment. That way you're not worrying about downloading pictures or wasting vacation time tracking down a photo shop.

First place I ever saw with that service was in Arles, France. 5Euro to transfer my filled 128M card to a CD. Took all of 5 minutes. I've since started carrying several bigger cards and don't worry about transferring the pics until I get home.

I did see a couple of places in Rome that had signs in the window with a price of 10E to transfer pictures to a CD.

We walked to all of the tourist sights so I have no idea where they were.

We dumped our 128MB CF card onto a CD at a little store-front pace in Grindelwald, Switzerland a couple of years ago. Well worth it to clear off space before the next leg of our trip, and it only took a few minutes. Finding a similar place in a big city shouldn't be a problem, I'd think.

Oh, and I second the opinion about getting a larger memory card than the one that ships with the camera. Get a 256MB card.

Hi max,

I bought three 128 CF cards. I took 1059 pix in 3 weeks and brought 850 home, all at maximum.

I didn't have to worry about whether the photo shop would ruin my originals.

Here is a link to the unit I will be using on my upcoming Italy/France trip in June.

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

This is your own portable CD burner. I've used one and it works great. It's small & light...about the size of a portable CD player, but slightly heavier. You just insert your card and burn.

You won't have to waste your valuable vacation time looking for somewhere to have this done.

I might make a case for buying several smaller camera memory cards, such as 64 MB, or even 32 MB, rather than 256 MB. We lost our camera (or had it stolen, not sure which) on our trip to Cyprus this winter and were VERY glad it only had a 64 MB card in it when lost and not a 128 or larger.

It's bad enough to lose your camera but to lose all your pictures as well is a double blow.

A case to hold extra memory cards is a good idea. I have a metal( titanium) case that holds and protects 4 cards.

Ira,

Do I understand correctly...you returned with 850 shots on 3 cards? That's an average of over 280 shots per card. That seems very high for photos taken on a maximum setting. I don't get anywhere near that number of shots on a 128 card.

Hi Dick,

I have a Canon A60 - 2 mpx, which is fine for me because I don't need blowups beyond 8x10.

A 3 mpx will use more space per pic.

I'd also suggest extra memory cards. Some places say 5 euro or 10 euro, but you find they can't do what you want them to do or don't know how to do it and everything gets screwed up. We had that happen the year before in Scandinavia, and spent a lot of time trying to find places that would do it and knew how to do it.

Last summer in England, we brought the laptop, so we just downloaded at night onto the computer, but still carried several memory cards.

Thanks< Ira....that explains it.

I travelled to Italy with a 512, two 128's and a 64

I didn't catch whether you already bought your new digital equipment. If you didn't, you may want to consider cameras that burn CDs directly. I have used them since they came out and have been pleased with the quality and ease of dropping CDs into the Internet Cafe computers to send photos back to torment coworkers. If you have already bought, please forgive and ignore this message.