How to deal with all those digital photos I'll be taking?
 

I got a digital camera for my upcoming trip and am looking for info/suggestions about how to store &/or send photos from Europe. I'm a phobic techno-idiot, and I do NOT want to spend a lot of time in internet cafes when I could be seeing art or walking thru Tuscan countryside, so I need something easy. Should I just email pictures (probably not?), or store them on a disk til I get home, or use one of those on-line services where you can upload them for all your friends to see, and then what do you do when you get home? can you just download them or do you have to buy them or what? If you recommend this option, what company is easy and inexpensive?

Memory cards are comparatively cheap (as opposed to the cost of travel), just buy enough to take all the pictures you want and deal with them when you get home; there's no reason to waste travel time uploading pictures and such. If you want a backup or something, many internet cafes will let you burn a disk, it's relatively trivial to do, or many picture developing places will do it for you (for a fee, of course).

As mentioned, memory cards are relatively inexpensive. They're small to carry as well.

My suggestion is that you have the camera set to the highest resolution. Setting to a lower resolution will permit more shots to be stored on the card but at a lower quality.

I've also noticed something else.

I have a good SLR film camera. On previous trips I'd take about a roll of 24 per day.

I have now moved to a digital SLR camera (8 megapixel) and find that when I'm out taking photos, I just shoot away. I'm concerned that I'll take way too many.

At this time I have two cards that each hold about 250 photos at the highest jpg resolution.

We'll be going on a trip in a couple of months for two weeks and I'm thinking of adding another card.

All cameras will allow you to delete photos, so just delete ones you don't like when you've got a bit of free time

The resolution debate really depends on what you plan to do with the pictures; for maximum versatility, or for actual printing, I would strongly recommend using the highest resolution, but if the pictures are going to be used only on computers, you can get away with somewhat lower (I have a 5 MP camera, but usually have it at 3 MP, because that's well over what a computer monitor can display, plus is good enough for small prints, which is all I would be making).

Hi K,

On a 3 week visit to Italy I took 1075 pix.

Each evening I deleted the pix that were not very good.

I finished with 850 pix stored on 3 memory cards.

At home, I uploaded all my pix to my computer and saved 700 of them.

You can buy cheap devices to upload directly from your memory media to your computer. These are much faster than using the camera to upload.

((I))

As has been suggested, take several memory cards and download when you get home. I don't delete many pictures first hand from the camera as I can't see the details that well--unless it is just a real bust!

I second the idea of a card reader. I have a little thing that plugs into the USB port on my computer - the memory card slots into it. Much less drain on the computer battery, and much less fiddly that having to cart around special leads and connectors for the camera.

The one downside is that memory cards are relatively expensive.

You can get a 512M secure digital card on ebay, still in the packaging, for about $25 including shipping -- that stores about 300 pics at 3.2M (what my camera takes at the highest).

I went through almost one of these a day on my latest trip to England, but then again -- I sell my photos, so was taking lots to get a couple good ones. I did discard many of them, but hubbie had laptop with him, so I just cleared them every day. I had three cards but rarely used the third.

I took over 3000 on the two week trip.

I'm a photoholic!!!!

My next trip my best friend is taking her laptop. If she wasn't, I'd go have them made into a CD or DVD at a local shop periodically.

Memory cards are not expensive if you look for the sales and rebates. I think my 512Mp cost $30. Shop CompUSA, Office Depot, Office Max.

I just saw that Circuit City is selling a 2.0 GB Sandisk memory card for $80. It is hard to believe how powerful and cheap these have become.

For the average traveler (me), a 512 card is more than I need for a 2 week trip. Last time I came home with 300 images, and had plenty of spare room.((#))

You can buy a "download" cord that downloads you pictures to your video/picture IPod, then somehow you download those later to your computer. I don't know a lot about it, but you could do research on apple.com

hey thanks everybody! it sounds like everyone agrees that buying plenty of memory to last the trip is the best idea. and since i only print 4 x 6" snapshots it sounds like 3 MP should be fine (any disagreement there? i can set it to 4 MP if i need to, but then i'll need more memory.) i was hoping i'd hear that it's easy to upload pictures at a public computer to one of those sites like kodakgallery or snapfish, so i could share photos with family and friends as i go along. i'm travelling alone, and will miss being able to share the experience with others or talk about it over dinner!

If you are contemplating uploading pictures, go to some place in your city and see if you can and what it will take to do it.

OH, wait, I see you are on a European trip. I think it is problematic to do it in Europe.

Kahern, I strongly recommend you leave your camera at the highest setting rather than 3MP. The other function which affects quality and file size is compression, and again I would recommend using the highest quality setting your camera has. Even though you plan to print only 4X6, there may be one or two shots on your memory cards worth enlarging, or a shot that you want to crop, and you will need that extra quality. If you have used the lower quality settings on your camera it will then be too late to do anything about it.

You are a novice at digital photography now, but as you gain experience you will want to experiment. When you download those photos to your home computer, they will be on your hard drive as long as you leave them there (you should back them up to cd or portable hard disk though). With a photo-quality printer, you can go back even months later to make additional prints, and play around with photo editing software. Sometimes that's nearly as much fun as taking the shots in the first place, and can become addictive.

Whether you want to sit around internet cafes during your trip, downloading and emailing photos is up to you. There are better things to do on holiday tha sitting in front of a computer, IMO.

I'm with heimdall. Shoot with the highest settings, and then you can do anything you want later (even years later) when you are not such a novice. My brother is making calendars from some travel pictures he took 20 years ago (obviously not digital - he's had to scan them and manually clean them up). Shutterfly.com has a great calendar product, and I have also made shutterfly books from my travel pictures.

Once you've taken a picture, you can never get a higher quality. And while memory can seem expensive, as grsing has noted, compared to the cost of travel, it is but a drop in the bucket. Even at full price in a camera store (I have ended up buying memory cards while in Europe) there is no comparison with the high cost of film and developing.

I routinely take hundreds of pictures (100/day is not unusual for me). The last two trips (Dec/Jan and March) are the first ones that I have not taken a film camera (for 3 years I have shot both digital and film) and I felt naked at first. I miss my slr and good lenses (I usually had 28 to 300 capability), and my pictures are not quite as fabulous because of it. At the same time it is very freeing - it certainly is easy to shoot with my 4mp camera that is carried in a jeans or jacket pocket.

kahern and all, great thread, thanks! Ira, I wish I lived near you so I could come by for the proverbial slide show.

VS :-"

noe847, if you are like me you will end up with a digital SLR eventually. Unfortunately my old MF Nikkor lenses weren't very useful with the new Nikon D70 SLR, but perhaps you will be luckier. If your lenses are compatible, all you need is the dSLR body, and away you go!

What about those of us who know that we would take more photos than we can afford to buy memory cards for? Does anyone know of shops that will download gigabytes of photos and burn onto DVD? How much would it cost to do this in Italy, Switzerland and Paris?

Sometimes I think I take travel as much to take the photos as to enjoy the travel.

I take several cards. I erase any obviously poor photos in the evening as I relive my day.

I use a card reader when I get home and that is really when I start to destroy photos. I don't need three pictures of the same thing even though they are all decent photos. I need only the very best of the three (unless it is a very different angle of say Notre Dame).

I burn all these to several CD's. One I keep at work. One at home. And my kids each get one. I also often turn these into a slideshow with music and burn.

Then I condense once again. Down to about 40 photos. I love my photos, and so do others actually, but I figure 40 is all anyone wants to see of MY vacation. Sometimes these are the 40 best, but the 40 that give the flavor of my trip best. I make these into a screensaver for my office computer. People often some in and start asking, "oh, where was that?" I get to relive for a minute or two all over again.

I also take the final 40 or so and upload them to Webshots. Again, these are as much about the flavor as good photography. Like in San Francisco I took a photo of the Fisherman's Wharf sign, but it to me was important to SF.

Lastly, I sometimes take one photo, put it in Photoshop and make a print no larger than 11 x 14 to mat and frame and hang somewhere in my home or office. I seldom use the straight photo, but like to use some of the effects to create a piece of art.

For me, my vacation time is more valuable than the cost of a few memory cards. When DH & I went to Italy last year, we took 3 cards - a 1G, 512 & 256 and ended up with over 1700 pictures with room left for a few more. I saw some shops that offered services to convert your images to a CD, but I was too afraid that something would go wrong and I'd lose everything. Plus, if my images were on a CD, then I wiped off my memory card, what if the CD didn't work once I got home? Too much stress for me.

If you know of any friends that have digital cameras that use the same type of memory card, you could always ask to borrow their cards so you don't have to buy your own.

I am also new to digital photography. I have only used rechargeable batteries. Obviously I will not be taking them with me. I have several memory cards but how many replacement batteries should I expect to have to take with me?

perth2europe, that is the dilemma facing many digital photographers as camera file sizes get bigger and bigger. Fortunately memory is getting cheaper too, but there are other alternatives. One is to transfer your photos to cd-rom, and you can get this done in photo shops as well as internet cafes. Another would be to buy a card reader with a hard drive, download your shots, then reformat the memory cards. The simplest and cheapest, as mentioned above, is to review your shots and delete the ones you don't want to save. It helps to have a camera with a fairly large LCD monitor to do this.

Sometimes I think I travel as much to take the photos as to enjoy the travel.

I take several cards. I erase any obviously poor photos in the evening as I relive my day.

I use a card reader when I get home and that is really when I start to destroy photos. I don't need three pictures of the same thing even though they are all decent photos. I need only the very best of the three (unless it is a very different angle and that angle is noteworthy).

I burn all these to several CD's. One I keep at work. One at home. And my kids each get one. I also often turn these into a slideshow with music and burn.

Then I condense once again. Down to about 40 photos. I love my photos, and so do others actually, but I figure 40 is all anyone wants to see of MY vacation. Sometimes these aren't the 40 best, but the 40 that give the flavor of my destination the best. I make these into a screensaver for my office computer. People often some in and start asking, "oh, where was that?" I get to relive for a minute or two all over again.

I also take the final 40 or so and upload them to Webshots. I use their invitation ability to send an invitation to my friends and family. This way they can look at them if they want to, or say they did if they don't.

I burn these 40 onto the disks I keep and call the file "Final". I use this if I visit my sister. She has deteriorating sight and can see the photos clearer on my laptop screen than if I printed them.

Again, I never show more than the 40 unless someone asks specifically about something and I might say "I have a photo of that you haven't seen."

Lastly, I sometimes take one photo, put it in Photoshop and make a print no larger than 11 x 14 to mat and frame and hang somewhere in my home or office. I seldom use the straight photo, but like to use some of the effects to create a piece of art.

One final note. I not only carry a couple of extra cards (one I reserve strictly for MPEGS which I do take if say there is a really great street performer), but I carry three sets of rechargable batteries and a charger. I usually get to take a day or almost a day on newly recharged batteries, but, who wants to take a chance. Lithium batteries are a fortune in Europe and I only get about 3 days out of them. They say you shouldn't use a recharger with a voltage converter, but I've never had a problem. I decided to give it a shot since I spent over $100 in lithiums with my first digital on one trip.

Also, as I loved 35mm photography for so many years, I still only use the viewfinder of my digital. I turn off the LCD panel. Saves battery life and it is easier to hold steady, I believe. I only use the LCD if it is an odd angle I want to take and being short, I need to hold the camera high.

I would love an SLR to use all those old lenses, but I do have an adapter for my Olympus that at least allows me to use some filters. I like a polarizing filter at times AND I have used it to protect my lens when out on the water.

Katherineclifton, we cross-posted. Most people bring their battery charger and at least one spare battery, or set of batteries if their camera takes the AA type. You can recharge your batteries overnight in the hotel, but if your battery goes flat in the middle of the day and you don't have a spare, you are out of luck. Some cameras can use disposable batteries, but they don't last very long and are expensive to replace over and over again.

If you transfer your image files to a CD or DVD (or to your laptop) in Europe, <i>be sure the copy can be read before you erase your memory card</i>.

Katherine, your charger might work over there if it's dual-voltage and you have the right plug adapter.

I think some of you experienced photographers are undestimating how good 3MP pictures can look when enlarged. I have enlarged 3.3MP pictures from my Canon D30 all the way up to 24x36! I'm not saying they look anything close to medium/large format crisp prints or even a good 35mm print, but they don't look bad. I've had people license 3.3MP images for calendars and they look fine at that size. So, I don't quite agree with the idea that you should ALWAYS shoot with the highest quality level.

When I travel, even though I travel with a laptop with plenty of storage, I switch between quality levels. On my last trip I switched between 6MP and 3MP depending on the situation. And now I have a 12.8MP camera so I will be doing even more switching depending on situation. The thing is, I don't want to have to ARCHIVE a bunch of unnecessaryily large pictures because I have the highest-possible quality of some basic snapshots! I've already got about 80GB of pictures that does not include many pictures from the new camera and I don't want to have too much to backup.

But yes, you should still buy memory cards - they are really cheap now and it is silly to run out of space just because you didn't spend $25 or $50 on an extra card or two. I'd say, buy more than you think you need. Better to come home and think, &quot;Gee, I didn't even open that last memory card&quot; than &quot;Gee, I wish I'd bought one more.&quot;

Andrew

Fair point, Andrew. Just out of curiousity, do you shoot in RAW or jpeg? RAW file sizes do eat up a lot of memory.

On my Christmas trip, I took a 1gb, a 512 and two 256s and used almost all.

It is relatively easy to find somewhere to put your images on CDs - the drugstores/1 hour photo places do it. I know someone who had that done, and checked their CD's on my laptop they found that the lab had copied one memory stick twice and the other stick not at all. Luckily, they hadn't erased the photos yet. The other thing is that each place that does the CD's seems to have different software, so opening them and copying them onto your hard drive can be a little bit of a challenge.

Heimdall, I have a Canon EOS film camera and I believe that the lenses would be compatible with the digital EOS. At the moment, I'm sort of in a transition mode. I'm not ready to invest the amount of $$ for the digital yet. The other thing is the size. I'm spoiled by the small size of my Canon Elph now. If I decide to lug the lenses/body, then for now I'm happy to do film. I get a high res. CD burned when I get the film processed, and I also have a new scanner that I can transfer negatives or prints to digital.

I think someone already suggested using an iPod to store the images. That's what I'm planning to do, but still need to find out if I can transfer directly from my camera to my iPod, without putting them on a computer first. The iPod shuffle is on sale now, and you can get 1G for $99 or 512MB for $69. Much more fun than a simple flash card!

Thanks Robespierre. When not in use my camera sits on a dek which is plugged into the wall socket and my computer. It charges as it sits there. I guess I will have to buy a separate charger with dual voltage. And then there is the adapter I will need to recharge my digital video camera. I am concerned about adapters/converters because people I know used them on my last trip and blew up their blow dryers.

noe847, I have a Canon Elph to use when I don't want to lug the dSLR around. Hold on to those EOS lenses. They probably are compatible (with a 1.6X magnification factor, I believe). Take one down to your photo shop and try it out on the digital EOS, or don't if you are easily tempted.

Everything about European electricity is here:

http://www.franzus.com/Merchant2/mer...&amp;Screen=UE

Thanks Robespierre that is a very useful site. It explains things well. I'm going to share it with my travelling group.

I’m a commercial photographer. I have operated a portrait/commercial studio for 30+ years and it’s not unusual for me to shoot 500+ digital frames on a given day. I use a pair of Nikon D-70’s with 1-gig cards. This size of card allows me about 290 images on the highest jpeg setting.
(If I had it to do over again I might choose a D-50 instead, less expensive but basically the same camera without so many bells and whistles. Professional cameras are often surprisingly simple; in the “heat of battle” too many options can quickly become a hindrance.)
The batteries are a dedicated rechargeable and I have two batteries and two chargers. The batteries keep their charge so long that it creates a slight problem in that my staff often does not remember to recharge periodically.
My last trip to Europe was two years ago and on that trip and the trips before I carried Nikon SLR film cameras and a single lens. Now, with the digital, I have a number of lenses but 95% of all I shoot is with an 18-70 zoom. Obviously I can’t wait to get back to England, France, or elsewhere with the digital. But when I go I will probably take a fixed focus 50mm lens. Why? Because the lens is very low profile and it will be much easier to get through subway turnstiles etc. without whacking the lens against a rail or a door jam. In addition the lens opens up to f1.8 so I can get very good interiors even in very bad light. This is not an expensive lens, as Nikkor lenses go, and if something bad happened to it, it would be easy to replace.
As to the issue of Jpeg vs. RAW files: I have been advised by both my imagers as well as a Nikon rep that, even with the demands of portraiture, there is very rarely a situation that requires the RAW format. Not only does that format suck up a memory card, it also takes a long time to download/upload and many printers, and by that I mean high-dollar professional imagers, will have to convert your file to a Jpeg for printing anyway. We’ve made numerous 20x24 close-up portraits on the highest jpeg setting and they look gorgeous.
I’ve been engaged to speak on the issue of film vs. digital. For some time I contended that film is the superior medium---and I still believe that to be true---but with each passing day the point becomes more and more moot.
As too the cost of that extra memory card, relax and take solace in considering how much you would’ve spent on film and how much it would have cost to process once you were back home. (I like color and black and white which used to mean carrying both types of film and, regardless of which type was loaded in the camera, I always found myself whishing I’d loaded the other. With Photoshop™ that is as easy as clicking the “desaturate”)
In addition there used to be the issue of storing all those prints and negatives.

Robespierre, that is a good reference for travel electrical products. What I like most about it is that it explains the difference between converters and transformers better than other websites I've seen.

Katharine, your friends who ruined their hairdryers were probably using them with converters. Ironically, a dual voltage hairdryer doesn't cost much more than the converter itself. Check the specs on your camera chargers to see if they are dual (120/240V) or multi-voltage (100-240V). If so you don't need a transformer - just an adapter plug. Your digital camera sounds like it uses a docking station with a built-in charger, which may be inconvenient to pack, but necessary unless there is another way to recharge the batteries.

DiAblo, it's good to hear a professional photographer say that he shoots in jpeg. I never use RAW myself, and am only an amateur. I asked Andrew which format he shoots in because of his concern over storage. It seems strange to me that he advocates using a 3MP setting, but has gone from a 6MP to a 12.8MP camera.

Heimdall, I shoot either RAW or JPEG depending on the situation (sometimes both - my camera can save both). I usually use JPEG for day shots where I can see clearly that my exposure is almost right-on and noise isn't likely to be an issue. I shoot RAW mostly for long exposures where noise might be an issue (JPEG artifacts) or I might need to adjust exposure or white balance - it's just way easier with RAW. Sometimes I know I'm shooting a &quot;keeper&quot; shot so in that case I'll use RAW.

But RAW files are huge on my Canon 5D: 12MB each!!! I can get only ten pictures on a 128MB card. As for now I have one 2GB CF card, two 1GB microdrives, a 512MB card, and a 340MB microdrive, but I haven't traveled with that yet. I'll probably get another 2GB card before my next trip, and I'll have a laptop to upload to every night...

I've never used anything but the highest quality JPEG setting - I never use the &quot;course&quot; setting. I hate compression artifacts! But as said above, sometimes I will step down to smaller sizes. I don't need 12.8MP for everything!!!

Andrew

In answer to one of your questions, I use www.dotphoto.com, which does let you upload and download your photos for free, as well as order good quality prints for a reasonable price. I like dotphoto a lot.

A good point in there that got lost - if you ever have battery issues, turn off the LCD screen. THAT is what eats up all of the battery charge.

I had a battery last summer that I *thought* was charged... I got out in the field (with a photo tour for the day) and my battery was on 'low'. Somehow, I hadn't charged it properly. I turned off the LCD screen and happily snapped away and easily made the whole day.

BTW, if in Paris, I have a great photo tour lady - let me know if you are interested. My pics from last year are great!