i say buy an ipod nano...listen to music and store photos...

I don't believe you can transfer photos directly from a camera to the iPod nano. Here is what the Apple support site says:

"The iPod Camera Connector allows you to import photos directly from a compatible USB digital camera or media reader to your iPod photo, iPod with color display, or Fifth Generation iPod (it won't work with other iPod models including iPod nano)."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301059

i guess getting one that works for photo transferring is still 2 birds with one stone.

I agree with Andrew, you don't need to shoot at your cameras highest setting to get great enlargements. The following was shot a 3MP and was enlarged to 20x30 with no loss of quality

www.pbase.com/trsw/image/52005361

Tom

We (being me and my DH, a professional photojournalist) have done it in these ways:

* Purge bad photos at the end of the day to free up card space.

* Take extra cards (and some good way to keep track of them - they're small and easy to lose).

* Have CDs burned (we generally use camera stores, and they've always let us check the CDs before we leave).

* Get a dongle - a tiny memory storage device that connects directly to your camera and allows you to download photos to it. You can get them as large as 2GB, I think. Very secure, because you can wear them around your neck or stash them in a money belt. It plugs into your computer at home to download the photos.

* Download photos to an iPod (our current fave). We use the 30GB video iPod and an Apple-branded cord that connects to it and our cameras. It's very easy and the 30GB pod has room for hundreds of photos with room left over for more than a 1,000 songs.

* Get a card reader to use at home to transfer your photos to your computer.

* While in Afghanistan, DH used a combination of cards/card reader and dongle to save his images, them transferred them via FTP and satellite phone to the office. But that's probably more than you needed to know.

All that said, I think for casual photography, the best ideas are more cards, CD burning or transfer to iPod or dongle.

Good luck, and have a great time in Italy!

Most people are in agreement - get a number of extra memory cards and you don't have to be bothered with any of the hassle of disks, internet cafes, etc.

One VERY VERY important part of this, however, are the BATTERIES! If your camera uses rechargable batteries, BRING THEM - bring SEVERAL sets. If your camera requires a special battery, I would make sure to bring at least 2 with you. Digital camera batteries just don't last as long as a battery for a SLR camera.

When I was in Rome last year, I ended up using 4 sets (of 4 rechargable batteries) A DAY! I would recharge them at night. Of course, in a pinch, you can buy regular batteries and toss them when they go dead.

People forget how much juice it takes to look at pictures you have just taken, to scroll through the list of pictures and to delete pictures from a digital camera. All of these functions zap the battery juice.

On all of my trips, I carry 4 memory cards (for 256 pics each in high resolution) - and 4 sets of rechargable batteries and the recharger (and of course the plug converter.

I would say that is the one downside of using a digital camera.

My friend brought their digital and only had one battery. It was a very disappointing time for them somewhere in the middle of the day. That camera did not take AA batteries, so they were out of luck.

Yes, good point about bringing extra batteries. More importantly, get a feel for how your camera uses batteries. My Canon Digital SLRs are extremely efficient and I can usually shoot hundreds of pictures on a single battery, certainly I can go an entire day on two good batteries with plenty to spare. I've found good 3rd-party batteries for my Canon in the $25 range that last a long time and work fine, so it's silly for me not to have a few extra. On my last trip I took only a single-battery charger but I never worried about running out of juice.

Also, let me remind people that burned CDs and DVDs are NOT perfect media! CDs/DVDs can and will go bad. It's important first of all to make sure any CD/DVD you have burned while on a trip actually works correctly; it's fairly easy to burn a CD incorrectly and have it be complete junk. Plug it into a computer, make sure you can browse it, etc. before deleting the pictures from your camera.

If you archive your pictures on CD/DVD, make sure you have at least two copies of anything you care about in case one copy goes bad! Take it from someone who has plugged in old CDs and occasionally had them not work, even if sometimes only with a couple of pictures.

Andrew

Hi, We will have a 20Gb external hard drive with us as it is going to be a 30 day trip. Quite a few people suggested burning to CD-ROM, which I would like to do since I don't fully trust the x-drive. (Andrew, thanks for the warning about DVD/CDs.)

My concern is it takes 10 minutes to download 1Gb. I also prefer to put 4Gb onto one DVD rather than 6 CDs. Does anyone have estimates of the cost of getting this done at photo shops or internet cafes in Italy, France and Switzerland?

Surfmom - "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!"

Yes surfmom I'm interested to know more!

perth,

I spent a day with Barbara, an American travel writer and photojournalist who runs www.thefrenchside.com and works with www.parisphototours.com.

Barbara was awesome! I sent her examples of the types of photos I wanted to take and she took me to her favorite places that met my criteria.

http://www.slowtrips.com/photo/showg...amp;ppuser=232

follow the link to 'Paris 2005' - those are the photos I took with Barbara. I like my photos - they certainly aren't professional, but its a hobby I like.

I was impressed with Barbara enough that I have an upcoming trip again and I'm spending another day with her... we're headed for the Marais - I can't wait!

Let me know if you need more info-

You are right not to trust a single hard drive for keeping your pictures; hard drives can fail too. When I travel with my laptop, which has a CD burner, I try to burn "highlights" onto CD instead of all my pictures, every few days. So even if the hard drive crashed, I'd still have the best pictures saved. At least two copies of anything important is my rule.

You might simply splurge on a 2nd external drive and just make double copies, instead of hassling with finding a store every few days to burn to CD or DVD, which would get to be kind of a pain and might get expensive, anyway. I'm not sure I understand your concern about the 10 min to download 1GB; are you saying you have only one memory card and it fills up during the day? Obviously, you should have more than that. I'd get enough memory cards to shoot an entire day so you don't have to mess with them until the evening, when you can do it in spare time. This weekend I saw a sale for a 2GB CF card for like $70. Two 2GB cards would probably hold me for a day if I'm not shooting everything in RAW mode.

Andrew

Hi - I just bought a 1 GB memory card from newegg.com for $50.00 and they had a $20.00 rebate. I have gotten the best prices on memory cards from them in the past also. They are very reliable. Patti

TRSW, I am now convinced that one can get good enlargements with 3MP, but looking at the photo in your link with the 1280X800 setting on my laptop screen doesn't prove anything.

This does beg the question, then, "Why does anyone need a camera with more than 3MP?" After all, few of us are going to make prints

...of 20X30 inches or anything near that size. Now that several professionals have joined this thread, perhaps you can explain the race for cameras with more and more MPs. Why does anyone need a 12.8MP camera when 3MP will do the job?

Two things. First of all, I never said enlargements from my 3.3MP camera look stunning. I've even printed 24x36 from them and to my astonishment the first time I did it, 24x36 didn't look bad, very acceptable to my customer. But prints from my 6.3MP camera look better, and 12.8MP will look even better - just richer in detail than a 3.3MP print. Plus, I've had people wishing to print even larger than 24x36, like several feet on a side. 3MP is really going to wash out at some point; 12.8MP may be acceptable.

Secondly, having more MP allows you to crop more and still enlarge. I recently rescued a nice picture I took years ago when I didn't really know what I was doing - on film. It was not level and not well framed, but I had a nice high res scan of it (higher than 3MP) and I was able to rotate it and crop it and still print it at 24x36. The quality would have suffered quite a bit at 3MP.

If you want to enlarge, you should definitely go for higher than 3MP. What I meant originally: it's not out of the question to get a decent 24x36 print from 3MP as some have suggested. If you will be shooting mostly for 4x6 snapshots with the option to enlarge the occasional shot, 3MP will be fine.

I didn't buy my Canon 5D for the 12.8MP by the way - I bought it first for having a full-frame sensor. The cheaper digital SLRs have a little problem with built-in focal length multiplier (Digital Rebel is 1.6X), meaning your 28mm lens gets "zoomed" to 44mm (x 1.6) because of the design of the camera's sensor. You can get a wider lens to compensate, but it's just not the same.

Quite often I shoot on my 5D at "medium" size, about 6MP, because there really is no need for 12.8MP in many situations.

Andrew

Started reading this thread and decided to order an extra battery for my Panasonic LX1. Turns out a Lexar is only $14 from Amazon.

I did try a quick test with RAW and TIFF files vs. JPEG. Happened to take a pic of a parking lot with a chain link fence in daylight. The fence also had red wood slats too.

The TIFF showed the chain link pattern where the JPEG didn't. But otherwise, not too much difference. Probably not worth the difference in file sizes.

Interesting bit about using RAW for night shots to reduce noise. My camera has a night scenery mode which sets the ISO to 80. Would RAW still be worth it?

Well, let me weigh in again, briefly…yes RAW is definitely the way to go in extreme light situations. One would need to evaluate how often that is going to be an issue. Raw is also a useful tool in macro photography and product photography demanding incredible detail, such as stitching in fabrics, circuit boards, etc.

How many MP’s do we need? Well, again depending on needs, but after a certain point anything over 10 might generally be considered “overkill”. Remember, at some point in the equation one has to consider the optics involved, in other words, lens quality. It’s the same problem those of us old enough to remember had with negatives. A razor sharp Nikkor lens on a little 35 mm camera is often preferable to a much larger negative, say a 120 negative, exposed through a cheapo lens.

It all becomes relatively moot if all you intend to do is to print it out on your home printer. (By the bye, I’m often surprised at how many people think that they’re printing a “photograph” at home. They’re not. It is ink on paper and the archivability of the image is reliant on both of those factors. On the other hand, a photograph is a particular and specific process.)

Lastly I would recommend that we all stop obsessing over backing up images. When I first started using digital we downloaded to a folder on our desktop, then backed that up on a jump-drive, then backed up the back up on a CD-Rom, finally backing that up on an external hard drive, all the while saving the images on the original capture card until it was completely full. When is enough finally enough? Now we download to the computer and again to an external drive. We often incidentally copy to a CD simply because that’s the medium we most often send to our lab. If all three procedures somehow manage to fail then so be it.

Think about this: When you were shooting film how many times did you back that up? Surely you didn’t take the same shot with two or three different cameras in an effort to guarantee you had the image?

If there is a catastrophic loss of images/digital information, then perhaps that is just the way it goes. This obsessive behavior is part and parcel with the digital medium. After all, I’ve seen film accidentally damaged, 35mm cartridges crushed and split open in transit, defective film excessive heat, yadda-yadda resulting in the film being trashed. Take one or two reasonable precautions and relax.

Thanks, Andrew. That was a good explanation. You said that a print from your 6.3MP camera would be richer in detail than one from a 3.3MP. Does that only apply to the huge enlargements you were referring to, or would a letter-size print be richer in detail as well?

Are amateur photographers throwing their money away by purchasing cameras with 5MP,6MP and even bigger sensors? I just looked at the camera product announcements on dpreview. com, and of the 73 new cameras announced so far in 2006, only four were less than 5MP. Why is that, do you suppose?

DiAblo, you bring up some good points about backing things up - the difference is if you lose a roll of film, it is 36 (or 24) images. If you lose a memory card, it is hundreds or possibly the entire trip.

You also have valid points about a lens. No matter how many MP you have, if the optics of the lens aren't good, you'll never have great pictures.

Heimdall, it's because consumers (especially Americans) have an insane urge for bigger and bigger things, even if they don't need them. How many people do I know that own SUVs? Most of the people I know! How many use them offroad? 1!

I try to tell whoever asks that, unless you are planning on printing large (i.e., larger than 16X20) then a 3MP camera is perfectly fine -- look for something with longer optical zoom if you need something bigger that's useful :)

Hey GreenDragon, I own an SUV. Do I drive it off-road? Rarely. Do I frequently carry between 3-5 children in it? Yep. I also use it to haul 'stuff' between houses and for friends. (Sure, a van or station wagon *could* work, but they are ugly and I can afford it, so why not?)

Yes, we Americans like bigger, but your analogy isn't a good one.

sorry for the off-topic reply folks.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

GreenDragon - I admit to not being an expert on photography, but isn't one of the main advantages of having a higher megapixel camera being able to crop the photo and then restore the resulting image to a pleasing printable size? Although (theoretically) this can be accomplished with a longer optical zoom, other factors (holding the camera perfectly still, amount of light, range of view) come into account. Or am I wrong on this?

surfmom, your post illustrates GreenDragon's point perfectly!

"Sure, a van or station wagon *could* work, but they are ugly and I can afford it, so why not?"

Americans buy more than they need, for reasons unrelated to utility. <i>QED</i>

What Robespierre said :)

robjame, you are correct, I forgot about those that crop in -- I don't do it much at all, so I didn't consider them. But even then, you'd be better off zooming in with optical lense, if you have the choice, no? My 3.2 MP camera comes with a pretty decent 10X optical zoom, and I use it frequently. It won't work on moon shots, but it works quite well for things like Big Ben across the Thames :)

Gosh, and dpreview.com is a British website! Could it be that it's not just Americans who like bigger and bigger things? And in East Anglia, where I live, 4X4s aren't exactly a rare sight. Please let's not stereotype.

GreenDragon, what about this situation? You are taking a shot in low light, and your zoom lens at 10X won't let in enough light to get a decent shot. So you back off on the zoom and crop the photo later to get a similar effect.

Heimdall:
1. I said most consumers, especially Americans -- certainly not excluding the Brits here! However, when I was in the UK last summer, about 20% of the cars I saw on the highway were SUVs. Here in the US it's more like 40%... stereotypes exist because they have a grain of truth.

2. I didn't say that you never need the higher MP -- I'm saying MOST non-commercial users don't NEED it. Want is another matter... commercial is another matter... specialized shots (macros, low light, sports photos, underwater photos) are another matter.

I use the words MOST and MANY for a reason...

Heimdall -- on the low light, why not just increase your exposure time?

I think more than about 6MP is overkill for most people. 3MP is a minimum in my opinion and simply adequate but not desirable. The thing is, you may not know what you will do with a photo in 10-20 years. What if you ever want to crop it or alter it for some other purporse? 3MP really limits your ability to do that, but if you don't care, 3MP will be just fine. Even 8x12-sized prints will look fantastic from 3MP.

The biggest reason the camera manufacturers are pushing more MP is that they want consumers to buy new cameras, of course! But I think you'll see them stop going much higher once consumers realize the 6MP pictures from their new cameras don't look any better at 4x6 than the old 3MP pictures looked. Instead, the next generation cameras will see improvements in battery life, weight, and features (e.g. wireless download to a computer).

As for backup: my basic rule is &quot;two copies minimum of everything.&quot; No, I didn't backup my film pictures by taking two of everything, but then again, doing that would have taken more time and money. It's fairly cheap and easy to backup digital pictures. Plus, film is a physical thing you can hold in your hand, not a bunch of 1's and 0's in an electronic chip that could get zapped by static electricity or simply go bad or be erased by accident. Once you shoot a roll of film and rewind the leader into the canister, you can't &quot;erase&quot; it by accident. Sure film can fail or even be ruined during development, but there's not much under your control you can do about those factors. Digital is different. One of the benefits of digital is the ability to backup cheaply in my view.

Andrew

Higher MP doesn't cost you more to operate like SUVs. In fact, every year, the camera makers are giving you more MP at a given price point. Of course, camera makers want you to upgrade from older lower MP cameras.

Oh and station wagons and vans may not look as pretty as SUVs but your kids will be safer in them.

Robespierre, don't even go there with me.

Clearly, you buy the smallest, littlest, most economical choice. Right?

You never travel because that would be a waste of resources (gas, etc.) only because you enjoy it.

Your house is the smallest, littlest on the block, because why need anything bigger ?

You don't go to restaurants because you can always eat at home for less money and less resources consumed.

You drive a moped because it uses the smallest amount of gas, right?

You dress in nothing but jeans and tee-shirts because the function of clothes is to cover your body. Certainly don't need 100% anything when unnatural fibers will work.

You only have one pair of shoes, because you only have one set of feet.

Can we just not turn this into an SUV debate? I promise to play nicely from here on out if you do :)

Although I have only one child still at home (and him not for long) I bought another mini-van last June. The thought of trying to haul two dogs, three or four people and the inevitable piles of &quot;stuff&quot; to the lake on summer weekends in a smaller car with fewer doors that don't open themselves . . .

This debate reminds me of a bible study group I was in in New York City, very tony group on Fifth Ave. Our text was the famous one about not being burdened down with that extra pair of sandals, only having one tunic, no money, etc. when going from village to village preaching the Gospel.

One member of our group was a gorgeous blonde, very famous model. The facilitator read the text and there was total silence, as we looked surreptitiously around at the clothes, furs, etc. The model put her cards on the table and said, &quot;Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly have more than one tunic!&quot; We all burst out laughing and were then able to talk about ways we could pare down. Some weren't negotiable---like tunics for the model. For me it's the Nissan Quest.

GreenDragon, quote: &quot;on the low light, why not just increase your exposure time?&quot; Obviously that's the first thing you do, but sometimes a slow shutter speed isn't desirable, especially when using a long lens or a 10X zoom. Example: I was taking a series of photos in a childrens' theater where flash wasn't allowed. I cranked up the ISO on my Nikon D70 to 1600, but even then wan't able to use my 70-300mm lens

...at its highest setting, because at f5.6 shutter speed was too slow. My 18-70mm f3.5-4.5 lens was slightly better, but I had to back off the zoom to get my shots nearer the f3.5 aperture and use a slightly faster shutter speed. Now I have a 50mm f1.4 prime, and I intend to use it and crop the photos in a similar situation.

Example 2: you are on safari where the best sightings are early morning/late afternoon but the light is poor. You see a leopard in a tree, but it is far away, and even your longest telephoto lens isn't big enough to fill the frame. This time the subject is still, and you have a beanbag to steady your camera. You take the shot, and later crop the photo on your computer at home.

Both of these situations have happened to me, and I am greatful to have a 6.1MP camera. I don't think I will ever need anything bigger than that, but for other reasons that new D200 sure looks good!

I think this thread has just about run its course. For those of you who want to turn it into an SUV debate, please start a new thread. As a former Range Rover owner, I may even join in, but I'm not sure which side I will take.

Not trying to turn this into ANY type of debate :P

SUVs: some people need bigger cars, some people buy them anyhow. I do art shows about once a month, and pack all my stuff (including tent, stock, display, tables, etc.) and go. If I had a smaller vehicle (I've got a Honda CRV) it would never work. I also go camping rather frequently. However, I like the car and would buy another, even if I didn't do the above. Do I need it? No. Do I want it? Yes. Am I financially secure enough to buy what I want? In this case, yes :P

Camera: Heimdall, I said most non-professional consumers. That would exclude those taking shots on safari to sell later :P

Yes, we buy more than we need -- that's part of our consumer philosophy, pounded into us by 'keeping up with the joneses' and slick advertising executives. The camera is one reason -- most people never need more than 3-4Mg for their uses, which are mostly printing 4X6 at home with an occasional 8X10, or simply putting them on webpages. Sure, they may occasionally need more, but not usually.

So yes, I'm sure you can discover all sorts of unusual circumstances when one needs a 20000 Mg camera -- but the majority of consumers don't need all the muscle. They just think they do :)

WOW! y'all have gotten way beyond me. Most of this is over my head but I'm learning a few things. For now I'll just focus on the basics. I went out and bought a new memory card after I read the first few replies - now I think I'll get one more, and another set of batteries while I'm at it!

TRSW, what a photo! What is it a picture of?

And my contribution to the SUV debate: my undying gratitude to anyone who cuts back on their gasoline consumption by their choice of automobile, or a decision to walk or take the bus instead!

kahern - Thanks. I am glad you liked the picture. It was taken on my way back from the Colosseum near the Markets of Trajan and the Forum of Augustus.

Tom

Next month we will be in France for almost 3 weeks. Not wanting to lug my lightweight SLR and 20-30 rolls of film, I have invested in a Panasonic FX01. And to be on the safe side, I have ordered a 2GB ATP SD card for a total of $69.94 from flashmemorystore.com I hope that is large enough :-)
Someone on this long thread asked about transfering to a CD online. I know that it can be done at kodakgallery.com: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ArchivalCDOverview.jsp? and they ship internationally: http://www.kodakgallery.com/HelpPric...#international
So it would seem one could upload their photos to their site and have the archive CD mailed directly to their country.
My only concern at the moment is whether or not it is risky to have the SD card and Lion battery pack go through the xray security....:-(
Mich&egrave;le

Xray doesn't do anything to digital cameras or memory cards, but the jury is still out on the wands/security check.
I personally have several memory cards of 512MB rather than 1 huge one. And our son, on our Paris trip, downloaded his 1GB card to an MP3 player every night just to be sure nothing malfunctioned.
Get rechargeable batteries.

Mich&egrave;le, if you fill up that 2GB SD card, do you realize how long it would take to upload your picture files to a Kodak website? Think several hours minimum. It's not something you're going to do at an Internet cafe in 15 minutes. Also, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable keeping my only copy of my vacation pictures on Kodak's website and rely on them to mail me a DVD (2GB won't fit on a single CD).

Andrew

I'm definitely not a digital expert - having only used a digital camera once for my trip last month to Paris. I still mostly use film but I learned a lot. And I agree w/ Andrew. That huge memory card will take forever to download/upload or even to take to have a local photolab process.

I would think you are much better off taking 2 or three smaller cards.