mspguy

I will be traveling to Italy for three weeks this summer. I'm taking my new Digital SLR camera and all the Compact Flash memory I can gather (currently, a 1GB card and two 128MB cards)- but I'm afraid I'll run out of storage.

I'm debating about either buying another 1GB card (for about $200). But I'm wondering if some of the Internet Cafes in Italy provide CD-buring services so I can dump my pictures from the camera periodically. Has anyone seen this service offered or have personal experience with it? Do you remember the pricing?

Last year in Europe (Germany, Austria, Budapest, Prague, Amsterdam, London) - I saw it occasionally but never used it becuase I still had my old film camera and therefore didn't pay attention to see if it was widely available.

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

lyb

You might want to look into buying a portable CD Writer, you can quickly dump all your compact flash card on a cd when you're at the hotel at night, it takes a few minutes. I have an Apacer CD writer, very happy with it, it is lightweight and this way I don't have to keep buying more cards. Also, you wouldn't have to spend some of your precious time in Italy going somewhere to copy your CF. I paid $295 US dollars for mine through BH Photography. At the rate I was buying cards, I figured I was saving money.

mspguy

Yeah, I've looked into that, also. But it still falls into the same category of "buying more camera accessories". Normally I'm not gone for that long and would seldom need to dump off photos, and therefore am not looking to buy more expensive equipment that will rarely get used after this trip. Thus my investigation of Cd-burining options at internet shops. And that way I don't have to add yet another device to my packing list!

I like the concept of the portable writers (whether CD or HD based), but at this point I'm looking for a more economical approach. Thanks for your suggestion, though!

Also - I don't mind the time in the internet cafe. Hopefully it's something they can do while I'm online checking email, etc. - which is every couple of days. So long as I can easily find a place that offers that CD service. Or maybe a camera shop... Hmmm.

InMiami

Are you taking a lap top with you?

Alice_the_Magyar

While in Hungary last June, I has my xd and sd cards transfered to a cd. It cost about 1,000 forints then. I was going to have just the sd card transfered but I came across the other card for my other digital camera so i had that card done too. I was told too fill the card first, then take it in, as it cost the same price even if the card is full or if it has just one picture. They came out great! After picking up the CD I went to an internet cafe in the mall on Ond vezer utca, they down loaded them for free for me to see. Well, I did pay just the small fee to use the the internet, about a US dollar. Alizka.

Henry

Earlier this month I was in Orvieto with my sister-in-law. She had filled up a 128mb stick and her spare was almost full. She was looking to buy another stick. I walked into the first store with a big yellow Kodak sign and asked how much to transfer the stick to CD. Answer 10 euro, it was ready in about two hours.

mspguy

No, I'm not taking a laptop. It's too much to lug around for a 3wk vacation.

If they can do it in Budapest and Orvieto, certainly I can find a place in Rome, Florence, Venice, or Munich. Those are the major cities on my itinerary. I can't imagine having to do it more than twice (probably only once).

CarolA

I met an Austrailian couple last fall who had been in Europe for several months doing just this with no problem. They had done it in England, Germany, Italy and Turkey.

travel52

We spent a month in Italy last Summer. We were able to "dump" our photos from our memory stick on to CD at the local internet cafes or photo stores (this included the CD that they provided). It was 5-15 Euro (usually 5) to do it. We traveled from Florence all the way South to Calabria and over to Apulia and never had trouble finding a place to easily to this.

zeppo2

A quick scan of fatwallet.com and I found a CF 1 GB for $107 after a $40 rebate. Don't know if this would sway you, but you might check out the sale at http://www.compuplus.com/insidepage.php3?id=472

Ramblero

I had the same concerns last fall. Bought a Canon G3 (4MP resolution) and took just under 1000 high res pics in 23 days...and used less than 1/2 of the 1GB capacity of the IBM microdrive. Unless you shoot a LOT of pics at anything faintly resembeling a photo op...I don't think you're gonna run out of space. Also...edit/erase pics that are clearly throw-aways at the end of each day.

jamocha151

I'm travelling to Europe too - leaving tomorrow! I have a Casio Z3 - it has a base (where I have to charge the camera and it's also used to upload the pics). My travel buddy has bought a converter for the outlets? I should be ok, right?? Do the computers in the internet cafe's have USB ports where I can just upload my pics onto a webiste?

Alice_the_Magyar

Now this was last late June, I went to several intenet cafe's in Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia too, none of them would allow me to use their usb port to down load my photo's. But they told me if I had the pictures and on a CD I could just pay to use the internet and they would down load them for me to see. That worked out great for me. It did take a almost a week to get the Cd done, but I was there for 6 weeks, so it was no big deal for me. I could have went to a main Kodak photo lab I think and got them back sooner. It would have cost double the price I was told. But don't forget everything changes over there so fast! They could also get the cd done much faster now. Enjoy your trip. Alizka