aranda

Any suggestions for storage of digital photographs while traveling will be greatly appreciated.

The research on this site that I was able to locate reveals pretty old threads, and because in technology a few years is like an eternity, I'm throwing out this question in the search of more current information.

Thanks for your help!

Happy trails,
Aranda

Robespierre

1. Memory sticks are cheap. Buy enough to hold all your photos.

2. Offload image files to your laptop/iPOD at the hotel.

3. Pay a photo shop to burn them to CDs.

(Be sure to verify that the copies are good before erasing the sticks.)

nan_49

I always take a portable hard drive to download my digital images. I have an Epson 2000 which is very easy to use -- just insert the card and press a button. Additionally, the screen is large (3-1/2 x 3&quot high resolution screen. I really like it and highly recommend it.

LynFrance

I own the Epson 2000 too, (plus two other earlier forms of photo storage) but I find that I rarely use it now that memory cards store so many pictures and are so inexpensive.

Burning to a CD in Europe costs around
10 euro, and we have yet to be in or near a town that didn't have that service available.

If you do have a camera store transfer your photos to a CD, be absolutely sure that they are burning the images in the size that the camera took them. I had a full card transferred to CD in France and when I got home found that they had been burned at 72ppi rather than in their original size. They were useless for anything but the web!

rkkwan

I am about to buy a dSLR, and was considering a portable media storage. But good ones like the Epsons are not cheap (~$500), while cheap ones (~$200 Jobo, Wolverines, etc) have questionable reliability based on threads on dpreviews.com and other sites.

I think with memory prices this low now, I'll just buy them when I need them. 8GB highspeed Compact Flash can be bought for ~$130. 2GB CF or SD can get for <$40. Since I won't need more than 16GB or so of storage during a trip, I think I'll just buy two 8GB ones or maybe even just two or three 4GB ones. Less weight and takes up less space.

aranda

Thanks for sharing your information. I'm in the market for a new dSLR too, I'm considering the new Nikon.

What about storage on an iPod? What are the pros and cons?

Aranda

rkkwan

Well, a 30GB is $299, a 60GB one is $399. Not very cheap, and you still need to buy an card reader to attach to it. Also, most report that the interface isn't the best.

Still, it's a viable alternative. I'm not considering it because I already have a iPod nano for music. No point of getting another one.

Travel_Bug_Cin

My husband bought a Nikon D70 earlier in the summer (and a telephoto, wide angle, and a fisheye lens). We took it to Italy and got fantastic pics (I had my digital Canon). His was great for photos in many places where my camera just couldn't "do the job" (indoors with no flash, exceptional wide angle shots, etc). We also bought and took with us SmartDisk Photo Bank (40 GB). This was a great way to download the pics every night. We took a total of 1707 pictures between the two of us. Just yesterday, the brat says maybe I should sell the D70 - apparently, there is now a D80 (I said, I don't think so...)

lramos30

I have a rather large memory stick, but I was also debating about taking my laptop with me on a week and a half trip to Italy. Would you recommend this, or is it better to find an alternative.

alanRow

I have several memory cards for my camera. Much more convenient & a lot more portable than cutting CDs or downloading to hard drives.

If I start running out of space (only happened once in Cambodia) I just did a lot of reviewing & deleting.

ira

I prefer a couple of small cards to one large one, because if something goes wrong I won't lose all of my pix.

I review my photos at the end of the day and erase the definitely flawed ones.

Larryincolorado

When I made my first trip to Europe with a digital camera in 2000, memory cards were very expensive (16 MB for $100) and I knew I couldn't afford enough for all the pictures I wanted to take. So, I got out my old Compaq LTE and took it along. It was too heavy, but I quickly realized the advantage of having a computer with me. Not only did I download and organize my photos each morning, before I went over I loaded it with a lot of train schedules. I also used Excel to keep track of my expenses.

When I came home, I picked up a used 2.4# NEC Mobile Pro on ebay. It didn't have much memory, but it held both a Compact Flash card and a memory stick at the same time, so I could store my photos on much cheaper CF cards.

I've used the MobilePro on four trips. I now also create a "dummy" expense report, already filled in with what I know I would pay for my housing (already booked) and estimates from experience for meals, and delete these expenses from the spreadsheet when I pay them. At any time, I know how much more money I need to finish the trip, so when I make my last trip to the ATM, I know how much to get.

I recently picked up a Toshiba Portege on ebay for less than $100. It is a half pound heavier, but runs real windows programs and has a hard drive big enough for all my pictures. It will also run the program that Deutsche Bahn sells online that has schedules for all over Europe.

In my opinion, a small lightweight computer is the way to go. You can do a lot more with it than just store pictures.

kopp

rkkwan, I tried your dpreviews website, but my computer keeps linking it to designerpreviews. Was that the correct link? Thanks.

Robespierre

http://www.dpreview.com/

kopp

Thanks!

wombat7

My preference is the same as Larry's - lightweight computer - spent a week in Provence in April and my partner and I shot over 10gig of photos - just dumped them to the computer each night. The trick is to remember to put the CF back in the camera - partner was not happy in St Remy after realizing that the last hour of pics had been taken on a camera w/o "film" - The CF was still in the computer

Robespierre

The camera doesn't tell you there's no memory? What kind of pos does that?

wombat7

"pos"?

twk

pos = piece of ....

wombat7

Twk - thank you for the clarification

Robespierre - to quote a person who is very dear to your heart "If you can read carefully with reasonable comprehension, you will find that I never said" the camera did not say there was no memory - rather I said my partner did not realize there was no memory in the camera and so happily snapped away.