Kayb95

After years of taking digital pics and not printing them out for whatever reason (usually because it's so time consuming to print a lot of pics!), I now have them printed professionally. Almost all the drug stores, discount stores and camera shops will print up your pics from just about any media (CD, memory stick, etc...)

I use Sam's Club - they are the cheapest I've found so far - $0.18 for a 4x6 print. You can upload your pics to their website and order the prints you want. Then you can have them sent to you or pick them up at a Sam's Club near you and save the shipping charge.

It's so much easier than messing with printing them on your inkjet printer. You have quality prints that will last in just a few days.

ucsun

more importantly, carries the extra batteries...nothing worse then running out of juice.

palette

I came back from a recent vacation to find two of my memory cards corrupted. I was able to use a recovery program, but it convinced me to buy smaller memory cards, not one megasize one. That way if one card is corrupted I am not chancing losing the bulk of my photos. Those photos get me away from my daily grind after I have returned and are very important to me. You will love using a digital! No constrictions on how many you take because of "cost" of printing. I shoot and shoot and then make my final decisions when I get home. Part of the fun now of a vacation is reliving it while working on those photographs.

Wildfire

Just a clarification....
digital storage (ie memory sticks,secure digital, compact flash, etc) are perfectly safe going through airport security equipment or do you ask to have it hand inspected?

fehgeddaboudit

they're safe. this has been covered several times here.

Daneille

Thanks again to everyone for indulging me with these questions that have been asked dozens of times before.
I think I'll go for several smaller memory cards and then worry about the printing/saving/deleting when I get home. I figure for a two week holiday I would normally only go through about 8 rolls of 24 photos so a few memory sticks adding up to around 250 - 300 shots should be enough. And of course there will be shots I take which will obviously be awful and I can delete those ones straight away and save some memory that way.
Again thank you.

Robespierre

Today, eCost.com has a 128mb CompactFlash module for $0.00

isabel

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with several things that have been said. It is just not true that having a CD burned while on vacation is time consuming. At least not if you are going to major cities. In London, Paris, Florence, Venice and Prague in the last year or two I have been able to find places to burn a CD with out going one step out of my way. They are everywhere. They can burn a 512 mb memory card, usually while you wait, in about 10 minutes, for under 10€. I don't see how you can call that a waste of time or money, especially in the case of Daneille who said she hasn't got her own CD burner and therefore she'd have to go pay to have it done once she gets home.

As far as "always shooting at highest resolution" - well that's fine if you have tons of memory, battery power and storage space - not to mention lots of time when you want to look at or edit them. The larger the image the more space, battery power, and time it takes to write the image to the card in the first place. The best photos are often captured because the photographer shoots several (5 or 10 even) of the same sceen in quick succession. Each one slightly different and you won't know which one the best one is till you open them up and look at them. All of this is much easier to do at a somewhat smaller resolution. If you want to spend a lot of time setting up a shot and then take only one and hope the expression/light/background/etc is perfect, then maybe highest resolution makes sense. But not in most cases. Plus, even if you want to crop down to a small portion of the shot, unless you also want to print an 11x14 of that small part, then shooting at a resolution between 1 and 2 mp is usually fine. It's certainly way more than adequate for the types of prints most people make. And as I said, you'll save not only space on your memory card, but time and battery power as well.

TripleSecDelay

If you buy a 5MP camera and shoot at 1.6MP, why bother buying the 5MP?

Sure, shooting at lower resolution saves time and batteries.

How much time? Seconds. Only important if you're shooting action. If your're shooting action, you really want DSLR. Digital has...get ready... A Triple Second Delay. Some cameras are down to two seconds delay. Some cameras have a setting in the firmware that shortens the shutter lag time. Does your camera allow you to shoot in RAW format?

Buy spare batteries - rechargeables. I use 3 and that carries me through each day. Recharge when I get back to the cabin/house/hotel/sorority house for the night. I assume that you have or will soon purchase an electrical converter pack for travels to Europe.

Anyway, if a person is serious about knowing more about cameras and related topics, Fodors is not the place. I strongly suggest

WWW.DPREVIEW.COM

And as a Christmas gift from a loved one, or to yourself, consider taking a class in photography. You'll be amazed at the diffence in results in your photos.

Be certain to set your camera's date and time for the local time zone. This helps in re-creating your travels in a journal as you review the photos to determine where and when you experienced everything.

- - - buen viaje!

MikeBuckley

Daneille, it would be good if you could test drive your camera on a weekend trip before taking a major trip with it. Aside from the issue of getting used to the camera (which will probably require studying the manual repeatedly), you will need to get used to how often you use it. Knowing that will help you make some of the decisions you are making, especially the one about how much memory will be required to hold all of your pictures.

The reason I mention it is that I noticed that you plan on your memory cards holding about about 25% - 50% more pictures than you would have taken with your film-based camera. A lot of people find that they take a LOT more digital pictures than they took with film. It's not unusual to keep two or three times as many (after taking into account those that you will delete as you go along.) That's because there is no additional expense and hassle of taking more pictures, as is the case with film processing.

Something to think about. Only you will know for sure, and only after you've traveled with your digital camera.

Have fun with your new toys!

Daneille

Again thanks.

Just for TripleSecDelay, I certainly will check out the website you mentioned - and thank you for that. I guess my questions directed at Fodors were more from a travelling-with-a-digital-camera point of view and what other travellers experiences/solutions were.

I am really looking forward to travelling light with this camera as my dear old SLR was a great big heavy thing (the camera bag itself being 1 foot long and 1/2 foot wide) and add into that extra lenses, film, mini tri-pod it was back breaking work carrying it around all day long - so I often just slung the camera around my neck risking it getting badly knocked about.

TripleSecDelay

Danielle - I completely acknowledge a comfort level you may have here, instead of diving into a pool of sharks on a forum specifically for photo enthusiasts, however...there's a bit of cross over between these two boards.
There, you'll find people using the exact same camera model and you can ask direct questions concerning functions, etc.

AisleSeat

Welcome to the wonderful world of digital photography. Here is my favorite thing about having a digital camera.

I love to travel in Europe (maybe some others here will agree). I love to plan my trips. I like to go on the airplane. I love to be on the trip and I especially like to re-live my trips when I get back home. Here is where my favoirte thing of the digital photography comes in.

I load all my pictures onto my computer and set the screensaver to show the pictures in random order. No matter if I am at my desk at work or at the computer at home, I have a constant slide show of my European travels running.

Oh, by the way, I have a 5 meg camera and I shoot with a 512 meg flash card and carry a 256 meg spare. I can get about 600+ pictures all told and that is enough for the trips I have taken so far. The battary charger is bi-polar meaning it will work on 110 at home or 220 in Europe. I just carry an adapter plug with me and I can always have a spare battery in my pocket in case the one in the camera runs out of juice during the day. I recharge the battery every night in the hotel.

isabel

TripleSec - The reason I have a 5mp camera is to the have resolution WHEN I want it, which for me anyway, is not all the time. For example when I'm not traveling - and storage and battery life are not at issue, then I may use higher resolution. Even when I am traveling, when I'm shooting something I think I may want to enlarge, or just something I really like, then I'll up the resolution. But for a lot of the time it just isn't necessary, especially when traveling, and especially for someone who doesn't have a lot of memory. The original question indicated that she didn't want to spend a huge amount right now buying extra things (like portable hard drives/digital wallet, etc). She also said she had an "old laptop", without a CD burner that she would like to get by without replacing for the time being. An older laptop is going to be slower at editing/showing large images. For those reasons I still think shooting at a resolution of between 1 and 2 mp would be best in her case.

The suggestion that you go to dpreview is good. It is a good site. Also good is megapixel.net. And at www.shortcourses.com you can get a huge amount of info. on using digital photography. That site has the info in the form of articles. Dpreview and megapixel both have forums but they tend to be more technical.

MikeBuckley

My favorite about digital photoraphy: Immediately determining if the picture is a good enough exposure, is well composed, and is focused properly. If not, I take the picture again (unless of course it is an action shot and the subjects are no longer available.)

By the way, I make all those determinations by looking through the viewfinder, not at the LCD screen. I never use the screen for anything.

TripleSecDelay

I think what a person should consider is reviewing the photo histogram. A 2" (or whatever size) LCD screen is inadequate for reviewing much more than framing and the presence/absence of the flash function.

Dick

Mike,

I, too , only use my viewfinder for framing shots.

In many cameras, the the view finder is not giving you a "through the lens" image. In that case, anyone relying on the viewfinder image will be disappointed.

That is why I sold my first digital cam and replaced it with a "through the lens" viewfinder.

jmw44

Hi, I've periodically looked in at your digital camera discussions, but I can't seem to part with my old 35mm, which was not an automatic. The shutter speed and aperture opening were strictly in my fingertips. Though it was pretty much trial and error, I love the natural light indoor pictures I've been lucky enough to capture, also the low light outdoor ones using 400 film. Can you tell me which specifications I should look for in a digital -- so I'll have a choice about being in an auto mode or in full control?

I'm looking for a compact digital with high resolution, pretty good zoom, and very subtle color (I'm not happy with three greens if the scenery has fifty). If you smart folks could just tell me what specs to look for, I'll appreciate it. Thanks so much. J.

sar_gil

One our trip to London and Paris in September, we took our Digital Canon Rebel. Only complaint? Bulky. Not just a "point and shoot" camera. But, I look at the beautiful pics that we took, and that we have since enlarged and it was well worth the extra equipment and extra lens.
Also, my husband insisted on shooting some pics in RAW format to make sure they would be OK to enlarge (one shot of Sacré Coeur in Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe comes to mind, taken with the bigger lens..breathtaking!)
We bought two 512 MB cards and took the cards to a place called Jessops (in London) and for 2 pounds, put all the pics on CD to free up the space on our cards. (keeping in mind this was our first trip to Europe and we ended up *keeping* 1100 pics!!)not counting the ones we deleted along the way!!!

sanschag

You basically want the same specifications you'd be looking for in a new 35mm compact, i.e., that is has aperture-, shutter-priority, and full manual modes. In Canon (what I'm personally familiar with), these are the "Creative" modes (label P (programmed), Av, Tv, and M). However, given your interest in natural light photos, you have to be very careful about the sensor . In general, the compact camera CCDs have problems with noise at higher ISOs. I own a Canon A70 and try to avoid going over 100, and find 400 (the max) basically useless. The digital SLRs (like the Ditigal Rebel) generally have sensors that have much less noise. (I've heard the Canon 10D and 20D can be used at 1600 with still reasonable results.) The disadvantage is that, in general, they don't have live viewing, i.e., you can't use the LCDs to take the shot, only to review. Unfortunately, data on the noise levels is not something that is readily available, though most review of specific models should contain some data. Check out http://www.dpreview.com/ for lots of reviews and user forums.

Paul