Storing digital pics - USB drive, iPod, or mp3 player??
 

Hi,

Has anyone uses these small gadgets to store their digital pictures while on a trip?
I'm thinking of buying something that has a capacity of around 1GB and stores mp3's as well as pictures.
If you have any experiences or advice to share, please do!

ps. I will be travelling in Spain for 2 weeks - 1 week by tour bus and 1 week by either car or public transportation. I take a lot of pictures, but I don't think it will be more than 50-100 per day. Also, I don't want to spend my time looking for internet cafes to burn cd-s.

lindi

Buy a laptop, a far more useful solution. 100 pictures per day will take up far more than 1GB if they're high resolution.

Get more memory chips or borrow some from a friend who has a similar camera. Buy a laptop and carry it--I don't think so.
You can also edit your pictures each evening. I don't remove anything that I think is remotely good but the big misses are easy to pick out.

Would you lug around a laptop on public transportation? Should I buy one and bring it for the sole reason of saving pictures? Also, the cost seems to be much higher for a laptop...

I plan to take 2 or 3 memory cards to act as storage as well. I was thinking though that I may need some extra storage when I fill up all the cards.

I always use laptops at home, but when on holiday I use my faithful 35mm Leica. The quality is higher, and it's so much more soulful than a digital camera. No passion in digital photography - get a real camera!

God, I'd never take a laptop unless it was a business trip. too much crap to carry as it is.

take a few gig sized cards and keep an eye on them after you put in the new one - it would suck to take all those pics then lose the card!

We brought three memory cards for two weeks in Italy The cards took up no room at all. Most photos do not have to be shot at the highest resolution, thus giving you lots of room on the cards for more photos.

I agree with you...I didn't want to spend any valuable vacation time in Internet cafes either. When we returned home, my husband tranferred everything to a CD, and the cards are now free to use again.

So souless - try traditional photography, so what you need to have the prints developed, so much more passion and one on one interaction between the image and yourself.

Your idea seems right on target to me. I was an "early adopter" of a jukebox that pre-dated the iPod by close to two years. It works like a charm as a file transfer medium from my laptop to any other computer (maybe any other USB device - - but I don't know how you move files from it to something else without a keyboard, or some other way to control what files are to be moved).

And of course, as you already know - - at one fifth the size and weight of a laptop - - plus it has its raison d'etre while travleing. Perhaps iPod makes it easier to transfer files from a camera, or other USB device (without an operating system per se).

Best wishes,

Rex

Allright m_kingdom, go check out some of my digital pictures at:

http://community.webshots.com/user/lindilindi101

Are they soulless and without beauty???

I do like traditional cameras as well, but mine was ruined after a motorbike trip (shaken up) and I just never bought a new one.

Hi lin,

How many mpx is your camera.

with my 2 mpx camera I was able to store 850 pix on 3 128Mb CF cards with room to spare.

lindilindi, what storage media does your camera use?

I recently bought a 2 gig compact flash type II microdrive for $250.

Keith

They are souless "beautiful" pictures, not my cup of tea at all. They lack warmth and emotion.

Thanks for everyone's help. My previous camera was a 2mp and I had 3 memory cards (16, 64, 64) on my previous trip - they were not quite enough. My next camera will be a 5.3 megapixel (haven't received it yet), but I don't think I'll use the highest resolution. It uses Secure Digital (SD), MultiMediaCard (MMC).
I'll try to stock up on memory cards, but having storage that has some extra functions (i.e. music) would be a bonus.

If you decide to go the route of more CF cards, please consider buying several smaller cards instead of one large card, for example 4 256MB cards instead of one gig. These cards do occasionally malfunction -- I lost all the photos I had on one card, luckily only 70 instead of 700, and the experts could not recover them. Amazon has good prices with great rebates.

I seem to post the same time as several others.

m_kingdom: I try to continously improve. But I also think that everyone sees emotion in their own photos the most. I was there and I remember how I felt at the time etc.

Keith - I will look into that too, thanks!

There have been several really good threads on digital storage lately. Just type in "digital storage" in the search box at the top left. I got the information I needed for the same question as there is some good ideas/advice there. Have a wonderful trip!

Julie

My camera is also up to 5mp. There are some shots that do better in that resolution, though it eats up memory. This is especially true for a shot you want to extensively edit or enlarge. Otherwise I use lower resolution. One of the joys of digital photography is the ability to snap away feverishly, then simply discard the shots that don't turn out as well as one would like. I agree with the suggestion of multiple cards rather than one huge card, as malfunctions can occur.
On our last trip I brought along a fairly small laptop (purchased for cheap on eBay) and used an USB reader to upload each day's shots. This worked out nicely, and we also had the laptop to check email, etc. in out apartment (which had high speed access) If I owned an iPod I might consider that, too, since it is much smaller.

Are there no "real" photography fans here?

I used to be, until I compared the quality of my digital camera pics, with those of my 35mm camera pics.