bashful

Just purchased new camera with all the bells and whistles - now just need to figure it out! We are going on vacation in a few days and will seek out an internet cafe to access our hotmail account to keep in touch with friends back home. Is there an easy way to explain how we might "download" a couple of photos of our travels to send to friends back home? Is this usually done in an internet cafe?

astein12

Many internet cafes will have a memory card reader available that you can use to download a few quick photos. You just take the memory card out of your camera, stick it in the card reader, and it will show up as a normal disk drive (like your hard drive, cd or floppy). You can just attach the pics to the email as you normally would.

bashful

Thanks..and I'm about to really show my ignorance. We've never attached photos from our digital camera before. So once you put it into the memory card reader, what pops up? Do you double click on that pop-up and it will automatically attach to e-mail? Makes total sense to be trying to figure this out 2 days before taking off!!! NOT!

Andrew

Your memory card comes out of the camera, and you can plug it into what's called a "card reader." When you plug this card reader into the computer's USB port, the card reader will show up as a new disk drive, for example the E: drive. Then you could access your pictures by navigating to E:\ in Windows. In Windows XP, a little window may even pop up to help you when you plug in the card reader.

You could buy a card reader to take with you - not sure if you have time. Probably costs $20 to $30. At home, you can plug the camera directly into your computer, but you might still find the card reader convenient to use. Unless your camera is a Canon, you might be able to plug the camera directly into a computer in an internet cafe and access it as a new drive - make sure you take the cable with you that came with the drive - instead of using a card reader.


Please note that you will not want to rely on emailing your pictures to save them. The file sizes can get huge. Some internet cafes will have the ability to burn a CD of your pictures so you can erase the card and start fresh, but be careful - CDs are not perfect technology! Make sure you verify the CD when burning it and don't erase your memory card until you have browsed the new CD to make sure you can see your pictures on it! Don't touch your CD - make sure you put it in a case and keep it clean and safe.

When emailing pictures to your friends from the cafe, note that the picture files will probably be HUGE and too large to email to people. If the cafe computer has a way to resize (shrink) the photos a little, resize them down to about 640x480 pixels (way too small to print very well but great for a computer screen). You might still email a few large sized photos to yourself with a free Yahoo or Gmail account, so you can have a couple of backups of keeper photos just in case something happens to your memory card.

Finally, it pays to have an extra memory card or two plus extra batteries - have plenty of extra batteries or the ability to recharge while you travel. Having an extra rechargeable battery is a good idea too if your camera takes that type. If you are using rechargable AA batteries realize they don't last as long as regular AA batteries. The worst thing that can happen is your batteries run out in the middle of the day when you can't get new ones or have to pay an arm and a leg!

Andrew

bashful

Thanks so much Andrew. I know we have an extra battery and I think we have a card reader. We got a bunch of "freebies" when we bought the camera. It's an olympus 600 and we have a 128 mb memory card. I will print out your instructions and give it a try!

bobrad

Hi ,

Your best investment is memory. A 128 mg card is only good for about 87 images in high quality. Memory is cheap you still have time to buy a one gig card. Also if you bought an Olympus take the charger that came with the camera and recharge the battery after every 150 shots.

kp

If you only have one 128 MG card you will definitely need more memory! You can check the number of photos the card will take once it is in the camera and you've set the quality & resolution. With current tech. that is a very small card.
There are different "schools of thought" when it comes to memory--several "small" cards or a couple "big" ones. My first camera came with an 8 MG card so I've added many cards as their capacity increased.
I would suggest you experiment with the card reader (and your camera) before your trip. Learning how to use new equipment can be very frustrating and you may find yourself wasting time. Doing this at home you also have the advantage of knowing where the local camera store is!
Enjoy your trip

LordBalfor

Yes, buy more memory cards. They are not that much money and are well worth the cost in my opinion. When I travel I carry 3 256mb cards, 2 128mb cards, a 64mb card and the 16mb card the camera came with. Of course I take a lot of photos so I'm not necessarily suggesting that you take what I take, just be aware that it's easy to take more photos than you think you will - especially if you are going somewhere expecially scenic. Keep in mind too that depending on where you are going, you can probably buy extra memory cards there if you need them.

Ken