Digital camera question

[DisMN]

We bought a new digital camera tonite and picked up the bigger memory card so we could take more photos. The memory card came with a flash drive.
What the heck is a flash drive and why do I need it?
My head is telling me to compare it to a floppy disc in that it will HOLD my pictures, is that right? So if I fill up the new memory card I can zip the pics onto the flash drive and free up the memory card for more pics? Is that how that works?

Dang, I feel so old. LOL

 

[DisMN]

Ack! Still feeling old here. LOL
Turns out what came with the memory card isn't a flash drive but a card reader.
What the heck is that and what do I do with it?

I'm still wanting something to hold images from the memory card so I can free it up for more pics right?

 

[elgerber]

The card reader will plug into your computer so you can load your pics from your memory card onto your hard drive. That is how you free up the card to take more pictures.

 

[Charade]

Ack! Still feeling old here. LOL
Turns out what came with the memory card isn't a flash drive but a card reader.
What the heck is that and what do I do with it?

I'm still wanting something to hold images from the memory card so I can free it up for more pics right?

There are two ways to get the pictures from your camera to your PC. One is to hook the camera directly to the PC using a cable (or a docking station attached by a cable), the other is to use a memory card reader (which you leave pretty much permanently attached to your PC) like the one you got with the memory card.

My personal preference is to use a memory card reader. That way I don't use up the batteries in my camera and it's usually faster. The only problem that comes up sometimes is when people erase pictures (or format the card (like you would a floppy disk)) from the memory card while it's in the reader. It's always recommended to transfer ALL pictures to your PC THEN delete the ones you don't want THEN format (or erase) the card IN the camera.

You really don't need anything but more memory cards to hold the pics until you have the chance to download them to your PC. There are devices (I have one) that will allow you to download pics from the card providing temporary storage until you get home.

Memory cards are fairly cheap these days so get a few smaller (but not too small, 512K or 1gig is a good size) ones rather than one extra large one. This way if you lose a card or it gets damaged (or unreadable), you won't lose all your pics.

 

[tkd lisa]

Erika is right.

Another option is that you can take files OFF your computer and store them on the memory card using that reader.

My mom got one of the same type of cards, and I had a hard time explaining it to her.

Basically, the memory card is like a floppy disk, it just holds more and is in a different shape. It slides into your camera just like the floppy disk slides into your computer. But to make it work with your computer, you have to use a "reader".

 

[DisMN]

Ohhhhh thankyou. You guys have helped tremendously! That's a valuable tip about buying a smaller size card.........my thought has been BUY BIG...obviously I never considered the failure of a card. Yikes!

My next question has to do with the whole quality thing. I'm playing with the camera before we go so I know what I'm doing. LOL Can you tell?
When I uploaded the pic to my computer they were HUGE....I don't want to have to resize every single picture as the photos I take are more for fun, not anything I need professional shots of. I'll mostly be emailing the photos, nothing major. I found the button that makes my pics the appropriate size for email but it mentions that I may lose some quality.

Is it just me......do I have bad eyes or something? I can't honestly tell the difference. Maybe a little bit but not enough to make me go back to the bigger size. Now too, instead of having room for 300 pics it's showing room for 2000+. Is that a bad thing?

 

[cardaway]

Is it just me......do I have bad eyes or something? I can't honestly tell the difference. Maybe a little bit but not enough to make me go back to the bigger size. Now too, instead of having room for 300 pics it's showing room for 2000+. Is that a bad thing?

You may not see a quality difference uintil you start zooming in. A picture taken at the higher quality setting allows you to zoom in quite a bit without it looking zoomed in.

With our new camera we took all our pictures (1200 on two 2gb cards) on the highest setting. Now that we are back we have found we will be able to zoom in and crop some pictures with very little loss of quality. That was not the case at all with the old camera.

You would also see a difference if you tried to make a large print of a picture taken on the email setting.