Digital Camera Users Please Respond!!

[TinkerbellMama]

Okay, I have seen some digital camera threads in the past, but this is a combo question and I'm not sure anyone else has admitted to this type of fear before, LOL!

We have been using a digital camera for only a short time, and I'm not entirely confident with it yet. I am always worried I will do something crazy and lose the pictures before I can get them uploaded. I am wondering what the SAFEST way to deal with this at WDW might be. We have a laptop but it is ancient and I'm not entirely positive it is reliable...we have a zip drive...DUH to me, but can you upload to that?? We also have a photo printer with SD slot, so I'm assuming there is some way we could save the photos on that (we'd want to save the files, NOT just print them out each night). Any thoughts? Am I being totally paranoid? How easy/difficult is it to lose pictures through total ineptitude? Should I just suck it up and pay whatever the fee is for transferring to CD each evening? How much does this cost and where can I do it in each park? Thanks for your responses!

 

[2Xited4Disney]

One thing you COULD do if you are nervous about bringin your computer is

purchasing lots of smaller memory cards. Rather than have all your pictures on one Large card then breaking the card or if you loose it you can have many smaller cards so if you loose one you will only loose about a 15 pictures...


Or course this will get very costly

 

[MessyJ]

I think it might actually be cheaper to get memory sticks than to burn them to CD each night. Just get however many sticks you deem appropriate, and use a new one when you fill up the one you have. This way you can just worry about what to do with all your pictures once you're home and life returns to normal. You can also, of course, reuse the memory sticks each trip you have. This seems to me to be a better deal than paying $99 to download your pictures onto a $.50 CD every night.

 

[LegoMom3]

Are you worried about something happening to them while you're at WDW, or after you get home and are trying to store them?

If it's the former, you really can't mess them up unless you tell the camera to format the memory card - and with most cameras you have to go looking for that feature in the menu, and then you are usually prompted "Are you sure?!" Unless you somehow lost a memory card, you're not likely to have a problem with them while you're away. I bring several and when one fills up, I store it away and go on to the next one.

Once you get home, there should be software that came with your camera that will allow you to simply plug it into the computer and download the pics. I just dump mine into a folder called "My Pictures" within my Documents folder. You could also upload to the Zip drive, if you prefer. Usually when you begin the upload process, the computer prompts you as to where exactly you want to save the picture files.

Hope this helps somewhat! Just keep playing with the camera until your trip and get as familiar with it as you can.

 

[LdyFaile]

I don't know what is available near the parks but you could always sign up for a free photo account (there are some out there that will give you 250 megs of space for free) before you go and practice uploading to it. Then every night instead of burning to a cd, go to an internet cafe, hook up your camera, and upload to your photo account. Of course that's making a lot of assumptions about the accessibility of an internet cafe with the proper ports for you to connect your camera to...

So I think probably the multiple memory card idea isn't a bad one.

I'd like to say though that while I've not been to WDW before..I did go to Kenya for a week and didn't come anywhere near to filling my 1 gig memory card even with taking about 700 pictures. They all made it home safely too (though my camera's a little worse for wear as I dropped it at the airport coming home)

Amber

 

[crow11ad]

On our 1st 3 trips we had our sony cd digital camera. It takes mini cd's. You can get the mini cd's for about 5.00 for 10 of them. Needless to say this was a very cost effective way to make sure all pics would be taken.

 

[penguingirlie]

I agree with the others that you should just buy extra memory cards. They even have cases that you can store all of them in. That way they stay protected. At least if you buy the cards you can keep them and use them again. If you pay for the CD's then you can't ever use them for other trips!

 

[dmk1021]

I have traveled to WDW and DL with four different digital cameras without a problem. Definitely bring 3 or 4 different cards, and try to use them all, so if by some rare circumstance one crashes, you won't lose all your vacation pics.

Also, I've read on AllEars that at least MK (not sure about other parks) offers a service now where you can have your memory card (and therefore pictures) transferred to a CD in the park. You can use this to clear space on a card, or to give yourself a backup before going home (I recommed this as a backup since you are so concerned about something going wrong with your pictures).

Good Luck, you'll be fine!

 

[aterriq]

Yes, we have the ancient ZIP drive also and use it for backup. When you hook up the camera to your computer, it is seen as a device. You can click on the device and you should see two folders. One should be the camera memory and one should be your stick memory.

Just transfer your photos from the stick memory now to your ZIP drive folder.

Practice at home first so you know you can do it.

 

[brer rabbit 28]

we are staying on 192 so i plan on filling up my memory card and then going to wallmart and transfering to disc.I have been told they do it really cheaply.

 

[cancilla]

I'm paranoid about losing pictures, too .

I just purchased a Memorex TravelLink (found it on Amazon) for our upcoming WDW trip. It allows you to transfer photos from a camera or memory card to almost any USB device (flash drive, hard disk, etc.) without a computer. My plan is to back my photos up to a flash drive every night and not erase them from my camera (I'll have multiple camera memory cards).

--Dominick

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Just buy more memory cards. They are so cheap they're laughable. I own the total of 6 Gb. That's more than enough for one month's worth of picture taking.

 

[gigsjp]

SD cards (Secure Digital) also have a little tab on them. If you flip the tab into the locked position before putting it into your camera's memory slot, it will not allow you to delete pictures.

John

 

[seashoreCM]

Do not erase or re-use the memory cards or memory sticks until after you have seen the pictures on a screen as played back from two other sources such as two zip drives or one CD and one computer hard drive.

Buy more memory cards as needed until you get home or otherwise somehow have proven that the pictures are stored in two other different places.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[HollyJoy]

Well, you are not alone! LOL I LOVE our digital camera(s), yes we have two, but sometimes I have a hard time with them. For our last trip, DH bought a new Digital SLR camera and took a gazillion pictures before going to familarize himself with it. I would do the same with yours. Secondly, we had a laptop on our trip, so we could download all the pictures off the camera. Warning, our photos were huge in size, and thank goodness we had brought and external hard drive along for back up. But if you are worried about losing pics, you can always have them put onto a cd at a camera store. I've heard that there is one in the MK. Not sure of the prices though. Also, make sure you take advantage of the Photo Pass! That way you definately have a back up.

On our last trip, we went to a character meet and greet w/woody, jesse and bullseye.. well, our pictures were way too dark, so we knew to go back and do it again The beauty of digital!

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

Also, prior to using a new card or whenever you clear off the old pics - make sure you FORMAT THE MEMORY CARD. This is something they tell you in the user's manual but for those of us that jump right in..

 

[Sleeping Jedi Beauty]

It's a great idea to familiarize yourself with the camera before you go. Know exactly what you need to do to delete pictures and see how likely it would be to accidentally delete them. I would also advise not to lets kids play with the camera. On mine, you have to press a completely different button. I think the only way I could accidentally delete my pictures would be if I screwed up or let somebody play with it who didn't know what they were doing.

 

[eeyoreiscool]

I would also suggest getting several cards if you are worried. The only problems I have had with memory cards losing the pictures is when trying to download them. One card became corrupted and almost lost all the pictures then.

 

[bord1niowa]

I have been using several cards daily for about 5 years and never has 1 ever given me any trouble. I plan on taking all 3, 2 for pictures and 1 big one for video. I wouldn't worry too much about it. But if you feel better, you can get 1 gig for about $50 if you look hard enough, especially on ebay. Good luck!

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Most of them come with software that allows the computer to treat the camera as a logical drive. You can then use the copy function of windows to copy the files without deleting them as they are transferred. That's EVEN IF your viewer software doesn't have such a function. Then if anything goes wrong, you didn't erase the files. Then all you do is use your viewer software that came with the camera, view the pics. Make sure they came through. Then you delete the pics.

If you're really worried, Disney will download them onto a CD for you. It costs, but if you're really concerned.