Digital Cameras at the World - what do you do?

[qv09vvp]

Given that you have a decent size card (say one that will hold 200+) pictures for whatever megapixels your camera is, what do you do when you run out of space on the card at Disney?

I've bought 2 good size cards, but know for a fact that between epcot flower festival & star wars weekends, plus regular disney stuff I will absolutely need to do something to save the pictures & clear the card.

I don't want to buy another card. Disney is the only place that I will have this problem.

So...how many of you bring laptops, or other devices to Disney for this purpose. Also, I emailed Kodak & they tell me that their Kiosk on Main Street will burn 120 pictures to CD....i think for about 15 bucks. Has anyone used this service?

 

[JeanJoe]

Also, I emailed Kodak & they tell me that their Kiosk on Main Street will burn 120 pictures to CD....i think for about 15 bucks. Has anyone used this service?

Two trips ago, I used their CD-burning service, out of desperation when we ran out of space, and after I realized how much buying a new card on-site would be.

This trip, determined not to make the same mistake, we came armed with two 1GB CF cards...

I'd recommend just buying an extra memory card before your trip -- it's more economical than any on-site option.

 

[cutienibbler]

We take a laptop.

 

[oogieboogie]

I always take a laptop. I have to because I take an average of 150-200 pics per day and more during parades, fireworks, Flower garden festival, star wars weekend, etc. Last year I took over 200 pictures on one afternoon alone. I ended up with over 300 pics that day. If I don't bring a laptop, I'd be paying mucho dinero to either burn it to a CD or by buying tons of memory cards.

If you don't want to buy another card, and you have a car at WDW, the best place to go is Walgreens. It's just outside of Disney and considerably cheaper than WDW prices.

 

[Pixie]

I've taken a laptop and gone just wth several memory cards. I hated havng to carry the laptop through the airpots but ran out of space on the memory cards. My dc cannot handle a 1g memory disk. I'll either have to buy more 256 cards or take the laptop. I'm still deciding.

 

[JeanJoe]

Or really splurge and get one of these:

Epson P-2000 Multimedia Storage Viewer, 40gb capacity, reviewed at http://www.dpreview.com/news/0410/04101203epson_p2000.asp

I'd love to get something like that, rather than lug around a laptop.

 

[Keebles]

If you have friends who use the same cards as you, ask to borrow theirs for a week!! I've got 2 256's and 2 128's, but I'm still gonna borrow 2 more 256's from my friend (I take a lot of pics!).

 

[manticore]

I use a portable card reader/hard drive with a 20GB notebook drive I had. They work great! I clear off my memory cards every night and start fresh in the morning. Takes most memory cards and this one doubles as a basic mp3 player. You can also use it as an external hard drive on your computer.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VP-300&cpc=SCH

Note: The cost is less the hard drive, you need to either buy one or have one already.

 

[DAWGPOUNDAJ]

My recommendation: Bring your labtop and each night burn your own CD with your pictures. Photography shops can use your CDs to still print your photographs (I worked at one and we got that a lot, some cannot but most should be able to, ask your local one about it first). That way each night your card is cleared completely and then you won't run into that problem hopefully.

 

[dizluvr71]

We are bringing our laptop. We did this last year at DL and had about 400 pictures from our trip. I expect we'll have lots more this year.

 

[barbarabee]

ACK! Don't bring a laptop, it's such a pain dealing with it at the airport! I'd rather spend the $15 at the park to burn the CDs...which is what I did when I was there last year. It was super easy. I brought 2 256 cards, and when one was full, I just dropped it off at the sundry shop at Boardwalk Villas, and stuck the other 256 card in my camera. The next night, my CD was waiting for me along with my first 256 card at the sundry shop...so I was always ready to go! I had two CDs made while at the parks during a 9 day trip.

 

[dewaynechapman]

I am going in January and unfortunately my job requires that I have my laptop with me wherever I go. I also can get about 550 pictures on my 512 MB card, so I will just download them off each evening.

 

[twoksmom]

We're taking dh's laptop to burn a disc each night. I want to make sure that we don't run out of room. April

 

[WillCAD]

I always take my laptop,, but for those who don't have one and who don't want to spend $500 on a portable storage device, the Kodak download option is a good one (assuming you don;t mind blowing $15 on every 120 pics you shoot).

Another option, if you have a car at WDW, is to go to any of the local Walgreens. They all have a CD download machine in thier 24-hour photo centers and the only charge $2.99 per CD. And the only limit on how many pics is how many will fit on the CD!

 

[amyjo]

My husband will not travel without his laptop (I think he needs a self-help group) so we always download the pics every night. We do this even if the card isn't full (ours holds almost 700 pics) just in case something bad happens.

 

[nocnurse]

Besides downloading photos, a laptop can also provide the priceless peace of mind an entertained child brings.

I lug it along so dd can watch DVDs during layovers, and inflight. It is also a necessity because dh loves to squander memory in the camera by constantly using the video mode. This way I can transfer the pics to the laptop, and have space in the camera for the next day. I also like being able to e-mail pics home to family.

 

[mommytutu]

We travel with our laptop. We loved having our laptop with us to dump our pic on every night. My dh would update the ftp site each night so our family back home could log on everyday and see what we were doing. It was fun! We didn't have a single problem with the laptop at the airport. I think dh had to turn on the laptop for security, but it certainly wasn't a big deal. It was actually really handy because dh and ds plugged in their own headphones and watched movies during the flight.

 

[matthewsmom1]

I don't run out of space. I have a 5MP camera and take pics on the highest resolution. I have a 1gig card & 256mB card. I've taken over 900 pictures and still had plenty of room.

 

[vascubaguy]

My last trip I didn't take a laptop and I ran out of space. I was staying off-site and had a car, so I went to the nearby Walmart and had them burn the images to CD for me (it was much cheaper than at the park).

However, my trip coming up I will be taking my laptop (not just for pics and entertainment, but if I have to do some homework too).

Just a recommendation for all of the DC users. The megapixel of the camera affects the amount of space each picture takes up on the memory cards. For those that have cameras with high megapixels, I suggest changing the settings so that it records with a lower megapixel. The megapixel doesn't affect picture quality, just the maximum size of the picture. For instance, if you take a picture with a 3 mp camera, you could print up to a 10x13 photo, but if you try to make it any bigger, it might look distorted. For most, this might be overkill so you could change the settings in the camera to take a picture at 2 mp (8x10 max print size) or around 1mp (5x7). I have a 5mp camera and I currently have it set to take pictures at 3.2mp and I sometimes move it from the 2 - 3mp range. You'll be suprised how reducing the mp will increase the number of pictures you can take. By changing mine from 5mp to 3.2mp, it doubled the number of pictures I could take. Try it, I think you'll be suprised and it might save you some money on buying additional memory cards.

 

[tlbwriter]

Just a recommendation for all of the DC users. The megapixel of the camera affects the amount of space each picture takes up on the memory cards. For those that have cameras with high megapixels, I suggest changing the settings so that it records with a lower megapixel. The megapixel doesn't affect picture quality, just the maximum size of the picture. For instance, if you take a picture with a 3 mp camera, you could print up to a 10x13 photo, but if you try to make it any bigger, it might look distorted. For most, this might be overkill so you could change the settings in the camera to take a picture at 2 mp (8x10 max print size) or around 1mp (5x7). I have a 5mp camera and I currently have it set to take pictures at 3.2mp and I sometimes move it from the 2 - 3mp range. You'll be suprised how reducing the mp will increase the number of pictures you can take. By changing mine from 5mp to 3.2mp, it doubled the number of pictures I could take. Try it, I think you'll be suprised and it might save you some money on buying additional memory cards.

That's a good point, and it's something a lot of people don't know about. However, one other thing to keep in mind is that if you like to crop your photos, you'll want to leave it at a higher setting, so you can print the smaller cropped version as a full-size photo. Now, if you frame your photos perfectly every time, this may not matter to you. But I don't, and I like to crop out those annoying things I didn't notice when I took the picture in the first place. Or focus on my favorite part of the picture.

For example, here's one of my favorite photos, taken at MGM:

I didn't like that woman in the background, so I cropped her out. But even more than that, I was also able to crop it into a horizontal closeup that still printed beautifully as an 8X10:

Just something else to think about, to make your decision harder!