Digital Cameras

[Robin's Mom]

We are going 4/30-5/7 and DH does not think I will max the camera card.

Is there anyplace to download the pics to a cd or website so that we don't have to buy 4 cards?

 

[Msslaydbug]

Could you buy just one bigger card ? What about a 1 or 2 gb card ? Not sure what type your camera needs. But I know they make these sizes in Compact Flash !

 

[rwodonnell]

For me, even a very large card would get filled up. Depending on the camera (well, really on the size of the pictures) you may fit only 200-300 pictures on a 1 GB card (I'm sure that varies widely). I would run out of room in 8 days for sure.

What I do is take my laptop and download them every night. I have a 512M card that doesn't fill up for me in 1 day (though it can get close!). If you don't have a laptop, there are places that can burn CDs for you - both onsite and offsite. I have no experience with any of those, so what I know is hearsay. They say that the onsite places need your card overnight (would be a problem for me). I don't know about the off-site places (like Walmart and Walgreens). I think the Walgreens on 192 is 24 hours, at least according to the Walgreens website.

 

[dbenlee]

I wouldn't get just one big card, instead get and use several smaller cards just in case you have a problem with a card and lose all of your pictures. As for downloading, all of the photoshops in the parks can download and burn your pictures to CD.

 

[rwodonnell]

As for downloading, all of the photoshops in the parks can download and burn your pictures to CD.

Do you have experience doing this? Do they need to keep your card for a while, or can they burn the CD on the spot?

 

[dbenlee]

I do not have experience with this at DIsney. I personally have enough memory cards to be able to wait until I get home and am able to download to my own computer and burn them myself. I have heard different things about whether they need to keep the card for a while, some people have said they have to keep the card for a while, but I can't imagine it should take more than 30 minutes to get this done.

 

[rwodonnell]

I suppose even if they did have to keep the card for a few hours, what you could do is drop your full or nearly full one off in the morning as you enter the park and pick up your CD on your way out. That way you need only 2 cards. My first thought was dropping it off on my way out at night after using it all day, but the problem there is that you might not come back to the same park the next day.

I agree though - it shouldn't take them that long to do it. Just that I've read here some claiming it does.

 

[julia & nicks mom]

Disney has to keep your card until the next day - that is what they told me at MGM and I would say I went around 3:00 to find out -

be careful off site - I went to walgreens and they lost some of my picrures - luckily I realized it before I deleted and only deleted what was on their disk!

I have heard people say good things about Wal- Mart - but it is further away from the parks

 

[crow11ad]

If you can get the Sony CD-Mavica camera. We have taken this twice during our last 2 trips. This camera rocks. From the previous posts you are worried about running out of room. That is why this camera rocks. It does not take cards, but mini cd's. You can get a pack of mini cd's anywhere from $7-10.00. I know on one cd I got 400 + pics and that was at the highest setting.

 

[MainStreet USA]

Robin's Mom, what is your camera's resolution, and how big is your current card?

Perhaps, if your camera allows it, you can shoot on a lower setting to conserve space. I don't like to do this, but I find myself doing it on ocassion. I make day trips to WDW and take a TON of pictures. I shoot with a 5.0MP camera and can fill up my 128mb card in just over 50 shots. I also carry a 256mb and a 16mb (the little one came with the cam) in reserve, but firing on the 5.0 setting, I will frequently fill those up too. So sometimes if I see that I am going to be running low, i will set my camera to shoot on the 3.1mp setting, which still takes fine quality pictures, but take a whole lot less space.

My recommendation, if you do not have a laptop or some access to a computer of your own while on this trip, is to make the investment of more or larger memory cards. I realize they are more expensive now, but it will benefit you in the long run, because you will be able to use them for future trips and such as well. You wont have to be making plans all the time to go upload your pictures somewhere in a hurry so you can get back to your vacation.

And unless you are shooting with a honking 7 megapixel camera and are planning on making posters out of all your pics and don't plan on reviewing and deleting the bad ones as you make them... I really don't see how you will use up more than 1 or 2 gigs on a week's vacation. Knock down your resolution a notch or two, buy another card or two, delete the pics that came out poorly (that's the one of the biggest benefits of digital - instant review of your pics), and get out from behind the viewfinder for a bit. Enjoy your trip!

 

[Robin's Mom]

What great suggestions!

We will be staying in the BCV with no car to go offsite so everything needs to be done on property.

I just shoot the pictures!! I will have DH look at all of the suggestions this evening so that he can make the proper arrangements.

Just in case, I think I will bring one disposable camera!

 

[Humphrey Bear]

You may want to take the cables that allow you to review your pictures on tv. We do this every night before we go to bed to review our great day in the park and if there was a bad shot we still have time to go back the next day to recapture a memory. It frees up a lot of unnecessary pictures that are blurry or just not what we really wanted. Our son also enjoys getting to see himself on the tv with his disney friends before he goes to bed.

 

[rwodonnell]

You may want to take the cables that allow you to review your pictures on tv. We do this every night before we go to bed to review our great day in the park and if there was a bad shot we still have time to go back the next day to recapture a memory. It frees up a lot of unnecessary pictures that are blurry or just not what we really wanted. Our son also enjoys getting to see himself on the tv with his disney friends before he goes to bed.

One of the many reasons I love my laptop! Can't live without it now. Not sure I should be admitting that...

 

[dcg0317]

How about one of these,(http://www.micro-solutions.com/roadstor/index.asp) a little pricey but good investement if planing on transferring your pictures to a cd, even at home, at least you know if they all transferred.I was going to buy it but now going to buy there DVD burner, can get more pictures on the DVD than on a cd. Some places like Walgreens lowers the pixel resloution from the original so they can add more pictures to the cd, I would check before you have one of these places burn your photo's to a cd and see if they do this.

 

[rwodonnell]

I saw something in BJs Wholesale Club today that made me think of this thread - came back to look it up on the web.

mediaGear Flash-HD to Go

It's basically a portable flash drive that reads the major media types. I had to think something like this existed, just hadn't seen it yet.

The 20GB one at BJs was $139. They appear to have 40GB and 60GB sizes.

The 20GB would probably be enough for me, and would mean I wouldn't have to buy too many cards. Also, if I had others traveling with me, I could get their pictures, or they could at least store theirs as well.

 

[MainStreet USA]

I have got to get me one of those! Now... the wait begins for the next year or so for the price to come down on them.

 

[macphrsn]

I just bought the 60gb Flash-HD, just trying to figure out how it works, anyone have any experience with this?

 

[princesstommi]

I took 500+ 7megapixel photos last week, and they all fit on a 1 gig card, with room to spare. We had the laptop with us, but never needed to use it.

 

[drenkey]

Here's another option you may want to consider...

We always take our laptop so we can download photos from our camera onto our computer and then have an empty card to start the next day. Also, we use our laptop to listen to CDs and watch DVDs during our flights and in the evening in our room.

I hope this helps!

 

[oogieboogie]

This is the one I have - it's essentially a portable hard drive on steroids because not only does it copy the contents of your memory card straight to the HD without computers, but it also plays mp3s, has a radio and records radio and voice/microphone. I took it with me on my last two trips and am quite happy with it because I only have 2 256mb cards and I just keep filling and erasing the cards.

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.663/it.A/id.777/.f

I bought separately an 80GB hard drive for it and for less than $250 I had an mp3 player, radio, voice recorder and portable hard drive. Pretty hard to beat that price.