How Do U upload ur pix on vacation?

[Corryn]

Hello,
I was wondering how everyone uploads their photos while on vacation?

I have a HP GoGo printer and a 5.1 mp digital camera.
I also just purchased a 2 GB Flash Pen Drive (is that the right name?)

I tried it out here at home, but I'm hoping it will work while on vacation:
- I took photos with my digital camera
- I then took the SanDisk card out of the camera and placed it into my GoGo printer
- I then took my flash pen drive and also placed it into the GoGo printer
- I then pressed the Transfer Photos option on the menu.
- When the button stopped blinking, I took the pen drive and the sandisk card out of the printer

I then took the flash drive and placed it into the USB port on my computer.
I checked the flash drive folder and the photos were there!

Now, I did this with no instructions, I really don't know anything about the flash pen drive, I just took a shot in the dark.

Is this how you do it?
Will my vacation photos remain on the flash pen drive until I go to Costco to print them out?
Should I delete the photos on my 2 GB SanDisk card when I transfer them over to the flash pen drive or should I just leave them on the card?

I once took my digital camera (when they were still new to the market) on vacation and every photo was ruined because the card was defective. Amazingly, it worked until I got home, but then I had no vacation photos.
I am just worried. I've been on a few vacations since then, but relied on regular film.
Any suggestions?
I appreciate them, Thank You

 

[JR6ooo4]

I just bring my laptop. and 5 gigs of Cf memory room for raw files.
MIkeeee

 

[OCSurfCity]

I tell people to take your CF or smart card into a local drug store and get them printed. Then have them burn you a CD of the images. Reformat the card and resume taking images!

I carry about ten 1GB CF cards and use medium resolution. The only time I use a large resolution is when I want to enlarge the image beyond poster size.

 

[Corryn]

What's CF?
Do the local drug stores do that - quickly, I mean?

I thought I heard I can get them burned onto a CD at the Parks?

 

[allyn]

i have one of these: vosonic X's-drive II

this is basically a laptop hard drive in a case with card slots along with tiny processor suitable for transferring from one to the other. vosonic makes several different models. often these are sold as an empty shell and then you buy the laptop hard drive that you need and install it (just plug it in). i have a 40GB hard drive in mine but i bought it a couple of years ago.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I copy the photos from my CF card to my laptop at night via a PCMCIA CF card reader. I do a quick pass through the photos and delete the ones that I don't want. I burn the photos from the laptop onto a DVD as a backup.

I also convert a few of my favorites from RAW to JPG and upload them to my photo site. If I'm staying at a hotel with free Internet access, I upload them that way. If the hotel doesn't, I connect my laptop to the Internet through my cell phone and upload them that way. It's slower, but it gets the job done.

The problem I'm going to face once the kids get old enough for an extended camping trip is how to keep a weeks worth of photos with me. If I were to try that today, I'd probably be a photo wallet like the Epson P2000 and bring extra batteries. At the rate CF card costs are falling, I might just get a bunch of CF cards and use them. In my experience, I shoot between 1 and 5 gig per day, depending on the circumstances.

 

[0bli0]

i generally have my travel laptop with me. i offload the images from the day with a card reader into Aperture, which allows me to quickly process the raw files and put up on the web. i then burn the raw files to dvd.

when i'm somewhere where i don't have my laptop (like my african safari last year), i use my epson p2000

 

[ndelaware]

What's CF?
Do the local drug stores do that - quickly, I mean?

I thought I heard I can get them burned onto a CD at the Parks?

CF is Compact Flash, just another type of memory card.

Many drug stores advertise "1 Hour Photo Developing", very few actually deliver unless you are the first one there in the morning.

You can get your pictures burned to a CD in any of parks. The photo stores at the front of each park can do this for you. It is not cheap though, around $12 or $13 per CD. The local Walgreens do it for about half that but they outside the parks.

It sounds like you did fine with getting your pictures onto the flash drive. All that matters is that they get on the drive and you had no problem doing that. If I were you I would see if you could now add some more pictures to the drive using the same manner without affecting the pictures that are already there.

 

[Groucho]

I too just bring along a laptop.

A flash drive has no real advantage over the memory card in your camera.

If you don't have a laptop, the easiest/cheapest thing to do is buy more memory cards. They're ridiculously cheap nowadays, especially if your camera takes SD. Normal-speed 1 gig cards can easily be had for $15 and occasionally as cheap as $8-9, and high-speed 2 gig cards are commonly found for around $30-40. I often purchase from buy.com as they regularly have very cheap deals on memory cards, unfortunately their web site is a bit of a mess but you can often find the cheapest cards in the "top seller" section.

If you use multiple cards, it's probably a good idea to label them somehow... I have mine marked "A" and "B" (just using two 512m ones now, planning on picking up a 2g soon.) That'll help you remember which are full and which aren't.

If you're worried about the disk being bad, you can probably do a test from inside Windows to verify that everything is OK. Open "My Computer" and right-click the drive where your memory card is. Click on Properties and go to the Tools tab. Click the "check now" button, check the box for "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors", and click Start. This should check every sector of data on the card for errors. I'm not 100% sure that this will work reliably on memory cards, but it should. I'm sure there are better ways but this should work on most any version of Windows.

It's also a good idea to format the card if you're about to take a bunch of critical photos. Usually, the cards can get corrupted if not removed properly from the computer - if you don't "eject" or "safely remove" them and files were in use. Formatting will help make sure that the file system is clean and uncorrupted.

 

[extreme8]

I just use one of these doohickeys with a 40GB drive.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=A-DPM1&cpc=SCH

I have 3 2GB high speed CF cards and just upload to the imagetank at night.
On our last trip I uploaded about 12 cards full of images and it never needed a recharge.
When I get home I plug it into the usb port and it appears as another hard drive.
Works like a champ. It's far easier to carry around than a laptop, doesn't require any boot time, and I'm less worried about it getting stolen.

 

[flowerfacade]

I am looking at the Canon Rebel XT. Currently, I have a Sony Mavica that burns directly onto a mini-CD, so saving multiple files (hundreds) has not been a problem. I don't have a laptop to carry around and am somewhat at a loss on how these memory cards work. How many picture files will one 1GB hold? I do know that the format makes a difference too. If we are going on a cruise, and I take approximately 500 pictures, how many of these memory cards (and size) should I take along? And all I do is swap them out as they get full?
Thanks!
Laura

 

[ndelaware]

I am looking at the Canon Rebel XT. Currently, I have a Sony Mavica that burns directly onto a mini-CD, so saving multiple files (hundreds) has not been a problem. I don't have a laptop to carry around and am somewhat at a loss on how these memory cards work. How many picture files will one 1GB hold? I do know that the format makes a difference too. If we are going on a cruise, and I take approximately 500 pictures, how many of these memory cards (and size) should I take along? And all I do is swap them out as they get full?
Thanks!
Laura

If you have the Rebel XT set at the highest JPEG setting you will get approximately 275 images on a 1 GB CF card.

Yes all you have to do is put a new CF card in and keep shooting.

 

[Corryn]

NDelaware, thanks for the info, I was looking for some technical advice. I'll give it a try.
Extreme8, I looked at that thing you posted, but that means I would have to also purchase a hard drive?
I have two computers here that don't work, but the hard drives are still good.
I took one of my old computer hard drives and put it in this computer because I had some stuff on that hard drive that I needed. So now I have two hard drives.

 

[rtphokie]

I just bring extra CF cards and worry about it when I get home. I'll probably get one of the storage devices that are being described here but they are still a little too pricey for me. Cheeper and more useful to get CF cards as I find them on sale.

 

[jann1033]

i was concerned and took 7 gb of cards with me( 2 2gb, 2 1gb, 2 512 mb ...i forgot to format one 2 gb till i had already started taking new pics so that gave me 6 gb )and i used all but 512 mb but that was a 14 day trip, mostly of driving my hubby crazy with me taking pics every other step . imo it was easier than having to mess around with hard drives and since i got all the cards on sale and or rebates, i think i only spent around 100-150 total for cards and i bought them here and there so no giant outlay of $$ pretrip. also since my rebel takes cf and they never seem to be as cheap as sd cards i got a converter/adapter and it worked great so now i can use sd or cf, which ever i happen to see on sale for cheapish if and when i need new cards

 

[Corryn]

I just got a 2 GB card off ebay for $40.
I also have 2 128 mb cards. They hold about 60 photos at best quality each, so I have room for approximately 940 photos.......
You know, when I usually go down and use film, I'll develop about 14 rolls, which is about 500 photos. I guess I'll have room for almost double the photos, but I'm still "nervous"..... I guess I'm feeling like my Italian MIL when company is coming over - You can never make enough food!

 

[ndelaware]

Corryn, if you switch the image quality to Medium-Fine, you can get app. 485 images one a 1GB card. This basically justs makes a smaller image. If you go to Medium-Normal you will get over 900 images on a 1GB card. This cuts the image quality a bit though.

 

[Corryn]

Thank you, I'm going to give it a try later on.................
I appreciate the technical advice
I'll let you know how it goes...I'm going for the Medium Fine

 

[MarkBarbieri]

There's nothing inherently wrong with medium-fine; just understand what you are giving up. You've just reduced the number of pixels (aka megapixels) in your image. It won't look any different on a computer screen or on a 4x6 print.

The difference comes when you want to crop the photo or print it large. In those cases, you might miss the extra pixels.

So shoot with the size that's appropriate for how you will display the picture.



A cynic might contend that most amateurs people have neither the glass nor the skill to take pictures where the difference between 4mp and 8mp matters. If your lens isn't all that sharp or your not all that steady or your focus isn't that accurate, the extra detail revealed by the higher resolution may not be extra detail after all.

 

[jann1033]

I just got a 2 GB card off ebay for $40.
I also have 2 128 mb cards. They hold about 60 photos at best quality each, so I have room for approximately 940 photos.......
You know, when I usually go down and use film, I'll develop about 14 rolls, which is about 500 photos. I guess I'll have room for almost double the photos, but I'm still "nervous"..... I guess I'm feeling like my Italian MIL when company is coming over - You can never make enough food!

just fyi i do find myself taking many many many more shots with digital, mostly the "what would happen if i took it this way instead" deals that i could delete if i needed more room but don't till i get home...i'm not italian even though i always make too much food when we have company but i would probably take at least one more 2 gb card if it were me hmm i guess i belong to the manga manga school of photography