How many memory cards(and how big) do you take

[Nettaboo]

When you go to WDW and do you take your laptop to upload your pictures once they are filled?

 

[richmo]

If the only reason to take a laptop along is to copy your pictures, it would be a lot easier to just pick up an extra memory card or two for your camera. Memory cards are pretty cheap these days.

I have a 2Gb card in my camera and I think it holds something like 600 pictures, which is far more than I'd take anyway. If that was a problem, I'd just buy another card.

 

[RustManFan]

I don't take my laptop to WDW but do take it when we rent a lakeside place in New Hampshire.

I generally take 2 memory cards (but don't think I have used both on the same trip) They are both 2GB cards.

 

[JEAhrtWDW]

2 2GB memory cards would have worked for our 5 day trip, but I do not think that it will work for our 10 day trip and DS(2)'s first. I will bring my laptop to upload pictures off the memory card

 

[crow11ad]

We will be gone in Florida for 12 days, 9 which will be at WDW. I will be bringong the laptop. Plus we can do trip reports.

 

[PrincessMonkey]

When you go to WDW and do you take your laptop to upload your pictures once they are filled?

We currently have one 2GB card that came with our camera, but we take lots of pictures (along with buying a Disney Photopass), and we dislike having to empty the camera's pictures into our laptop each night, because it took up about an hour for each transfer. So, we want to expand the capacity of our camera's storage.

We were originally planning to buy a new 8GB card, but after some research, we have decided to buy a few more 2 GB cards, which are at a great price.

The logic is this: if an 8GB card goes bad, all of the pictures / videos are lost. On the other hand, multiple smaller cards will need to be swapped out when they are full (and we need to keep track of them in a ziploc bag, etc.), but at least we wouldn't lose all of our pictures from the trip if any single card goes bad.

We are still going to take a small Mac laptop with us. But with multiple cards, we will save time and be able to transfer the pictures at our convenience.

 

[WriteDisney]

I took two 2GB memory cards and a 4GB memory card on our 10 day trip we just took.. I only used one of the 2GB cards and just about filled about the 4GB card.. didn't use the other 2GB card though it is nice to have just in case!

 

[shadowryter]

Our last trip consisted of 12 days and 3 2GB memory cards. I filled them all.

 

[sbell111]

I keep three cards in the bag (or camera); a one gb, two gb, and 4 gb. I use the 1 gb card first, then the 2 gb card. I don't really do this because I am worried that my cards are going to die, I do it because it takes longer to zip through the pics in the camera using the larger cards, even though they are high speed cards.

 

[Brian_WDW74]

I've moved this thread to the Photography board.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I will typically take four or five 2g cards, though backup to laptop at end of each day and then burn a DVD for that day.

 

[Joselle173]

I think I'd rather carry a little memory card than an entire lap top (less hassle at the airport too), provided you can wait to view your photos until you get home. I would choose smaller memory cards (1-2 gb) mainly because if something snafus at least you haven't lost every photo you took of the entire trip. Also, how many photos you can get on a card depends on the quality you choose (usually a camera has several settings from low to high quality and if you have a DSLR, you can also shoot in RAW, which takes up more memory space.)

I shoot tons of photos, and have a 1GB and 2 GB card. I think it'll be plenty (about 900 photos if I fill them up at high quality jpegs.)

 

[WillCAD]

I have been taking my laptop any time I go to Florida. I use it for downloading and processing my pics, but also for getting on the net, and sometimes as a giant MP3 player, since I have ALL of my digital music on the laptop but can only fit a fraction of it on my MP3 player and its MicroSD cards.

But on shorter trips where I leave the laptop at home, I carry memory cards large enough to fit one heavy shooting days worth of pics, and have 1 for each day of the trip, plus a spare. For me, this means 1gb cards, since a 1gb card will hold about 250-300 pics on my camera's highest quality settings, and I rarely shoot more than 250 pics in a single day.

At the end of each day, I put the used cards, full or not, in my hotel safe, and put a fresh, empty card in my camera. This way, if something happens to my camera or one of my cards, I can never lose more than one days pics; I'll never lose the whole trip.

When I have my laptop with me, I download my pics every night and rotate the memory cards, and I burn a DVD of the whole trip's pics before I go home. The DVD acts as a backup in case something happens to my laptop; it goes in my checked bag on the way home, not in the laptop or camera case.

 

[DebºoºS]

I've been taking 4-5 2GB cards. If I run out of space I'll burn CD's at WDW.

 

[Nettaboo]

Thank you all for you responses!! They help alot!!
I espcially like the one about replacing the card at night regardless if it is full or not. I lost alot of pictures from Universal last year and If I had done that, I would still have my dds picture with barney!!

 

[tubachick]

I'll bring several memory cards with, currently I have 3- 1G, 2- 2G and 1- 4G. I put a new one in everyday or when one is full. That way if one is lost or damaged I don't loose all my pictures. Also, I can take as many pics as I like without having to delete any before I go through them all.

 

[Golf4food]

Our last long trip I filled up 5 GB worth of total space in JPEG. I now shoot in RAW, but I also do not take as many pictures either - being picky in what I shoot. My goal is to take fewer pictures each trip, lol - quality, not quantity. The exception there being fireworks (which I shoot in JPEG for speed and space considerations) and some of the shows with lots of fast moving action where I might want to snap of a lot of pics - Lights, Motors, Action or Indiana Jones come to mind. This year I will have 2- 1GB cards, 2- 2GB cards, and 1- 4GB card. I might add another 2 or 4 GB before our 6 day trip in December just in case. Or I might get a portable hard drive instead. We'll see what special deals Black Friday holds.

 

[JonetteA]

I will be taking 2 8's and 2 4's on this next trip. I like to swap out in case a card goes bad.

 

[Donold_Fan]

We just returned last night, I took 1-8GB, 1-4GB, 3-2GB and 1-1GB. I pretty much filled the 4 and 8 GB cards each day. I emptied them at night to my laptop and also to at least 1 external hard drive. I usually mirrored the external to another external during the day while we were at the parks. The external drives were out of necessity as I only had about 30 gb of disk space on the laptop's internal drive. I had to move things to external to keep some space free.


I ended up shooting about 6500 shots. And about 75% of those in Raw + JPG mode. I haven't gotten good enough (and probably never will) to take fewer shots. I follow the "take a lot of shots and a couple should turn out" philosophy.

 

[korinian]

I plan on bringing 5 2gb cards and offloading them to the Hyperdrive each night.

It's a nice device:
- High Res 3.2" color LCD screen displays JPEG & RAW
- Backup directly from 11 different memory card types
- Blazing fast card backup speed. Backup 1GB in 1min
- Extremely fast USB transfer speed (28MB/s)
- Unlimited capacity (40~500GB & beyond)
- Ultra powerful battery (backup 120GB per battery)
- 32-bit copy verification system
- Card scan, repair & image recovery tools
- Ultra compact (only 25mm thick)

I don't have to bring my laptop, I can view the pictures along with their EXIF data and Histograms, and the transfer speeds are great. You can read about it at the hyperdrive website.

Leaving in 5 days!!!

Korinian