how much memory is enough?

[battricia]

I'm going on a trip for 6 days to disney. I have a 1gig and a 512 card. I'm debating whether or not I want to take my laptop. How much Does everyone usually take on vacation, and how much does it cost to transfer/burn your photos to CD at disney? Thanks.

tricia.

 

[Shanan]

DH says that I go on vacation looking through my camera. In December I took 1012 pictures in 8 days. Part of the time I was solo. I had a Sony Mav5 & it used the minidisks. I had to buy a new camera in January - got the Nikon D50. DH and I are going with 10 other people. Since I know that I take alot of pictures, DH is bringing his laptop. I have a 2 gig, 1 gig & 2 512 cards. I also have a spare camera battery that I am charging now. I know that there will be some days that we get back into the room very late & we will not want to be downloading pictures and all of that.

I don't know the exact cost to burn your photos but I have read other posts and people seem to think that it is high.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Taken from my photography blog:

how much memory is enough for my upcoming trip?

There is no real answer to the question. The sky is the limit, or in this case, your wallet is the limit.

However, you have to think and think hard. What kind of a photographer are you? The new-school-of-digital kind? The ones who take pictures upon pictures upon pictures without thinking, ending up with 4,000 photos in 5 days then discard about 3,857 pictures once you get home? or are you the old-school kind? The ones who compose the shots in the head, then take the picture, ending up with 300 photos in 5 days then discard about 50 pictures once you get home?

I'm the second one. To be more accurate, I'm the second one to the extreme. Not because I'm good or anything, but I was trained under the situations where I can only take no more than 300 photos in 10 days way back when film was king. Now I treat digital the same way I treat my films. I restrict myself even further by taking ONLY JPEG. There is not much room to fix your photos if you use JPEG. Time constraints restrict me even further. I don't have time (or the energy) to colour correct every single picture I took. I download them to my PC and the most I would do are noise reduction for all my ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 shots (I just use bath process for these) and the ocassional level adjustments.

Personally, I recommend everybody to do the same thing I do. This way your face doesn't get stuck onto your camera all the time, you save money in buying memory cards, and you save time selecting/editing/deleting them.

Just my 2 cents, which in the Internet Currecy Exchange amounts to nothing.

Cheers!

posted by Kelly Grannell @ 3:54 PM

 

[battricia]

Thanks. I have a cdmav. that I'll be bringing also, along w/ thousands of discs. it's just that it's so bulky and I was looking forward this time to bringing my tiny camera around (sony dsc-t7). Atleast I'll have backup if I need it. My boyfriend thinks it's a bad idea to bring the laptop as we're staying @ the pop and it might not fit in the safe, especially with the cd mavica. I'll have to think this one through.

If anyone can answer about the CDs that would be great.

Thanks!
tricia.

 

[TomPokNY]

If anyone can answer about the CDs that would be great.

Thanks!
tricia.

I've never used the photo transfer service before, but poking around a bit, I was able to find some information, though it might be a little old. The wdwmagic web site indicates that the price in April 2005 was $12.99 plus tax. (I'm not allowed to post links yet, but you can go to wdwmagic and search on Digital Camera Transfer Service for more information.) I also saw on allearsnet that the price was for transfer of up to 120 photos. Not sure if that has changed recently, but you might want to consider that in your decision.

On my recent trip, I took 1GB of CF cards with me, and I had a 6GB microdrive that I used with my PDA to back up photos each night. Over 7 days and using 2 cameras, I took around 1700 photos, about 2.5GB worth.

One of the reasons I took so many was because I was experimenting with a dSLR that I recently purchased. I do tend to take multiple shots of certain scenes, especially parades and shows, where energetic performers can make or break a photo. With film, more than a few times I've gotten home and discovered ruined photos because a dancing character waved at precisely the wrong moment and blocked its face, or I caught a singer in an awkward facial expression. I do agree with Kelly's "compose carefully in your head, then shoot" philosophy to a point. However, one of the advantages of digital photography is the small space that the photos occupy, and not being as constrained as you are with film, its 36 shots per roll, and all the film you can carry. Why not take advantage of that to get just the right photo?

 

[Jilly16]

Recently Best Buy had 1 gb Sandisk SD cards for $34.99. I bought two of them for my kodak V603. They hold about 528 photos each. If am a photo freak. I know I will be taking Digital Photos of just about everything. I also got the new Sony DSLR camera and also bought 2 gb memory sticks of memory for that. I am taking 4gb to disney world. I know that may seem like a lot, but you've never seen me in action taking photos.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Jilly16, the Sony you've just bought is NOT dSLR by any way shape or form. It's a glorified point and shoot as I've mentioned in the other thread.

 

[Jilly16]

Do you think I should return my new sony camera?

 

[Marinerbaby]

I usually take (2) 1GB cards and 2 512 cards. I shoot with a Canon 20D. I have four kids and take lots of pictures because you just never know when you are going to get the perfect shot with little one's. They move fast. I bring a laptop and download each evening. I know many think it is overkill but I love what I do which is taking pictures.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

It really depends on two things.

1. price and your maximum budget
2. whether you want dSLR performance (fast startup time, fast AF, no shutter lag, great high ISO performance.)

It's not a bad camera, but:

1. there is no room to grow because of no interchangeable lens
2. small sensor which translates to high ISO noise above ISO 400 which means taking Spectromagic and indoor sports or concert virtually impossible
3. longer startup time and even longer shutter lag (so when you press the shutter to take a picture, there will be a half second lag, which in my application means getting the picture or not)

Now, IF the salesperson told you that you're getting a dSLR, I will return the camera on principal.

 

[boBQuincy]

I use mainly RAW (for the best quality possible) and take a *lot* of photos. On my last trip I finally had enough CF cards that I didn't need my laptop. How many was that?

About 2 GB per day. Iow, it varies a lot, depending on the photographer and their style.


boB

 

[Kelly Grannell]

this is where bob and I agree to disagree. I personally find that JPEG is more than good good enough and far more efficient than shooting in RAW. Once you get the exposure perfectly, there is no point in using RAW. You can see samples of my work in JPEG on any Yamaha ads around the world, concert pictures, landscape, architectural, food styling, fashion on magazines and on this board, all taken using JPEG, no post processing other than minor cropping and (if necessary) ISO noise reduction.

 

[Sonno]

Is there such a thing as "enough"?

I'm just going to get a SanDisk Extreme III 4 GB Compact Flash Card and a Zen Vision.
Problem solved.

 

[boBQuincy]

You *knew* I would answer!

JPG is more efficient, no question.

Correct exposure is a little more difficult. JPG can only capture 256 levels of brightness, RAW can capture 4096. A high contrast scene will require heavy in-camera compression of levels in order to be converted to JPG. The RAW will require much less compression, 16 times less in fact.

In a studio where you have good control over lighting this may not be an issue. In much of my photography, where correct exposure of highlights *and* shadows is near impossible, I am glad I have the extra 4 bits of range.

On to post-processing... JPG is not the true, the faithful, the real photo that many make it out to be.
*Fact: a JPG is processed very heavily inside the camera. The sensor captures RAW, then adjusts levels, white balance, color compensation, saturation, sharpening, and data compression. The JPG is very likely to be *more* processed than the RAW file when all is done.

The big difference is the JPG processing is determined by an engineer at the camera factory, the RAW processing is determined by the photographer.

Which is better? Everyone must decide for themselves after trying both methods.
Our results speak for themselves, and as a photographer of course I admire your photos and your talent.


boB

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Thank you for the compliment and it goes to you too. This is a nice place where two photographers using two different approaches can meet and not bite each other head's off.

Just curious, Bob, because I don't know much about in camera processing. I always set all parameters to zero (sharpness, colour and saturation, etc). Does it add anything to the picture?

I also tried fudging around with RAW and set the camera parameter sharpness setting to 7 (highest) for one pic, another at 4, and another at 0. (same object, controlled lighting, on tripod). When I open the file using Canon DPP software, the results are mind boggling, the higher the sharpness the in-camera setting I set, the sharper the picture gets. I thought from articles and manuals I read, all camera settings will be ignored if I use RAW. Can you help me understand why is this happening?

I tried the same thing by differing the saturation and colour, the changes also translates (and imbedded) in the RAW files. I'm confused. On one hand it's not supposed to give any effect, but in reality the change is picture setting does change the RAW file.

 

[boBQuincy]

I think we hijacked this thread pretty well , but it's a real good exchange of information!

Even when set to zero the camera performs a lot of processing. It has to, the RAW is a mess, open one in VuePrint (or other viewer that will show the actual image) and take a look. Nothing in there that I can interpret as a photo!

On the advice of Chuck Westfall (of Canon's technical dept) I set my sharpening to minimum so the camera does the least sharpening but from what I am told it still does some. Actually from what Chuck says Canon cameras do a small amount of processing to the RAW file too, but much less than what they do to the JPG.

I have never used Canon DPP software, I use BreezeBrowser and PS to view my images. According to my 10D manual the RAW is processed according to the camera settings but can be processed repeatedly with software. What the #$%^& does that mean?!
Here is what Chuck says:
Parameters:
This is short for "Processing Parameters." It refers to in-camera image processing for color space or image characteristics such as contrast, sharpening, saturation and color tone. These settings are applied to in-camera JPEGs when the file is written to the CF card, but RAW files remain intact and can be changed later on in your computer.

As you say, the camera settings are not supposed to alter the RAW file, I suppose it is the thumbnails we see that are following the settings? Something else to try, but later, it has been a two glass of wine kind of day at work!


cheers,

boB

 

[Kelly Grannell]

As you say, the camera settings are not supposed to alter the RAW file, I suppose it is the thumbnails we see that are following the settings? Something else to try, but later, it has been a two glass of wine kind of day at work!


cheers,

boB

LOL! But no, it's not the thumbnails that's affected, when I open the file, the parameter sliders where I can change saturation etc on the RAW file actually corresponds to the camera parameter setting. Which I find strange. I called Canon Canada about this and their reply was "it's not supposed to do that" DUH! I know it's not supposed to do that, but it's doing that, that's why I'm calling you guy you dope! This happens to my previous Rebel, 10D, 20D and current 5D and 30D. I'm so cheap I only use the RAW conversion software Canon provided me with the camera.