last few questions

[thefoxes]

Hello Again,

Well departure is nearly upon us.....and the kids are starting to get excited.......OK and me !!!

Just want to reconfirm a few things.

1. I am taking only $200 in cash, 95% of spending will go directly on my Nationwide credit card (no extra surcharges with this card).

I am NOT taking any trav cheques......
Is this the best method?? i have read recently credit card fraud is on the increase - with dodgy shop keepers selling your details to the local yobs.....what do you think ??


2. I shall use tie-raps to securly lock our suitcase, ensuring we have spare ones in the suitcases if needed.


3. This weekend we shall sit down and plan our holiday (using the Brits Guide book for guidance).


4. Taking our newly purchased digi camcorder, with 6 miniDV tapes.....will this be enough......bearing in mind that the average battery life of the camcorder is approx. 1hour.

Are there any battery recharge points in the parks ??

Also taking our digi camera with a total of 96 meg smart media cards - should get a fair few good quality pics.



Have i forgot anything ???

 

[Jacqui.s]

If you need additional cash, I have always found my using my debit card to be pretty efficient - so much so that I tend to rely on it solely nowadays.

I've never seen the point of travellers cheques personally - in case of theft, I tend to keep a spare credit card for emergencies (preferably in a in-room safe).

I might be naive, but have never been too worried about credit card fraud - don't get me wrong, I take normal precautions - but fear of it would not prevent me from using my card.

I hope you have a great trip.

 

[BevS97]

96 meg doesn't sound like a lot for your camera, depending on how high the resoluation is. can you work out how many pictures that is?
We took 15 rolls of 36 on our last trip, but then maybe that was a little excessive? I know I wouldn't want to have to worry about deleting shots while I was away.
I think if you do run out, you could go to Walmart and get them copied to a cd, or buy another card.

I tend to take more cash, but it's a personal thing, you can use your card for most things, but you will need cash for tolls, tips, outside stalls at WDW (like drinks, ice=creams etc), fast food outside the parks.
We have used our Debit card to get more cash without any trouble if you do need more.

Bev

 

[Leech esq]

You may need a head cleaner for the camcorder,you can buy them over there if you like, but if you go out without one and the camcorder tells you the head needs cleaning , you wont be able to shoot.When we went two years ago, I bought a 64 meg sm card for the digi camera, after three or four days it was used up. You can either buy before you go, or get yourselves down to the walmart when you get there, they'll have what you need .

 

[Goofyish]

I think you should have enought video tape there - unless you plan on walking round with the camera on all the time (I've seen folks do this, from getting off the bus to arriving at the castle in MK! ).

Depending on resolution of your digital camera I think you may need a bit more memory. I have a 3Mega-pixel camera and last trip filled 1x128Mb, 1x32Mb and a 16Mb compact flash cards - and I had to drop to a lower resolution for the last week!

If you have time, have a look at this site, they are doing good deals on cards at the moment (£17.45 for a 128Mb SM card), with no postage costs:


http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=777_4_401_40101

 

[Aceman88888]

I was lucky to take my laptop to download my smartcards each night and I was amazed to find at the end of the holiday I had nearly 1GB. Even after trimming the 'not so perfect' shots it was still above 800mb, which was far higher than I was expecting.

This is still the big drawback with digital still cameras and without my laptop I would have probably fallen back on my old trusty camcorder and all the negatives about lugging it around (I camcordered to death on my previous visit there and wanted a change!)

I would certainly consider getting another 128mb card as a minimum or borrow one from a friend (I was amazed how many people I knew used them too!).

One other quick note. Make doubly sure that the smartmedia cards are in fully watertight cases as the slightest bit of dampness seems to kill them stone dead (In my case on Popeye's Bilge Barge Rapids at IOA). Lucky I had a spare one with me.

 

[thefoxes]

hey, thanks for the responses.

I have just tested how many pics i will get from my smart media cards.

Set at "1280" size, normal resolution i can get:

8meg card x 16 photos

so multiplied to fit on a 32 and 64 meg cards as as follows

32meg x 64 photos
64meg x 128 photos

This should therefore allow me to take approx. 200 photos.....more than enough !!

 

[Aceman88888]

.... Sorry to be devils advocate and all that, but it only equates to 16 pics per day or thereabouts. If you've got kids you would use those up just on character greets never mind the other things......

In our 2 weeks we brought home pics approx:

80 for MK

60 for EPCOT

60 for MGM

90 for AK (I'm a sucker for wildlife )

50 for Seaworld

60 for IOA

60 for Universal

40 for Busch

plus about 150 assorted others!

Maybe I've got a strange condition which needs medical treatment I'm not sure but I didnt consciously feel that I was taking photos all the time. I certainly felt like that on my previous visit lugging a camcorder around and IMHO missed the magic of the parades and evening entertainment to a degree being pressed against the viewfinder all of the time.

I may be unique but prefer stills as they are snap 'n' go and are more memorable than videos.

 

[Tony Bush]

Andy + Alison.

I took an 8Mb (It came with the camera) and a 128MB thinking that would be enough. That equates to 256 piccies at a normal resolution on a 2.1 megapixel camera.
It wasn't enough!! BUT the cards can be found very cheaply - I picked up one in Walmart. Their current prices on their web site are : 64mb SM card = $24.98 , 128mb = 32.93.

Tony

 

[thefoxes]

Hi Aceman

I am not as keen a photographer as you, and no way will i be snapping that many !!!

 

[peewakio]

I've been looking at the various amounts of pictures people have been getting from their digital cameras and the different resolutions used to obtain them.
I have an Olympus 920 zoom digital camera and runs at 3.1 megapixels. when run at standard quality I will be able to take just on 500 shots from a 64mb flashcard.
I am a printer and can confirm that the quality of the finished product from a standard quality digital image is more than adequate for what we require from holiday snaps. High resolution shots are more for magazine type quality requirements.
I would suggest that most of you lower the resolutions on your cameras and enable yourselves to take more shots without necessarily demeaning the quality of your photos. Also if you are not happy with the quality of your 'favourite' shots, it's pretty easy to touch them up or 'fix' them within your photo imaging software you will have received with your cameras.

Hope this is helpful

 

[peewakio]

I've been looking at the various amounts of pictures people have been getting from their digital cameras and the different resolutions used to obtain them.
I have an Olympus 920 zoom digital camera and runs at 3.1 megapixels. when run at standard quality I will be able to take just on 500 shots from a 64mb flashcard.
I am a printer and can confirm that the quality of the finished product from a standard quality digital image is more than adequate for what we require from holiday snaps. High resolution shots are more for magazine type quality requirements.
I would suggest that most of you lower the resolutions on your cameras and enable yourselves to take more shots without necessarily demeaning the quality of your photos. Also if you are not happy with the quality of your 'favourite' shots, it's pretty easy to touch them up or 'fix' them within your photo imaging software you will have received with your cameras.

Hope this is helpful

 

[thefoxes]

Hello Peewakio,

Thanks for the advice.

I have altered my digi camera resolution to "basic", i can now get the following amounts of pics:

8meg card = 28 photos
32meg = 124 photos
64meg = 300 photos


I sampled these pics on my PC using photoshop7, and the quality was good.


Problem solved !!!!

 

[Goofyish]

The only thing to bare in mind when shooting at a lower resolution is that the size of the prints you produce will be limited.

In simple terms, the higher the resolution of the digital image the larger the obtainable print size will be.

Picture of any resolution will look ok on a PC screen due to the actual resolution of the monitor screen being 'fixed' at around 72 dpi. The difference you will see is the size of the image.

I digital photo printed at about 150 dpi will give a good result and anything over 300 dpi is wasted because the limitations of the human eye!

 

[BiGGy]

hiya foxes,

When we went the first time we had a problem with camcorder batterys not lasting the day and when we went into one of the shops in disney to see about buying another one we found out that most the parks offer a charge and loan system where they give you a fully charged battery to use while yours is being charged in the shop.

cant remember which parks we did this but i am sure MGM was one of them.

Also with using the Credit Cards i wouldnt worry about using them but what i would say is that you make a call to the credit card company before you go to let them know you will be using it in florida as some companys block cards if they see unusual transactions.

with Digital Cameras at the moment im looking at ways to get them off the memory card while we are away because last trip i had a 128mb one full of photos of my brothers wedding and of our holiday and lost all the photos, for some reason the card just stopped working and i couldnt get any pictures off it there or through my pc when i got home, so sometimes it maybe worth having a few smaller memory cards rather than 1 big one.


rgds

BiGGy

 

[BiGGy]

Just had a hunt round and found this its not cheap but its cheaper than having to buy a laptop to transfer images off a digital camera.

its a Scan XDRIVE 6 in 1 Card Reader you can just transfer the images from the card direct to the internal hard drive.

the price is £71.09 but you also have to buy the HD seperate which works out at £68.15 for a 20gb one.

hope i can post the web address www.scan.co.uk

link to the reader is http://www.scan.co.uk/products/flashmem.htm
link to the HDs is
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/drives.htm


rgds

BIGGy

 

[thefoxes]

Originally posted by Goofyish
The only thing to bare in mind when shooting at a lower resolution is that the size of the prints you produce will be limited.

In simple terms, the higher the resolution of the digital image the larger the obtainable print size will be.

Picture of any resolution will look ok on a PC screen due to the actual resolution of the monitor screen being 'fixed' at around 72 dpi. The difference you will see is the size of the image.

I digital photo printed at about 150 dpi will give a good result and anything over 300 dpi is wasted because the limitations of the human eye!

Hello Tim,

I have just read your comments regarding the resolution etc....i have again taken another photo with my camera set to "basic" - downloaded it to my PC and opened it using photoshop7 - the resolution was 72dpi. I altered the image size to 20cm x 15cm (72dpi), and printed it out using my HP5550 printer. The quality of the printed photo was near perfect - and i did not print it on photopaper.

Hopefully this will be OK for me.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[BevS97]

I am not as keen a photographer as you, and no way will i be snapping that many !!!

Can we get back to you on that after your trip?

I would take a couple of test shots at various resolutions and send them off to be printed properly somewhere like www.photobox.co.uk are pretty good. Then you can see what resolution you are happy with. Also, bear in mind that most resolutions will look ok on a 6x4 print, but if you take that dream shot and want to blow it up to a 8x10 then the quality may not be sufficient.
I guess it depends on how important your photos are to you.

Bev

 

[thefoxes]

Originally posted by BevS97
Can we get back to you on that after your trip?

I would take a couple of test shots at various resolutions and send them off to be printed properly somewhere like www.photobox.co.uk are pretty good. Then you can see what resolution you are happy with. Also, bear in mind that most resolutions will look ok on a 6x4 print, but if you take that dream shot and want to blow it up to a 8x10 then the quality may not be sufficient.
I guess it depends on how important your photos are to you.

Bev

lol, yes i will get back 2 u on our return !!!!

I have printed out at 20cm x 15cm, and it is good quality !

 

[uktigger]

hi the foxes
just wanted to say have a great trip you lucky things

eve