opinions please....take a 35mm camera on board or a digital?

[smchan]

Oh, and by the way sam I have yet to see a picture of "the great one".

A gross oversight on my part... Sorry!

Here he is. (The 2nd one looks bad because it's a scanned print. But the photo is mine, and the autograph is his.)

 

[spoon2003]

Sam,
Just want to jump in here to thank you for your many input here on the board regarding photography. I am a novice digital photographer and have been looking at your album and studying the exifs for my April cruise. Thank you for taking the time to share.

Also, I like seeing your Disname because my maiden name is Chan and my initials are SM, so SMChan was my name before I got married. I was kind of disappointed when I saw your picture and turns out you're not a Chinese dude!!!

Sue

 

[smchan]

Also, I like seeing your Disname because my maiden name is Chan and my initials are SM, so SMChan was my name before I got married. I was kind of disappointed when I saw your picture and turns out you're not a Chinese dude!!!

LOL! Similar confusion has happened more than once in the past when I've traveled on business when meeting folks who only knew me by my email address. As you figured out, my last name isn't Chan. I am of Scotch-Irish descent and grew up in the Applachian mountains, and my first name is Sam. So it's not hard to figure out the rest from there.

As for photography, I find studying EXIF data in other pictures will helps me "see" how the picture was made. I've a lot of ideas just from studying various pictures posted here in the past. (Grumbo was my inspiration for my panoramas.)

Sam

 

[Disneyfalcon]

I've really enjoyed reading this thread! Last summer I traded in my Canon Rebel T2 for a digital rebel. I can use all my old lenses which is wonderful. I love the digital rebel. I would recommend it to anyone. I was rather saddened to hear they're coming out with a new one, because now I will have camera envy!
I carried my rebel with me pretty much everywhere on the magic a couple of weeks ago. I generally just wore the camera around my neck and left my bag in the room. That's a benefit over a Disney World trip, the big lens and accessories were never too far away. There were a couple of times I was without it and we were glad to have my husbands pocket size Sony 5MP.

 

[CTFamilyCruisers]

This has been a very informative post - and very timely for me as I am trying to decide what to do for our April cruise. Typically, I lug my camcorder, Canon 35mm and pocket digital. I even tend to take them with me 24/7 since I never know which one I am going to want. I have been thinking about the new Canon Rebel XT due out next month - and leaving my 35mm home. What would you think I would need in terms of memory cards? On a 35 mm, for 7 days, I would easily go through 20 rolls of film. With a digital, I'm likely to take even more, since I won't need to reload film or go back to our cabin for yet another roll. I'm worried I'll end up spending as much in memory cards as I will on the camera, or worse yet, run out of memory before we hit St Thomas! I've tried to research this on the internet, but I am pretty much a novice, and I can't figure out resolutions, etc. Just assume I am taking amateur shots on a family vacation. What can I expect?

 

[mist_e_rose2002]

I am taking both my digital and my 35mm, that way I can get quality and quantity pictures. Besides, I feel safer taking my regular camera on the beaches.

 

[smchan]

I'm worried I'll end up spending as much in memory cards as I will on the camera, or worse yet, run out of memory before we hit St Thomas! I've tried to research this on the internet, but I am pretty much a novice, and I can't figure out resolutions, etc. Just assume I am taking amateur shots on a family vacation. What can I expect?

A reasonable concern and the answer is "it depends." DSLRs have a variety of shooting modes which, in turn, determines how many photos you can store in a given amount of memory. I carry ~3 gigs worth of cards which is enough to hold about 300 pictures when I use RAW mode on my Nikon. That equates to about 10 megs per picture, and my camera is 6.something megapixels. Shooting in JPEG enables more pictures but I don't typically use JPEG.

I carry a laptop and leave in my room for dumping images. Another option is an image tank. Here's an example of one though there are plenty of options available at various prices. Finally, you could use a service like that provided by Shutters where they'll dump your images to CD.

Sam

 

[spoon2003]

This has been a very informative post - and very timely for me as I am trying to decide what to do for our April cruise. Typically, I lug my camcorder, Canon 35mm and pocket digital. I even tend to take them with me 24/7 since I never know which one I am going to want. I have been thinking about the new Canon Rebel XT due out next month - and leaving my 35mm home. What would you think I would need in terms of memory cards? On a 35 mm, for 7 days, I would easily go through 20 rolls of film. With a digital, I'm likely to take even more, since I won't need to reload film or go back to our cabin for yet another roll. I'm worried I'll end up spending as much in memory cards as I will on the camera, or worse yet, run out of memory before we hit St Thomas! I've tried to research this on the internet, but I am pretty much a novice, and I can't figure out resolutions, etc. Just assume I am taking amateur shots on a family vacation. What can I expect?

We're on the same cruise!! Memory cards are very affordable now. Office Max has Kingston 1GB CF on sale for $49.99 after rebate. so I plan to pick one up for our cruise. Just to give you an idea, I plan to take my 6mp Fuji and 3.2 mp Canon, both use compact flash. I will bring with me, 1-1GB, 2-512mb and 2-256mb for our 7 day eastern.

Sue

 

[CTFamilyCruisers]

OK, I bit the bullet and pre-ordered the Canon Rebel XT on Amazon. They say it arrives March 22 and will ship shortly thereafter. I hope I have time to play with it and get comfortable with it before we leave (April 15). I am still so confused about memory...

Thanks everyone for your helpful advice and tips! I hope I can get some nice shots!

 

[Sue (mom of 3 boys!)]

We bring both.

I had a card go bad and lost 150 photos.

Also, with many digitals, you can't get them wet. If it rains, or you are on a splashy excursion, that may not be easy to avoid.

We also bring underwater cameras for very rainy days, as well as underwater use.

 

[BiggFam8]

The last Disney vacation my family took was the first time we used our digital camera exclusively. It holds 412 pictures with it's memory but we always take more pictures than that. We took our laptop with us to download each days pictures so the next day, we have a fresh 412 picture to take. Our pictures were filed in the laptop by each day so when we got home, we knew what day each picture was taken. This helped organize them and kept those "what was that!" pictures from happening. The biggest problem that I could see with taking the laptop was going through the security screening at the airport. I could see my hard drive being scrambled by the x-ray machines! They don't put your laptop through the x-ray machine, just the case that it comes in. So enjoy your digital camera without worry! Have a great time!

 

[zakatak]

Another soul who lost all 120+ pictures from our first ever Disney cruise! I will NEVER AGAIN leave my film camera home. EVER.

Did I say EVER? I MEAN NEVER AGAIN!