Sony Cybershot at Disney

[BelleQ]

Our 1st family trip to WDW is coming up soon in October.

I would love love love to buy a new fancy DSLR or whatever for our trip, but that is NOT in the budget. In fact we are going to have to sell the family farm to pay for our Disney trip. Not really...but you know the feeling.

So 2 years ago we got this Sony Cybershot 12.1 megapixel camera and I have really enjoyed using it. I am familiar with all of its functions and settings so I am comfortable taking it. But the battery is 2 years old and I have a feeling a new battery is in our near future. AND I am considering getting a new memory card just for our Disney trip. My hubs says "a battery yes, a new memory card no". He thinks I should just transfer all of our pix off of the memory card to the flash drive and eventually get them uploaded online to order. This is more time consuming than it sounds because some pix are already uploaded, some are not. I don't know which ones, etc, etc.

I think our camera only holds about 1000 pix right now...maybe because there are a few videos on it that I have saved. So my question is HOW MANY pix does a typical family of 4 take on their first trip to WDW? I love taking pictures and taking LOTS of them so I can have my choice of favorites for our memory books. I think I could easily take at least 1000, more than our memory card could hold.

Just wanted to get your advice on that.

PLUS...here's something confusing...I read somewhere that if you upload your digital pix to your computer they are automatically saved as .jpg which compresses them and each time you open the file it decreases the quality of the pic. What is that all about? And how do I prevent this if it is true?

 

[zackiedawg]

My hubs says "a battery yes, a new memory card no". He thinks I should just transfer all of our pix off of the memory card to the flash drive and eventually get them uploaded online to order. This is more time consuming than it sounds because some pix are already uploaded, some are not. I don't know which ones, etc, etc.

Honestly, with memory cards being cheap nowadays, it's not too big of a deal to buy another...but offloading photos from the card to a computer, harddrive, or storage is not a bad idea anyway. Many of us actually offload our pics from the cards after every trip or photo session, blanking the card to be used again from scratch. By transferring the photos to a computer harddrive, then backing them up to a second harddrive and/or CD/DVD or other backup device, you can format the memory card in the camera so it's blank and ready to accomodate everything you want to put on it. To know how many photos you can store, you would need to know the card's size, and check the camera's manual for a rough guide of how many photos and videos will fit on that much memory.

I think our camera only holds about 1000 pix right now...maybe because there are a few videos on it that I have saved. So my question is HOW MANY pix does a typical family of 4 take on their first trip to WDW? I love taking pictures and taking LOTS of them so I can have my choice of favorites for our memory books. I think I could easily take at least 1000, more than our memory card could hold.

Some may take a few hundred, others might take a few thousand...it's all up to you! Are you bringing a computer or laptop to backup or transfer your photos? If so, one card would do fine no matter how much you want to shoot, because you regularly offload all photos and videos and reset the card. Otherwise, you may well be running into card limits and wishing you could take more - in which case buying a new card or two might be a good idea. Again, cards are pretty cheap nowadays - $20-25 will buy you 16GB...just search sites like Amazon, stick with at least name brand cards (Sony, Sandisk, Lexar, etc) and you should be fine.

PLUS...here's something confusing...I read somewhere that if you upload your digital pix to your computer they are automatically saved as .jpg which compresses them and each time you open the file it decreases the quality of the pic. What is that all about? And how do I prevent this if it is true?

Simple misunderstanding...here's how it works: Your camera shoots in .jpg mode - all the photos on your memory card are already JPGs. They will be of fine quality, and can be copied to a computer, loaded anywhere, copied 1000 times, and not lose any quality at all. You can even open the photos and view them all you want, and not lose any quality.

The ONLY time you need to be careful is when SAVING JPG files after they've been opened. Let's say you open one to view it - if you 'save' the photo, you are re-compressing it...each time you resave, you recompress...and you start losing quality every time. So if you open or view a JPG, and close it, and something pops up that asks if you want to save changes...click NO...then you won't lose any quality.

Now, when you edit a JPG, obviously you want to resave it with the changes you just made - and that's when you're going to be faced with losing a little quality...however, two things to consider: first, a single edit and resave isn't likely to lose enough quality to really be noticeable...and a good idea when you get into editing photos is to always leave the originals alone and never re-save over them. If you want to edit a photo, open it, edit it, then use the 'save as' command rather than 'save'...rename the photo so you know it's the one you edited, and that way it won't save over the original. If your photo is 'DSC0001', and you save the edited version as 'DSC0001a', it will save as a new photo, and leave the original untouched. Second - you actually have control over the amount of compression different programs use when opening and saving JPGs...very simple programs may not, but almost any photo editing software has this control. When you go into the 'save as' command, a box will pop up - usually somewhere there will be an 'options' button, or a 'quality' control...it will let you adjust the JPG compression amounts from the default (which might be something like 10% compression) to maximum quality (which might be something like 1% compression). So rather than losing 10% every time you resave the JPG, you only lose 1% each time.

Hope that helps!

 

[DisneyChristmas]

I used my Sony Cybershot and my Nikon SLR for my nephew's rehearsal dinner wedding last year. With a greater variety of lens for the Nikon, I could be more creative. But as far as quality of image, the Cybershot performed as well as the Nikon.

The card held close to (if not more than) 1,000 images, however you REALLY want to backup your work to a computer or jump drive. I do this consistently, even if I retain the images on the card.

To be free to shoot as much as you want – and then delete the not-so-great shots later – I rely on multiple batteries and cards. It’s a long-lasting investment that makes the photography more fun!

I use Photoshop for editing, and when I open a photo that’s been transferred to the PC or jump drive, I can see that the unedited image is huge and very accessible for any editing needed.