transferring digital photos while on vacation

[rtphokie]

This topic comes up a lot on the various boards. There are kiosks on the cruise ships and in several resorts at WDW where you can transfer digital photos from a memory card to a CD for a price.

Here's another idea if you've got a decent sized USB thumb drive (or more) or a USB drive.



http://aleratec.com/usbcocrplpa3.html

 

[Kelly Grannell]

That is so COOL! There are many other OTG devices out there but this is the only one that can transfer to thumbdrive.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

rtphokie, I've just checked the website. Although it says that it's compatible with USB 2.0, it doesn't mention anything about being able to transfer at USB 2.0 speed. Have you actually used this product? I'm very interested in buying it.

 

[rtphokie]

rtphokie, I've just checked the website. Although it says that it's compatible with USB 2.0, it doesn't mention anything about being able to transfer at USB 2.0 speed. Have you actually used this product? I'm very interested in buying it.

I've not used it, just came across it recently. Even if it didn't transfer at USB2.0 speeds, I would think it could still be very usefull.

Still keep in mind that digital media is relatively cheep. For the cost of this device (which only provides an interface between the card and a USB device) you could get 1-2 gig of card storage. That might be enough for most folks.

It would be very cost effective if you already had USB storage available (thumbdrives or USB interface to a HD).

 

[scejas]

You should check these out also:

http://www.vosonic.co.uk/


http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=29

 

[Cplofdisneynutz]

Flash HD Drive We bought this before our honeymoon. We got a refurbished 40gb for the price of a 1gb memory card. It was incredible. Stuck it in our camera bag everyday and emptied the full card as needed. took about 10 min to transfer 150 photos on fine setting from memory card. It has a built in card reader.

Hope this helps too!!

 

[anita967]

Does anyone know the price for transfering the photo's to disc at WDW? I am trying to decide between doing this and buying another memory card that I will probably never need again.

 

[fiffy]

Small independant drive such as those mentioned above are not the most reliable storage system available. That is, for long term storage. For use of downloading your files while on vacation they are a great and valuable tool. Just remember when you get home to burn them on CD if you have the capability at home or got to a local store and have them do it. Be careful though as some places such as drugstores and warehouse stores will not burn them at the same resolution and can actually ruin your shots. Just remember to ask them before dropping it of how they burn it. Alot of places burn CD's at only a 72dpi makeing it much easyer to email and upload online, but will print very poorly.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Small independant drive such as those mentioned above are not the most reliable storage system available. That is, for long term storage.

Fiffy, may I ask why? HDD is a more reliable storage media than recordable optical media.

 

[fiffy]

Well, I have seen people transfer virouses from thier PC to thier drives. Needles to say its not a very good thing. Also, its an electronic device and all electronic devices stop working eventually. There is no one method which is last forever. But by putting a CD into your computer you can't put a virous on it, pluggin a drive into a USB port and uploading photo's which might be corrupted or infected can really screw things up. Oh and don't forget the whole problem of it geting wet. I'm not anti thumbdrive or anything, just want to point out that its not as dependable under certain circumstances.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

but Fiffy, those are not thumb drives. The drives we mentioned are actual 2.5" laptop hard drives in an external enclosure. Although it's true about virii, if you're just transferring your pic from your camera to the HDD and later on transferring the image from HDD to your clean, non-infected PC, I don't see any risk of getting virii onto the HDD. Beyond that, one should NOT run the portable external HDD continuously. Just use it as storage and that's it.

 

[WillCAD]

Does anyone know the price for transfering the photo's to disc at WDW? I am trying to decide between doing this and buying another memory card that I will probably never need again.

Cost is $12.99 per CD, limit 120 pics per CD. It can be done at the camera shops near the entrances of the 4 theme parks. Wait times will vary depending on how busy the shop is.

The camera shops at MK and MGM also have self-service kiosks for downloading digital pics to CD, for the same $12.99.

If you have a car, one of the several nearby Walgreens stores in the WDW area are a better option, as they charge only $3.99 per CD, for as many pics as the CD will hold.

Incidentally, Fiffy: to my knowledge, the download process at WDW, Universal, and the Walgreens and WalMart stores in Orlando all simply copy your pics directly from your memory card to a CD, without changing them in any way. They do not change the resolution of the pic; they just copy the pic from your card to a CD.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

to my knowledge, the download process at WDW, Universal, and the Walgreens and WalMart stores in Orlando all simply copy your pics directly from your memory card to a CD, without changing them in any way. They do not change the resolution of the pic; they just copy the pic from your card to a CD.

Can't say about WalMart in Florida, but WalMart, Sam's Club and Costco in Canada also don't change the resolution, just straight transfer. As for the rest (Universal, WDW and Walgreens) for sure they also don't change the resolution.

 

[fiffy]

Don't have a walmart or a sams club in the area. Have a wallgreens and a costco and frankly you would shutter if you saw some of the things they do with peoples film and digitol files. Its absolutly disturbing. Maybe its just those two indiviual stores, maybe not. I can only speak of the experiances I've personally seen.

 

[LordAthens]

Alot of places burn CD's at only a 72dpi makeing it much easyer to email and upload online, but will print very poorly.

Wow... I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've been on ~10 photo excursion's in the last 4 years, 3 times out of the country I'll add and I can't say I've everyone once seen ANY place actually go and convert a file to a different resolution. I can't possibly undertstand why anyone would in the first place, as it would take the shop considerably longer to do the transfer process with negative gain, sans taking up a bit less file size. CD-R's are a dime a dozen!

As for the thumbdrive "issues" that you bring up. Where are you getting your information? I have a old 128meg Sandisk memory stick that has more miles on it than some peoples cars and more washings than some of my clothes. It still functions to this day. As for the virii issue, there is RARELY an issue. Additionally, IF a virus was loaded onto a CD it would cause the same destruction than if ran from a thumb drive. As for dependability, do you realize that almost all thumbdrives have MTBF's in the 1,000,000-2,000,000 marks? Harddrives of just 2 or 3 years ago had MTBF's of just 300,000-500,000 and recently only current harddrives are pushing past the 1,000,000 hour MTBF mark. They also sport shock ratings of 1000+ G's. Additionally, my thumb-drive isn't plugged in nearly as often as my harrdrives run (24x7x365). One other thing, I assure you, if I were to take my thumbdrive outside and try skipping across my street like a stone across water, it would survive. If I did the same thing with a CD or DVD, I've just lost 700meg-8gigs of photos.

I realize everyone has their opinions on things, but please don't spread misinformation unless you have the facts to back it up.

And on a side note, where on god's name do you live that you have a Walgreens and a Costco but not a Walmart? We have 16 stores in a 30 mile radius.

 

[rtphokie]

Wow... I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've been on ~10 photo excursion's in the last 4 years, 3 times out of the country I'll add and I can't say I've everyone once seen ANY place actually go and convert a file to a different resolution. I can't possibly undertstand why anyone would in the first place, as it would take the shop considerably longer to do the transfer process with negative gain, sans taking up a bit less file size. CD-R's are a dime a dozen!

The first photo kiosk I ever used to transfer photos to a CD-R resized them all to 640x480. It also created a html file with thumbnails of each photo and a autorun.bat file to launch this html file in your browser. This was in the mid 90's and this kiosk was more geared towards burning CD-R's for film that had just been developed there.

 

[LordAthens]

I guess I should re-specify, in this day and age...

 

[morrismhs]

I am really new to this digital camera age. I just purchased a Kodak c340. I understand the concept of what you are talking about. I would love to take one of these devices with me to Disney this summer to transfer my pictures. Can anyone suggest one that would be compatible with my camera? Thanks so much.

 

[lovwdwalot]

I have the best way to store your digtal files from your camera.. A ipod, yes that right's a ipod! I use my ipod to store my digtal files from my Canon A95, what you need to do is buy the camera adaptor from the Apple store (cost is $29.00) plug the camera into the ipod camera adaptor and once your at home you can download them to you CPU.

 

[LordAthens]

I use the same iPod adapter. But, whatever you do, DO NOT buy the Belkin card reader, it's absolute garbage! Get the OEM Apple adapter. Do keep in mind though, it only works with color display iPod's, IE the new 5th generation iPod video or the 4th generation iPod Photo.