What size memory card to you bring to Disney?

[01Sweetpea]

I am trying to decide if I need another card to bring with me.

I'm going to be using my new Canon S3 IS. I currently have a 2 GB card which the sales associate told me should take 650 +/- pictures.

On our 2004 trip I took almost 300 pics but they weren't digital. I didn't take any night shots, or fireworks shots, which I plan to try with the S3. I also brought the camcorder with us and took several hours of video.

I wasn't planning on bringing the camcorder, and thought if I wanted to tape anything I'd just use the camera. I know a 1 GB card should give me about an hour of video.

Trying to decide if I should go out and buy a 1 GB card or maybe another 2 GB card.

Suggestions?

 

[handicap18]

Get another 2 gig AND another 1 gig. You can never have enough memory. If you took 300 pics on film, then I'm guessing you'll take a lot more on digital as there isn't anything to worry about as you can delete if you don't like or just not print it.

 

[jann1033]

i agree, take way more than you would have used with film. i used over 5 GB on our last vacation and have taken over 5000 pics since i got my camera in July(which is probably more than i ever took with film ) it's just so easy to try new things, take shots that might work etc when it isn't going to cost you anything if they don't work out. and i don't really think i can see the picture well enough on the LCD to decide if i want to delete it or not( unless it's a washout )till i get home and see it on the monitor so i don't want to delete a lot.
you can pick up 1 GB SD cards for around 15 on sale or rebate which is about what it costs to get a roll of film and develop it...and the card is reusable!

 

[Master Mason]

I was there for 5 days in july, and I was at a work confence, so I wasn't in the parks the whole time. I took 1400 pics. When I shot film, I would take single pics of things and hope they came out. With the digital, I will take several and am fairly certain that I will get a decent one.

I would figure out what you think you need and then double it. Especially if your not taking something to DL them onto every night. I didn't price them, but I have heard that extra cards are very expensive at the world, and I personally would hate to run out of room, or have to worry about looking at the camera to try and decide what to deleate to make room on a card while I am trying to enjoy my vacation.

just my 2cents

 

[brack]

I take all of my cards (Two 1gb, Four 512mb and Four 256mb) and I would love to have a 2gb before we go on our next trip in December.

 

[01Sweetpea]

Another memory card question. The 2GB in the S3 is an Ultra II...although I'm not sure what that means.

I do have a Kodak easy share that I have a 512 and a 256 memory card for.

Can I use these cards in the S3 even though they aren't "ultras"?

 

[Master Mason]

As long as they are the same type. They type is SD or CF or others....

the Ultra designation is just the branding the sandisk uses. UltraII is faster than Ultra, and Ultra III is faster than ultra 2, but they will all work just fine.

 

[barrie]

I take two 1GB cards and I download the pictures every night onto a little 60GB portable hard drive that I bring along with my laptop. 2GB has been enough for 1 days worth of photos so far but I'd like to have two more just in case I don't get to downloading them one day. Barrie

 

[Olaf]

I'm going to take 1 GB & 2 GB cards. I'm also going to take that cord which enables me to view the pics through TV. So I can delete the duds while at the park. Not lugging a laptop.

 

[_chill_]

I'm with jann here... I rarely delete anything 'in the field' and carry a 4G, 2G, and several 1G chips (I pick them up when there's a great rebate offer). I have a 80G portable hard drive that I carry with me as well. It doesn't weigh much and if I happen to need it, I can pop the chips into the drive, press a button, and transfer the data right there (I can also load up a bunch of Disney MP3s for those long bus rides ). It comes in 'really' handy when you want to shoot RAW.

 

[01Sweetpea]

As long as they are the same type. They type is SD or CF or others....

the Ultra designation is just the branding the sandisk uses. UltraII is faster than Ultra, and Ultra III is faster than ultra 2, but they will all work just fine.

How do I know what type mine are? Should it say it on the card? I know they are all scandisk cards.

I think I'm going to have to go out and get another 2 GB card. We are not bringing a laptop with us...don't have one...and I doubt I'll be spending enough time in the room to go thru all my pics on the TV and delete some.

 

[barrie]

chill - don't you need a computer to run your hard drive? How does it work?

 

[Master Mason]

How do I know what type mine are? Should it say it on the card? I know they are all scandisk cards.

I think I'm going to have to go out and get another 2 GB card. We are not bringing a laptop with us...don't have one...and I doubt I'll be spending enough time in the room to go thru all my pics on the TV and delete some.

Yes it will say right on it. Sandisk is a brand SD or Secure Digital is a type of card. CF or Compact Flash is a type of card. there is also Mind Secure Digital, Sony Memory Sticks and a few others out there..... If I had to guess, yours is probably SD.

 

[01Sweetpea]

Yes it will say right on it. Sandisk is a brand SD or Secure Digital is a type of card. CF or Compact Flash is a type of card. there is also Mind Secure Digital, Sony Memory Sticks and a few others out there..... If I had to guess, yours is probably SD.

Thanks! I think I'm going to go buy the same 2GB card I have and not worry about it. This way I'll have 2 2GB cards, the 512 and the 256 which are sandisks as well.

 

[caniswolfie]

chill - don't you need a computer to run your hard drive? How does it work?

My guess is that it's one of those portable media storage hard drive devices. It has slots for memory cards and automatically downloads any pictures, etc from the card to the hard drive so that you can reuse the cards. Some have LCD screens so you can preview the photos, etc. as well.

Something like this

 

[barrie]

My guess is that it's one of those portable media storage hard drive devices. It has slots for memory cards and automatically downloads any pictures, etc from the card to the hard drive so that you can reuse the cards. Some have LCD screens so you can preview the photos, etc. as well.

Something like this

That's cool! But a little spendy - I guess I'll just have to keep lugging my laptop. I like to be able to play with the photos while I'm there anyway. But maybe someday that would be a nice device to have. Barrie

 

[_chill_]

My guess is that it's one of those portable media storage hard drive devices. It has slots for memory cards and automatically downloads any pictures, etc from the card to the hard drive so that you can reuse the cards. Some have LCD screens so you can preview the photos, etc. as well.

Something like this

Similar. Mine just doesn't have the color screen (or the price )... I picked up an 80G notebook drive for around $60, and the case for about $20. It has plenty of space for the photos, plus it doubles as an MP3 player.

Here's a link to a similar case, but mine has MP3 playback capability.
Image Bank

 

[MarkBarbieri]

How do I know what type mine are? Should it say it on the card? I know they are all scandisk cards.

The Canon S3 uses Secure Digital (SD) cards. The company Sandisk makes SD cards and well as other types of memory cards (like Compact Flash). Whatever brand you get, make sure that they are SD cards. They should be the same shape and size as your existing cards.

As for how much memory is enough, that's a question only you can answer. I think you are going about it the right way. Think about how many pictures you will shoot per day. Figure out how many pictures fit on a card. Make sure that you have more than enough space to hold all the pictures you want.

With the S3 at it's best quality and resolution, you can expect about 361 shots per 1GB card. If you take a lot of shots in low light, that number might drop to as low as 300.

As for me, I shoot RAW, so I get far fewer pictures on a card. My camera takes both CF and SD cards, so I'll probably have a 4GB CF and a 4GB SD card in my camera. That'll be enough to get me through one day. Every night, I'll dump the cards to my computer and start fresh again.

 

[01Sweetpea]

As for me, I shoot RAW, so I get far fewer pictures on a card.

Can someone explain to me what "shooting RAW" is? I have absolutely no idea!

 

[Groucho]

Deja vu.

You can never have too much memory. Better too much than not enough.

Hard drives are convenient but unreliable and there's a decent chance that when they fail, you'll lose all the data on them.

Ideal procedure - IMHO! - is to use a laptop, empty your cards nightly, and burn a CD/DVD of those pictures (as well as keeping them on the laptop.) That gives you redundancy in case of hard drive or CD/DVD failure.

Second best is to use memory cards to store everything. They're more reliable than hard drives.

Third is to back up nightly only to hard drives, either a laptop or a standalone "box" of some sort. That puts all your photos in one fragile place.

The worst is not having enough memory cards and having to miss photos ops because you have nowhere to put the pictures!

Those are my opinions but if there's one thing I know, it's PC hardware, and I trust hard drives about as far as I can throw the Epcot globe.

Anyone looking for a good, cheap 2g card can check here - ZipZoomFly (a reputable company) has the Ultra 133x 2gig SD card for $50 minus a $30 rebate with free shipping, so a total cost of $20. It's out of stock at the moment, but the rebate is good until 11/7, so maybe they'll get more before then.

Other options are to have Disney or someone else burn CDs for you, but that gets pricey when it takes three CDs to back up a single 2gb card. Or, to use a pair of hard drives and one of those image-bank devices, and back up your photos to both. That will give you redundancy without requiring you to lug around a laptop, you'll just double your hard drive cost - probably another $50 or so.

01Sweetpea - RAW is generally used by DSLRs (the big ones with removable lenses), only a couple point-and-shoot cameras can "shoot raw". Basically, the camera stores an uncompressed (or nearly so) image without any processing added (like white balance, sharpness, etc), allowing the photographer to tweak those values later in Photoshop (or another program), to get higher quality than they could by having the photo just in JPG format.

In other words - it's probably not worth worrying about.