As you're all experts at adding stuff to this site how do you go about uploading all your pictures. I've only just bought a digital camera which I'm trying to get to grips with. I've bought a few memory cards and plan to just store pictures on there but I'm planning to upload a few on here and add some albums to facebook - just in case I loose my cards which may happen.
Do you just slot the memory cards into the pcs at the hostel/internet cafes (if compatible) or do you use usb card readers or even the usb cable that comes with the camera? I obviously want to take as little as possible with me when I start my travels to asia, Oz, NZ and America in a few weeks but I really want to make sure I look after my pictures as these will be memories for a lifetime.
Cheers for your help.
Reply to this Hi Jo - great topic!
One thing that you must remember is: Neither travelblog or facebook store the images at their original full size - so you must get backups along the way.
I suggest - have about 6 GB of flash cards - get two copies on DVD each time you fill up 4GB - check them, mail one copy home (or to your parents address!) - and don't send the other until you know it's got there. Or have a
portable hard drive - and send copies of the photos back on DVD as often as possible.
After you have done this you can gradually reuse the memory cards...
As for photos - take as many as you can without spoiling the moments 😊 you'll have memories with or with out the photos - but looking through photos sure does bring them back!
Reply to this The website Flickr stores the images at their original full size, however you can only access the originals if you have a Pro account with them, which costs US$24.95 per year. (I actually think that even if you only have the free account with them, they still store the original but you would only be able to see it if you upgraded to Pro). This is definitely worth considering as a back-up solution if you don't take tons of photos, however if you're a bit of a camera demon then you'll soon get fed up with the time you spend uploading the pictures to Flickr - in which case it would be faster to just burn them to a DVD as Ali mentions.
As for getting the pictures onto a PC from the camera, it varies from machine to machine, place to place, and country to country. My experience from travelling in Australia and Southeast Asia was that usually you'll need your own card reader or camera cable as only occasionally do machines have a card reader (and sometimes they won't even have an accessible USB port). I've spent the last 2 years travelling with both and have used the card reader in the vast majority of cases. I'd originally thought the advantage of the reader over the cable was that it didn't require any drivers, however when the reader broke and I had to switch to using the cable, I encountered no driver issues with that either. So I would think that taking either a card reader or the cable would be fine.
I'll second Ali re taking as many photos as you can without spoiling the moments. Though your best memories will be lodged in your brain somewhere, sometimes they'll get lost and you'll need the little nudge provided by a photo to be able to dig them out from where they're hidden. But you can also miss out on the experience in the first place if you're preoccupied with getting the perfect shot. I ruined my first whale-watching trip by being obsessed with getting a close-up of a whale breaching - I didn't get the close-up, and missed out on what would have been a great half hour simply watching the whales with the naked eye. You just need to strike a balance.
Reply to this This past year, my wife and I carried a laptop and an external hardrive with us. We tended to get those little cheap hard drives and buy a couple of them, that way everything was backed up twice. When they got full we shipped them home or had friends take then home. It took us close to 200GB to get through the whole year so we ended up having to pick up two or three of these things on the road. We often found them in duty free in places like Hong Kong, Dubai or Europe.
Another option, which I'm presently exploring for the future, is a dedicated digital photo storage device like the Epson P-3000. Whil expensive it would allow you to lose the computer if you want to reduce weight on the road. The laptop was a pain in the rear. Here's a link to the epson site:
Epson P-3000 This allows you to see your pictures and sort through them while you are on the road and uploads them by puting your memory card directly into the device. There are other, possibly cheaper, solutions out there that are similar to this one. This one is the cadillac of digital photo storage.
Hope that helps.
Reply to this Cheers everyone, loads of helpful information and lots of options to chose from. Will ensure my pictures are safe and sound.
I have a terrible habit of loosing things so a back up plan for my pictures is a must.
Cheers.
Reply to this I travel with a 30Gb digital storage device (an old Nikon model that was only on the market for about six months). I can plug my CF cards right into it and download the photos, then I can check them on screen. So I use a 1Gb card in my camera, and dump the photos off at the end of each day, then I reformat the card in my camera each time I empty it (once I've checked that they're stored on my device).
This way, if anything happens to the card in the camera, it is only one days worth of photos I lose. As an additional backup, I copy the photos from my digital storage device onto larger (4GB cards) that I keep separate from everything else (usually with my passport). So I have two backups, in two places.
If I was travelling for an extended period of time, I would definitely also be burning DVDs to send home as a third backup.
The most important thing to remember if you're using a digital storage device is to have one with an LCD screen so you can visually confirm that your photos have been copied from your camera card.
Reply to this Goodness, I have been thinking the same question Jo, and what a lot of information to take in. I'm no technical wizard so I am hoping that taking a couple of memory cards and my camera to computer usb cable will be enough. I will probably upload my photos to a computer when possible, and burn to discs perhaps, send as many to an email address as I can, although I know this will be reliant on the speed of the computer, otherwise it just won't be feasible. I won't be taking a laptop or any kind of hard drive device, I really don't think this is practical when you are travelling from place to place with a backpack!
As for how many photographs to take... I am a bit of a snap happy person. Unfortunately I am not that great with a camera yet so I tend to take as many photos as possible in the hope there will be one or two good ones. As a result I do miss an awful lot of actual real time action in my plight to get a good photograph - I learnt this lesson on Firework night where I missed the entire display because I was too busy taking photographs - not good at all!
I think your lasting memories are the most important. Yes I would be crushed if I lost any travel photographs, or even any photographs I have here at home, but at the end of the day you will always have your memories. Best to see everything as it happens rather than look through a bunch of stills!
Reply to this One thing on the portable hard-drives - without screens - you can check that the photos are stored correctly when you get access to a internet cafe - and if you choose the small type - they're only 150g (1/4 lb) and the size of a wallet.
With screens - bigger... but you are less reliant on finding access to a computer - so something for the more serious photographer.
> so I tend to take as many photos as possible in the hope there will be one or two good ones
The photographers who are featured in National Geographic may have 20 photos in an article - often for an assignment they will take 20,000 😉 - it's a good strategy
Reply to this another option instead of flickr is using google's picasa. You can store a lot more photos for free. For my travels:
-2 cds and kept them in separate locations until sent home (got that advice a while back from TB!)
-put up on Picasaweb when I had time and then my brother would download to his computer
-I found out I could use my ipod as an external hard drive. I had the space and put them on there.
Also, be careful when you put photos on internet cafe computers. I have had friends who have gotten many viruses on their memory cards and had trouble recovering their photos. After you clear your memory card, its good to format it (you can do this on most cameras) and it will clear all the viruses. DON'T do this with photos you want still on the camera, it will erase them too (if that wasn't already obvious).
I love photos! I wish I took more and I already have a cazillion from the past 5 months!
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