One of the most rewarding things I find when travelling is capturing the moments and scenes on film. I have only used digital cameras when travelling - so my personal knowledge is limited to the specifics of digital photography.
How to Travel with a Digital Camera
Travelling with a digital camera is great - no worries about the films, instant previews of shots, you get to share the results immediately with those around. I've been lucky enough to be in remote villages where kids and adults alike have been amazed at being able to see their image on the little screen on the back of my camera.
Preparation
Pretty much all consumer cameras are suitable for use travelling. Things to look for: try to get a 3mp (mega pixel) or better camera - this is the minimum size that you will be able to get an 8x10inch (20x25cm) print from at comparable to photo quality. Get used to the camera and take plenty of photos in different light conditions. As a rule take photos in the largest size and highest quality that is available on your camera, you can always shrink photos later for use on the web but you can never increase the quality.
Memory cards: Compact flash is cheapest, with upto 4gb cards available, on an average day I take 100 photos when travelling, and from talking to other keen photographers this is fairly typical. Try to ensure that you memory card is large enough to make sure that you can take 100 photos a day between getting your photos from your camera onto whatever long term storage format is available.
Think about long term storage: will you be carrying a laptop, a portable hard disk, or relying on internet cafes and photshops. The third alternative is where you take your memory card to an internet cafe and they burn the contents to a CD. Hopefully I will get more time to talk about the other options in another post.
On the Road
So divided into practical considerations and photo tips. Well I'll leave the photo tips for another post.
Practical Considerations
1 - Getting your photos home and onto travelblog. Unless you have a laptop or portable hard drive you will have really only one practical option on an extended trip. Your photos will need to be burnt onto a CD-R at some point. You can do this in most internet cafes and photo shops worldwide - I base this from reports from South and Central America, Asia and Eastern Europe. I don't know about parts of Africa but I think that in large cities it will be fine. (hopefully someone can confirm or deny this)
Basically there are a few main types of flash memory storage for digital cameras:
CompactFlash - CF (Type I & II)
SmartMedia - SM
Memory Stick - MS
MultiMedia Card - MMC
Secure Digital - SD
xD-Picture Card - xD
As there are only a few the internet cafe's often have an adaptor for all type of card, connected to a designated burning computer. You will need to talk with the person running the cafe, usually they will be fine with what to do , and copy your photos easily. When you get your CD's burnt - get TWO - copies. Check them out in the cafe and mail one home as soon as possible, accidents and theft does happen when travelling. Losing all your photos would be even worse.
Getting your photos on to TravelBlog
TravelBlog automatically resizes, your photos for optimum display on the web - but depending on the size of your original photo it maybe to big or take a long time to upload. You can get round this by using an image resizer: Miha's
Image Resizer - is one I recommend - free and small enough to fit on a floppy. Resize you photo on the internet cafes PC prior to uploading and you will save a few minutes on a slow connection.
Keep your camera charged
This seems obvious but is often overlooked. If your camera has a custom battery you need to take care when and where you charge it. A digital camera is quite a valuable and desirable little item and can be easily pocketed. Take care. Many cameras use AA batteries - the advantages are you can buy replacements if needed, the disadvantages are that they don't have the long life of the lithium batteries found in built in most.
Well I hope to add more soon.
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