Retaining And Storing Photos When Travelling

[Dan]

Why not just take a few spare cards the bigguns take hundreds of photos, also some PCs have card readers dont they?

 

dan

[Ken L]

Online storage is a none starter if your friend is travelling in anything other than first world countries where the internet cafe's will have a BB connection. Whatever the operating system on the PC's they're using, most of the time, they'll end up spending a fortune while they try to upload their images over a slow and unreliable dial up connection that's being shared by half a dozen other machines.

 

Burning to CD is an option but is again frought with problems as the disks offered by internet cafe's are inevitably the cheapest on the market and arn't suplied with any sort of case because they buy thier disks on a spindle. This raises the question of how you get the disks home without then getting scratched by sand, damaged by heat/light or simply busted up inside your backpack by airport bagadge handlers who couldn't care less whether they damadge your stuff.

 

Carrying a laptop isn't very practicle because of it's bulk, power requirements, weight and fragility.

 

The only realistic option is big memory cards. They're cheap as chips and I usually stick a 1 gig card in the camera and carry a 250 meg as a backup. I've yet to fill the main card on a three month trip despite using the camera on the 6 and 12 megapixel settings most of the time.

Data on these cards is incredably robust (unlike portable HDD's) and if they are required, additional cards can be brought along the way - they're even cheaper in places like Singapore and Hong Kong than they are in the UK.

 

Hope this helps.

[Guest Jan V]

Same as my Cam then - xp will just see it as another drive when it's plugged in to a pc via usb - I've no idea if .net cafes allow data transfer but if they did then I guess they would also be a card reader in the cafe. In anyevent don't forget to pack the usb cable.

My laptop has 2000 Pro and it also automatically recognizes my camera when I plug in my camera USB cable. It then allows me to transfer pictures to the hard drive. As Davey said, XP Pro on my desktop does the same.

Edited December 5, 2005 by Jan V

[chappers]

my mate just came back from travelling for a year he just burnt cds at internet cafes and posted them home, even in the most far flung places he managed to find somewhere to plug in his camera and burn a cd.

[Fastd]

Its all been said.

 

If your mate had say 6 x 512mb cards with him, a cheep usb card reader and some blank cds he has every option. he could nip into a net cafe. Burn a card to cd and post it home, this is where the card reader comes in as the drivers are more readily avaiable than plugging the actual cam in.

 

He could also send the card home in a seperate envelope as from experience only about 1 in three letters arrive home from places like central pakistan where i spent 6 months. Only 50% of letters got home from thailand based on 8 months experience.

 

Dont keep valuables with you when travelling including prized memories. Baggage is all too easy lost on flights. i personally found the most reliable way to get info (letters) home was to give them to someone at the airport when on transfers and ask them to post them when they got back. 100% of the letters sent this way got home as travellers feel honour bound to help out a fellow traveller.

 

Just one word of warning ...dont try posting digital media when in a communist country..even these days they get a bit touchy at times...same goes for muslim countries in some cases.

 

Finally DHL have offices in just about every country in the world. Expensive but superb service...I spent 6 months in a jungle in north malasia and in all that time we got the uk sunday papers delivered every wednesday without fail..they never missed. if its important that it gets home this is the way to send it.

 

Hope ths helps

 

Dave

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Carrying a laptop isn't very practicle because of it's bulk, power requirements, weight and fragility

Just one word of warning ...dont try posting digital media when in a communist country..even these days they get a bit touchy at times...same goes for muslim countries in some cases.

 

Both of the above apply to laptops, some countries can be real bitchy about them.

 

The best way is:

 

 

personally found the most reliable way to get info (letters) home was to give them to someone at the airport when on transfers and ask them to post them when they got back. 100% of the letters sent this way got home as travellers feel honour bound to help out a fellow traveller.

or

 

 

Finally DHL have offices in just about every country in the world. Expensive but superb service...I spent 6 months in a jungle in north malasia and in all that time we got the uk sunday papers delivered every wednesday without fail..they never missed. if its important that it gets home this is the way to send it.

 

 

Dave knows his onions

[Lid]

More good tips. Thanks folks, it has all been passed on.

[Tog]

Use a film camera?