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Managing digital photos on the road - updates?
Hope the answer to this question isn't somewhere else on the site, but I haven't seen too much in the last several months on this subject and nothing lately in the Photo Forum.
How are people with digital cameras currently handling the storage of their photos on the road these days? For my one year Asia trip beginning in April, I am not planning on taking a computer, nor an ipod or portable hard drive or any other electronic device. I plan on only using what is available at the local internet cafe. Is the best thing to just burn your photos to a CD periodically at an internet cafe and ship home, or upload to a photo webhosting site like Smugmug, or a combination of both? Or just have a bunch of memory cards? Just started using Smugmug, its really easy to use, but uploads are slow even on a high speed connection and I wonder if high speed internet is even available in many developing countries? Looking for some guidance... -Dave |
Look here:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb...ML/000105.html With my digicam came proprietary software for downloading images on to my home pc (Canon in my case). I can also download using a card reader/writer. I'm not sure if you download straight from camera to an internet hosting site such as Smugmug? I might try soon & see if it's possible? You should be able to do so if you take your own reader/writer though. I have downloaded photos from home on to a CF card using the reader/writer, taken it to work & downloaded photos on to the work pc for a screen saver. When you upload to Smugmug, you're able to browse the hard drive of the pc you're using & if you have a reader/writer plugged in, look in My Computer, it will either be the E, F or G Drive depending if they already have other hardware installed such as DVD player/burner. With Smugmug, the basic yearly cost is US$30, this gives you a 2GB monthly upload limit. For US$50 you can have 4GB per month & the ability to upload movies of of up 8mb each. Movies must first be converedted from .avi to .mpeg files. I've just started doing this using free software from www.winavi.com . Note that using this leaves a faint message across the movie screen encouraging you to buy the full version. I normally save an .avi version & convert another to .mpeg. www.smugmug.com My photos: www.possu.smugmug.com Well worth the money. On a long trip you can share the photos worldwide as they're uploaded by providing friends/family with a link to you're photo galleries as I've done above. [This message has been edited by Steve Pickford (edited 17 February 2005).] |
We'll be hitting the road in June and are facing the same problem, although we are looking for a small device to type emails and trip diaries on, as well as download web pages to read offline (HUBB!).
Having seen the abysmal connections in Turkey a few years ago we aren't planning on uploading any more than the most interesting photos. The rest needs to be burned on CD. I don't think there is a way around that. For long-term travel thru the 3rd world you will have to carry a gadget of some sort, unless your camera is a Sony MVC using CDR. I was thinking of buying CF cards to send home, but since they are worth their weight in gold you can only send them safely registered, which again pushes up the cost. Seeing we will likely be carrying a small laptop I'm thinking of getting a used Imation RipGo!. It's a mini-CDRW burner using 8cm disks. Seems out of production and uses a proprietary battery, though. ------------------ Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise, Peter. |
I've been getting copies of pictures from my CF cards to send home on CDr. I send 2 cdrs of the same pictures at 2 diffent towns. Better safe than sorry.
I bought 3 CF cards but I've just used 1. My Canon A70 is dying out. It's been a rough life for it in my jacket pocket. Going from a very humid 45c heat to dry and hot to cold. Once this one dies, I'll need to find a camera that can be treated roughly. No computer with me, but I have an old Psion 5mx PDA that I can write travel journals on. And it'll run Opera (a web browser like Internet Explorer) so I can download sites like HU and answer a lot of messages at once. It'll also let me download email so I can answer them at my own time instead of paying by the minute at an internet cafe. The Psion runs off AA batteries which is nice. --Dave ------------------ Trying to ride (and work) my way round the world on a 1965 Ducati 250cc. In New Zealand now. Japan in April. http://nokilli.com/rtw/ |
Dave, how to you get the pix onto CDR? And what do you use to view them?
------------------ Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise, Peter. |
Hi Peter,
Some internet cafes have CD burners. When they're updated enough for that they'll have programs that will show the pictures. Microsoft stuff is pirated all over and I'd also meet people who had burners & Photoshop. There's a digital camera that burns photos onto a CD. I thought about getting one but didn't think it could take the vibration. --Dave ------------------ Trying to ride (and work) my way round the world on a 1965 Ducati 250cc. In New Zealand now. Japan in April. http://nokilli.com/rtw/ |
Morning all,
I've the same dilema as most. Digital camera photos are going to exceed the little SD(?) card's capacity. i don't believe we'll find a place to download so am looking into getting an ipod (or similar) and downloading directly to that. It seems you can get a device that plugs onto the bottom of an ipod to transfer data files. I'm guessing this should work but haven't looked into it thoroughly yet. I'll find out eventually unless someone already knows, perhaps? Steve |
you might find some cafes can take a camera card and put it onto a CD. Others will let you plug the camera into a PC, then copy and burn.
I ended up taking alaptop (Acer Travelmate) with CD burner. WHich also meant I could hike around my music collection for my MP3 player, and keep a diary that I uploaded to a website via CDs at cafes. It is a lot of space, but for me worth it. Doing it again however I could leave the CDburner behind and use a USB storage device. ------------------ Richb http://www.postmaster.co.uk/~richardbeaumont/60684/ |
The Ipod Photo is not mentioned here? Any reason for that?
Got to admit, we would only be on the road for about a month. |
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With the high storage capacity of the iPod, I was able to keep all my pictures at the highest resolution. And I had my music selection too! You can use the regular iPod instead of iPod Photo is you don't want to view the pictures. It will store them just fine. iPod isn't cheap. But when you consider that you can use it when not traveling, too, it is a good investment (in my opinion). |
Thanks Chris,
Know what to go for now. Pieter |
Does anyone know if many internet cafes in developing countries (in Asia) have card readers? I don't plan on taking a computer, ipod or anything else but my digital camera.
If I could just burn some pictures onto a CD once every month or two, I would be set, I just got a 1GB flash card which stores nearly 1000 pictures. Dave |
When you burn a CD, I think it is safer to always make 2 copies: one that you keep with you, the other that you send home.
Sometimes a burn might not be successful in spite of what the machine says, or it might not be readable on another machine. And sometimes the mail doesn't make it home. Pierre Saslawsky http://www.photobiker.com |
Heard some stuff about the Ipod. Friend of mine says at a certain speed it will stop playing music. Reason is that the vibrations of the bike reach a certain frequency that in some way puts the hard disk out of function. Once the buffer-memory is full (or empty) you are out of music. When this happens, he told me, you are in trouble. The disk or memory gets damaged.
Any experiences? Who listened to music on the road already? I would go for the Ipod music (20gig) with the belkin adaptor. Will use it on the bike for music. On travel for photo storage In the car I can link it to my stereo. In house I can also link it to my stereo. Pieter. |
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But I do have it with me on the town much of the time. I would assume you have no problems if you keep the iPod on your body, not the bike, Put it in a pocket, and use one of the many padded cases available. I think your behind will feel the vibration more than the iPod! Probably wouldn't be a good idea to use it off road, though. Off road, turn it off and pack it with your clothes. I use the "SportSuit Convertible," but there are many others available. http://www.marware.com/cgi-bin/WebOb...qAbbF7oUhJ7beg |
FYI - only taking a digital camera with me.
I use a web based photo album - www.chiizu.com - so i can plug my camera into any internet cafe HD using supplied USB cable. All software is web based so no downloads required to hard drive. Upload photos easily. 90 day free trial then costs US$20 per year for 500 photos storage. Very simple and no extra software of hardware required. Works well for me. |
You can buy USB "stick" memory these days for a relatively good price. If you take a laptop, move the pics to the stick for backup when the computer dies. You can always unload the stick (USB) through any computer to a website, or burn a CD.
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Amigos,
This system works. Just used it for 13 months from the Arctic circle to Tierra del Fuego and back to the USA. Took 5 thousand photos, all at highest resolution with a 4 megpix Canon 400 camera. 1. Buy a Canon Camera with compact Flash memory card. Buy the leather case for protection. 2.Buy a 254 meg memory card to augment what it was sold with. Now you have two(a spare). You can take 100 high res photos before needing to dump the card. 3.Buy 2 batterys for the camera. The camera should come with 120/220V charger for the battery. 3. Buy a Archos Gmini120 ,220 or 400. MP3 player with a built in card reader for compact flash memory card. These players are 20-40 gigs of memory so do the math on how many times you can dump the memory card. I carried 15 gigs of tunes and used 5 gigs for photos, then burned CDs and sent them home via secure carrier like DHL. 5 gigs is 4-6 CDs. Never had a problem finding someone to burn CDs in North, Central or South America. Any medium sized city or tourist attraction city. If you run out of space you can dump tunes in a pinch but you need a PC to do this. Right now the Gmini 120 is on sale at Amazon for $150usd. With the 120 no ability to view photos in the MP3. With the 220 and the 400 they have a screen and one is black and white the other is color. Only the gmini400 is now on the Archos website(www.archos.com) This system worked for me every time. Survived a bad crash in Bolivia that put me in the hospital for 4 days, no walking for 2 weeks, wrecked the bike. You have to learn to download the card so practice before you get out in the field. You can buy a card reader from Archos so the units will readSM/SD/MML/MS memory stick, smart media, multi media or secure digital cards fo $40usd. The state of the art400 series is $350 usd. I shot every picture I wanted to, at least half from the saddle at speed. All shots were highest resolution. Burned 16 CDs of photos. I dropped the camera at the Paraguay border and cracked the screen and it finially failed in the Brazilian rain forest. Canon is reparing it for free on a one year warranty(hope/pray). Dont tell them it was out of the country. I can find no fault with the ststem. The battery recharger worked fine on 220V in S. America. A 12V charger is available from Canon for $60usd. Plus I had tunes all the way. Rock and roll, American music. Can you dig it? Bill Shockley. |
Last night at Wal-Mart, I saw to portable storage devices. The 2.5 gig one was the size of a tape measure and cost about $110 and the 40 gig one looked to be a bit bigger and cost somewhere aroun $200. They both had usb cords to plug into your camera. No lcd screens/viewers just storage.
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Hi, I am in Poland now. I am using a Canon S1, with a Belkin reader and the iPod 40G. It all works great. NB: I charge everything on the bike while riding, on 12V. I had 2 extra 12V sockets made on the bike.
What I would like to add that I use photobucket.com and a Dutch blog site. So I pick it up from an iPod in an internet cafe and upload the photobucket site, which connects to the blog. Just wanted to let you know, you might need just that. The photo side automatically compresses my high res pics by the way. No idea how it does it http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif. Check my blog at: martijnopdemotor.web-log.nl It is in its infancy state.. just started it. Martijn |
Office max had a deal a little while ago for a 1 gig USB storage stick that was about $50 USD. They might still have it.
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There is nowhere in SE Asia or Bangladesh through India Pakistan and Iran where you would not be able to get your photos put on CD....and quite cheaply as well. We have never had a problem and as it is so cheap get several copies made ....sending some to our kids at different address and keeping one ourselves so that if one gets broken there are extra copies. Asia will surprise you at the computor services available. If it is in your home country it will be in Asia (and the surrounding countries) as well.
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I have had some ipod experience. My first ipod got wrecked when I put it in my pocket to protect if from a rain storm. Pocket filled with water. DOH!! That one I usually just had velcroed to the tank of my bike, and could change songs and such at will. Replaced it with an ipod mini, which would lock up completely after about 10 minutes on the bike. 3 out of 4 times it locked up so completely that it had to be reformated, all the contents were lost. That would be a very bad thing if it had all your pictures!! Also, if you let it go long enough without recharging, you will lose everything stored on it also.
If I hadnt already spent more money than I should for this trip to alaska, I would have gotten a 40gig ipod with the belkin adapter, and an add on battery pack so that I wouldnt have to worry every night about recharging it. Quote:
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I'm having similar problems. I'm using the iPod just for backup storage, but I have had little luck getting pics on to the web. I can get USB connections, but only in Budapest have I found an internet cafe running XP. Windows 98 won't recognise my camera and wants software, which of course they will never let you download. XP recognises a camera as a storage device, so you can take pictures from it. I could connect the USB for either the iPod or the camera, but unless I can access it on the PC its all pointless. Am I missing something ? I realise Romania may not be cutting edge, but I have a lot of countries to go yet and my blog would be much more interesting with pics....
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Theft would be one of my greatest concerns on a trip. Having backups with you won't help much if also the backup is stored with the original. People have been relieved of ALL their stuff before (some times even their life, in which backups only matters to those left behind).
For this very reason, the only way I would feel completely secure is if i could upload backups of my videos and pictures to a remote server. As this poses a problem with countries that have really sloooooooow internet connections, my second option would be to burn copies onto a DVD/r or CD/r and have them shipped home, maybe burn a copy to have with me just in case the mail doesn't get through. And as has been said, burning two copies to prevent files being lost from bad copies. And maybe even send from two diiferen places to increase the odds even more. To acchieve this, a pc with a burner is needed. You could bring one along or hope you can find someone on the way that has one... a fellow rider maybe? Or, you could simply leave it up to faith... On short trips I would be willing to risk the loss of pictures as there would not be that many. On a long trip to a region with poor infrastructures I would have brought something with a burner... If the infrastructure was good, I might only bring the necessary adapters and use somebody elses computer... |
I have a laptop for photos and to update my web site. I take raw photos.
After fed exing back 90 cd's I realised it was taking too long. although obviously more expensive nothing (touch wood) has ever gone astray. day to day management: i have 2 cloned 80 gb hard drives: c: windows & programs d: my photos + my everything else. i transfer photos etc to both drives regularly. when d: is full i fed ex it home. once its been transferred to home pc i delete photos and start again. i also use a 2gb CF card for ad hoc stuff. ------------------ Jerome http://www.fowb.co.uk |
I agree with David,
I am from India ( Now in Bombay and Pune) though at some places (rural areas etc) it might be difficult to get a High speed(Broaband) Cyber cafe. Burning the photos into CDs is no problem at all. Almost all Cyberccafes even in small towns will have CD writers. And as he rightly pointed out it is DIRT CHEAP to burn CDs! Almost all cybercafes have CD writing available, you just have to make sure you carry your Camera USB cable with you so that the Pics can be transferred to the PC. Here one point to note is that Only if the OS is XP then the PC will recognize your camera as an external drive failing which you will have to carry the CD(Driver) of the custom software of the CAMERA company. Even on a broad band internet connection in India it might still take eons to get the photos uploaded on to some remote server so I think burning the pics into CDs is the best alternative. I had a ride last week with a friend with his very VERY portable Sony Cybershot! and I am convinced I would be going in for a very portable sleek camera even at the cost of extra features. The comfort of portability (of just leaving the camera in a very smallish pouch on your belt is tremendous) You do not have to carry an extra pouch and the camera has a max capacity of 5.1 Mpx(good enough for me. A Big welcome to riders coming to India! Red Bull Quote:
[This message has been edited by Red Bull (edited 07 January 2006).] |
I'm confused.
Last time I went into an Internet cafe (admittedly a couple or more years ago) all you seemed to be able to do was connect to the net. Generally, in say mainland Europe, do most Internet cafes have card readers, photo viewing programmes and CD-R facilities? |
Not just in Europe but I would stick my neck out and say most of the world has there facitities available. There has been nowhere where we were not able to view our digital pics or get the cards transferred to CD's. In Asia it was so cheap we often got lots of copies to send to different members of our family. Even in places like northern Laos it is easy to get computor services. The shops may just look a little different to what you are used to....but then once you are on the road your vision of 'normal' changes a lot as well.
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On one level, the ability to get easy computer services in northern Laos makes me a trifle sad...it'll be the big yellow M next! No, no, don't tell me it's already there. |
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I use an Xs-drive - a portable 30 GB harddrive with build in card reader. Used it on my last 6-7 journeys and It never failed me. Hovever for a longer journey I would combine this with burning DVD/CD and mailing them home. |
We have found that it is easy enough to download photos to CD at internet cafes. We have a 1 gig card and a 64mg card and a little storage in the camera. We had over 700 photos on the 1 gig card and it was not full up!
So far we have been in Canada, USA, Mexico, Belize and Guatemala - on the road for 8 months and we have had no difficulties finding cafes that have equipment to do this. We then send the discs home by mail. No problems so far. |
Newegg carries a portable 2.5" hdd enclosure that accepts memory cards. I just built one with a 40gb for $100 last week. One touch download and clear of your card as well. Pretty slick and ipod sized.
Jeff newbie |
I just upgraded my camera and it came with a 2GB SD card. An additional $20 gets you a USB card reader, thumb drive size. The 2GB card holds 775 pictures at highest resolution and size. You can get cheap webhosting at goddady.com, something like $6 for 50 GB. Use Internet Explorer to ftp things up there till you get home and have time to sort it out. That's the "bare-bones" approach. A bit more work gets you a CD burned etc. Easy enough these days. I'm leaving in 6 days for an RTW and I'm taking a laptop as well. Maybe if I would have known how easy things have gotten as of late, I might not have bothered.
------------------ Kevin http://www.nohorizons.net |
This might be a handy little gizmo for some people
http://www.engadget.com/2005/01/06/s...n-usb-adapter/ |
First of all, I wouldn't trust CD-Rs or -RWs when carrying them with you on your trip. CD-Rs and -RWs are very vulnerable to both very high and very low temperatures, therefore, your burned CDs might turn out to be worthless once you've arrived back home.
I would also never trust a harddrive device as only source for backing up my files. The reason is quite simple: Harddrives tend to fail at the worst possible moment, mostly due to vibrations. I've had two harddrives fail me already on a trip therefore I don't trust them anymore. That includes MP3 players like the iPod as well. The only reliable medium for backups I found was flash memory, either a flash MP3-Player (like the iPod Mini with 4 gig flash memory) or USB sticks (you can get a 1 gig USB-stick dirt cheap these days, I even saw an ad for a 6GB USB-stick for less than 100 bucks couple of days ago) or a lot of flash memory cards (CF of course). If you also bring a tiny USB card reader along you should have no trouble whatsoever accessing your photos whatever device they're saved on. Of course burning your pics on CD-Rs and snail mailing them back home is a backup possibility which can and should be combined with other backup techniques ;) |
The Professional Solution
Some professional digital SLRs allow simultaneous recording to 2 card slots for situations where a backup of pictures is essential. There is no quicker or simpler way to make a backup copy of digital photos than have it done in the camera itself when you press the shutter release. Unfortunately the cameras that have this facility (such as the Canon EOS-1D range) are prohibitively expensive to be justified by this feature alone. However, if photography is your reason for travelling, then maybe you'd be happy to spend as much on your camera as your bike.... but then if you're that serious, you'd probably still want to review pictures on a PC/Mac & then backup to optical media or do internet file transfers of important pictures too :-)
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A few years ago when a 1GB memory card cost £200 this was a real problem. Memory cards are so cheap these days that if I was away for a long period of time I'd just stock up on cards. You can get a 2GB card for £20 on ebay which will be hold over 500 photos from a 6MP camera. Take 2 or 3 of these, and if you do find yourself running low on space then stop off in an internet cafe and get the photos transfered to CD or DVD. Get 2 copies of the discs and post one home.
On my last trip I only had a 1GB card in the camera, and had to get it transfered to disc - it only cost about £3 to get the guy in the internet cafe to make up the disc for me. It also pays to be more thoughtful in your picture taking. Stop and think about what you want to achieve in the photo before you hit the button. It's better to have one or two well framed shots than a dozen blured or poorly composed shots. Do you really want to sort through 1000's of so-so photos when you get back home, or would you rather have a few 100 really good ones? |
usb copier
Just been looking at one of these
http://www.shiroi.co.uk/belkin-belki...scription.html Looks small enough and should allow you to dump a cameras contents onto a memory stick. Or I'd imagine if you have 2 cameras you could copy a full memory card onto an empty card in the other. Keep one card with you and post the copied card/memory stich home. cheers Stewart |
Belkin USB Anywhere + Canon/Kodak camera
For me that looks really useful to back my photos up to a 2.5" portable hard drive. I'll need mains/vehicle power to power either the hard drive or the USB copier as I think it's unlikely that 3xAA batteries will provide enough energy to run even a small hard drive for long enough.
Note that some camera manufacturers (notably Canon & Kodak) have not designed their cameras' USB interfaces to look like a hard drive (they do not support 'USB mass storage device'), so plugging one of these cameras into most USB copiers will not work. You will need to use a USB card reader plugged into the copier to read the photos from the card. There are other makes about, but this one seems to be the smallest/cheapest at the moment. I found some user reviews here: dabs.com - Belkin USB Anywhere USB data copier (F5U203UK) It's also available from Amazon & others. Ian |
SD Cards
Seems that most cameras now take SD cards, you can buy them cheap up to 2gig, and you can get cheap USB card readers for them. I bought a 1gig SD card and USB reader set for €20 the other day. You simply plug it in a PC and it reads as another drive.
Also ask yourself where you want to show your pictures? Are they just for the internet or will you be printing them out? If you're printing, what size, normal photo, or huge poster size? If all you're going to be doing is showing them on the web, why set your camera to largest size, highest definition, it'll just mean a slow up/download speed. I'm actually planning on taking two cameras, one for happy snaps and one for more serious photos. You can get a 3mp camera now very cheap which is fine for website shots. Also why bother paying for photohosting? If you check out Kodak/Fuji etc all of them offer free hosting for photos as part of their online printing services, and it means your friends relatives can order up properly printed on photopaper pics if the'd like. |
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hi there...
I installed event photography software in my Digital SLR camera which uploads the photographs click by the camera to the data center.. and help me in arranging and selecting the photographs clicked by me. :thumbup1: |
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