A portability on long trip: Stand Along Storage Devices?

[diane_rose]

I'm a newbie to digital capture, as I'm about to buy my first

digital camera and related accessories. I'm trying to learn the

best option for storage and portability when I am shooting on a 3

week trip to England. I'd rather not bring my laptop, and I don't

want to depend on my friends' computer working.

 

What is the best (cost-effective) way to store and transport?

Multiple CompactFlash cards and a hard case to carry them in? or a

stand alone data storage device (such as the Jobo Giga 2 20GB)?

 

In the past I usually would shoot anywhere from 20-40 rolls of

Velvia on this type of trip, since I needed to be able to harvest a

reasonable number of marketable images when I got home... I mention

this since I don't yet know how many digital images I would need to

be shooting/keeping/transporting. I'm also not sure how much of

the "weeding out" work will be done during the trip and how much

after. I don't want to spend every evening pouring over the day's

shots, so I suspect I should be prepared to transport a lot of

images. But (as you may've guessed) I'm clueless and trying to

learn before I buy...

 

I would love to hear advice from anyone who's handled a similar

situation.

 

Thanks!

Diane

[paul -]

I'm fond of the portable CF-to-CD burners, such as the Apacer Disc Steno lineup. Burn at least 2 CD copies of each card, mail one home and stash the other in your luggage. This is protection against loss/theft/damage, which the all-your-eggs-in-one-basket portable hard drives don't offer. The hard drive types have been known to fail, as several folks here have unfortunately experienced.<p>But then, I'm in the minority, as many prefer the portable hard drives with the cute little viewing screens.

[diane_rose]

I just googled the CF->CD unit you mentioned and it looks really useful. Unfortunately, according to one website review (on Steve's Digicam), these can't be used with the 1GB CF cards since they only burn 1 cd's worth at a time and there's no option for burning multiple cd's for the GB of data. But thanks for the pointer, I'll have a look around and see if there's something similar that handles 1GB by writing multiple cds.

[gary_berg]

Multiple CF cards is a "safe" solution, but expensive. You need to come up with some idea as to how many images you think you might shoot - do you shoot twice as many digital as you used to shoot film, or what? Do you shoot RAW or JPG? From that, you should be able to get a handle on how many images, and total capacity, you might need.

 

For example, my K-M A2 holds about 120-140 images on a 512Mb CF card in "Fine" mode. About 3 rolls of film.

 

The hard drive units are very nice, but suffer from the limitation that if the hard drive fails, you lose everything. Of course, you can carry two (preferably different brands) to cover yourself.

 

The other alternative is to buy one of the units that can write your images to a CD-R or DVR disc. You can always cover yourself by writing to two discs. Even mail/Fedex home one set of discs. I have an Apacer CP-200, which is very nice for this sort of use.

 

For the easiest use, you want to have sufficient memory cards to cover you for a day, or the longest you might want to go without power (if hiking/camping). Then I'd double that. I would typically want to have at least 3 cards in whatever size you choose; for example, 3 512Mb cards.

[phule]

Diane,

 

The RoadStor supports larger than 1GB transfers and will span disks.

 

http://www.micro-solutions.com/roadstor/index.asp

 

They also have a portable DVD burner called the RoadStor Pro.

[bill_sams]

"dpreview.com" has a forum called "storage and media" that will provide you an extensive list of q&a threads on every type of storage gadget you can think of...definitely worth a look for your needs...

[melresnick]

Here's an interesting thread that might be of help:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00B4s9

[klix]

Enough CF cards for an entire day's shooting (2 or 3??) and a CompactDrive PD7X - incredibly fast and powered by 2 AA batteries.

 

They take regular laptop HD's, and are available with or without the HD. So, if you're up to it, you can even remove your laptop's HD and install it into the CompactDrive.

[ron_goodenow]

When I take long trips I like to have music along. So why not get a hard-drive MP3 player and a device like a Delkin Bridge? I have an Archos jukebox and when I travel I often save images to it, using either my subnote or someone else's computer (via USB connector or card reader) as the bridge. As you may know there are internet cafes all over the place in the UK and most libraries are happy to sit you down at a computer. Oh, if you are photographing the English countryside having some Elgar or Delius in the back of your head makes for much better picture taking! Ditto for photographing the wonderful urban renewal in Liverpool with the Beatles chirping happily in the background. My idea of heaven.

 

Have a great trip.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

Diane, you haven't mentioned what kind of camera you're getting. If you're going to be using a 3-5 megapixel point-and-shoot, your best option may be CF cards as your files will be small and you won't need fast cards. 1GB cards are pretty cheap. If your going dslr you'll want fast cards like Lexar 80X or Sandisk Extreme. Then you're looking at a lot more money so either a burner or portable HD makes sense. I took a FlashTrax 20GB to Italy last fall and it was quite adequate (shooting with a D-70, large JPEG, I wound up with 1200 pics or so.) Just remember, with digital you will shoot a LOT more. It's very liberating to not have to pay for film.

[diane_rose]

I'm looking at an 8MP Nikon Coolpix 8800 and I'll be shooting as large a file as possible, since I frequently have prints made (by a pro lab) up to 20x30".

 

Since I haven't gotten the camera yet and haven't started shooting digital yet, I was surprised to hear that you shoot MORE with digital than film. I could take as much as a whole roll for bracketing and similars and in-camera dupes before, and I assumed since you could see the work 'live' that wouldn't be as necessary (at least not to the level of film). Here I am, glimpsing the learning curve...

 

Since you mentioned types of CF cards, I have more questions... I was looking at the Lexar 1GB 40x CompactFlash Card with Write Acceleration (WA) Technology ($89 at B+H). And B+H sells a 'kit' that bundles the 8800 with the Sandisk - 1GB Ultra II CompactFlash Card for $889 (before the $100 rebate - this is $70 more than the price of buying just the camera, they charge $89.95 for the same card alone). Is this card worth $70, or would another be a better investment?

 

Can someone tell me the differences between these 2 cards? Both are 1gb. The Lexar is 40x -- does anyone know how many "x" the Sandisk Ultra II is? Anyone have feedback on the "Write Acceleration" technology (or is this just marketing jargon?)? From the information I can get online I'm having trouble knowing how to compare (again, the learning curve...). Both are CF I, right?

 

I'm thinking I should buy a spare battery (of course) and a spare CF card. Would it make sense to get these 2 cards and use whichever is slower as backup? (Though obviously if they are close in price, 2 faster ones would be better...)

 

Since I haven't used any of this equipment (and am just trying to learn about it), I apologise if any of these questions are stupid.

 

BTW, after reading everyone's suggestions and looking into various options... I've decided that I should take my laptop with me. There are other rather big non-photography benefits to having it. It has a good size internal drive and a DVD burner. And if I bring it along I can avoid spending ~$250 for another storage device or portable burner, etc. My travels are relatively low-risk theftwise (as far as traveling goes)... other than airport scanning, I'll have it in my hand and will be at friends' houses and in private cars, etc. so that's not a big worry. (But of course I'll make sure it's insured just in case...)

 

 

Thanks to everyone for their helpful suggestions and for helping me along the learning curve!

Diane

[mdickerson]

There is a page about flash memory speed ratings at Crucial:

 

http://www.crucial.com/library/flash_speed_rating.asp

 

Basically the different speed ratings are very unlikely to matter. No matter how big and fast your camera is, there is some maximum speed at which it can write to memory cards, and if that speed is 8x or 12x, then it isn't going to make the slightest difference whether your memory cards are 32x or 40x. Unfortunately there isn't usually a good way to find out how fast your camera's flash writer is, so I would just shop by price and look for an easy return policy in the unlikely case that a card turns out to be noticeably slow.

 

Also, I can't believe nobody recommended an iPod for your intermediate storage! The iPod Photo comes in a 60G size with a color screen. They are expensive ($600 and you also have to buy the card reader adapter for another $50) but they also happen to play music or something which has made them fairly popular in their own right..