best laptop and storage for africa

[brian_mcleod]

My wife and I are going on a 14 day trip to Botswana and anticipated shooting a

minimum of 250GB of images. We need a new computer and/or storage to store and

backup. Any suggestions as to an ideal computer and storage devices keeping

weight restrictions in mind?

[waltflanagan]

I think 320GB is the current max size for a laptop hard drive. I bought a Macbook with an 80GB drive, replaced it with a 250, and bought an external 1TB drive. If you could get something with an eSATA connector that is much faster than USB2 or Firewire. There is no ideal computer. Some like large, some like small.

[walter_degroot]

anywhere in the thrird world a high tech device is at risk.

yiou must keep it with you at all times

travel as light as possible. maybe a lot of picture cards would be better.

having a digicam and a laptop will make you a target..

film may get x-ray-ed and damaged at a airport with old equipment..

the countries simply cannot afford better equipment.

but enjoy your trip and take photos of all the wildlife before everyone kills and eats it.

[SteveH]

My wife has traveled to Africa several times for wildlife photography. She carries a MacBook

Pro with Lightroom installed and a couple of portable hard drives for backup.

[bueh]

Perhaps an Asus EEE with an external USB harddrive?

 

Or you could just get one (or two) of them devices that utilizes a laptop harddisk with a card reader to copy the pictures to it. It's not possible to view the photos, but it is definitively the smallest and most lightweight (and pretty inexpensive) solution.

[Mary Doo]

Ditto Steve's suggestion. I went to Tanzania with a laptop and two WD Passport mini drives; one to keep in my camera bag, the other at the hotel/lodge. So if somethng happens to one of them, I would have a backup. Now WD makes 320GB mini drives.

 

Good luck,

Mary

[Mary Doo]

Oh, forgot to mention the laptop. The storage and quality have gone up while the prices have come down. A sub 5-lb laptop easily provides 250GB and a dual-core. HP has an AMD DUAL CORE/4GB RAM/250GB unit at an attractive price.

 

Mary

[frank uhlig]

The best storage would be on-line, pericodically uploaded; in case your laptop sinks into the

mud somewhere ... sometime

[joseph_smith3]

You should have dual backup. One small laptop plus a Hyperdrive or two Hyperdrives. More info on hyperdrives here: http://www.hyperdrive.com/

There are two basic models, space and colorspace, in different GB capacities. If not hyperdrives, something like them. Joe Smith

[bueh]

Thank you, Joseph for that link. I didn't know they make gizmos like that with a photo display. I have an inexpensive Digimate III that doubles as an external hard disk but doesn't let you view the images.

[greg neils]

I've been traveling around the world for the last 20 months. I've seen my extrnal hard drives get dropped. Bring 2 and use one as a backup only. Acronis Software will also back up your computer. Here is my set up if it helps.

 

I've got an HP laptop in the biggest size possible. It's great for viewing pictures and a pain to travel with. My wife has a 14 inch and it is perfectly capable of the same job and a lot easier to travel with. With bigger size comes speed mine's fast.

 

I've got 2 external USB 250 Gig hard drives in differnt colors, blue and orange. One is only for backups (blue) and one is for originals (orange). They are from differnt makers and that has not mattered. They are both really small. If you go big drives, they are prone to heating and harder to stash away. Plus they are usually a little more fragile because the internal disk is bigger, spins faster, and was always meant to be on a stationary desk somewhere.

 

My wife caries the Orange External and I carry the Blue.

 

The best thing I would add to your list is a portable mouse. I absolutely love mine and I find it really hard to touch up photos not using it.

 

Try NOT to buy a external drive that needs to be plugged in. Get a USB drive that draws the power from your computer, it is one less power adaptor that you'll have to carry. The less cords and adaptors the better.

 

If you are worried about bumps and bruises, buy a solid state hard drive in the laptop. They are strong. Go Mac or go Windows XP, or whatever system your used to. Windows is moving to "version 7" and Vista is down right horrible.

 

If you get two 250 USB external hard drives, worst comes to worst and you'll have 500 Gigs and no backup. Please be concerned about your backup while you are outthere. I had 1 computer stop working, 1 hard drive break, the 2nd computer crash and lose everything, and another external hard drive fail. That was in 1 week and I take excellent care of my stuff.

 

Don't worry about the brands. They are different but mostly function the same, just get ones you like in the size you like. Try them out before you go for as long as you can. Most electronics break in the 1st month or lasts a long time.

 

Good luck, have a great time and bring back some incredible photos.

[vladimir_pcholkin___washin]

Depends what you're planning to do with your laptop. If you're planning to edit your images, than full size laptop with good screen is a must. I travel a lot and do long trips(30-90 days). I carry laptop for back up, internet and captions only. I use EEE PC with 2 external 2.5" hard drives(250GB ea.). It's light and easy to travel.

[tommy huynh]

The best laptop in Botswana would be the best one anywhere else for you. Don't rely on the laptop for durability, put it in a Pelican case if you want it to survive, even with toughbooks. I like IBMs, can't really say what is best for you.

[herman_hiel]

I suggest you find out whether the places you stay in have electricity.

A number of safaris stay in camp sites; though they have water and showers, most didn't have electricity. At least not when I was there some 15 years ago. Enjoy.

[bruce_stenman1]

I take a cheap (and therefore lightweight) power strip with a 2 foot cord. It plugs in anywhere and then provides me with 4 outlets for chargers and I only need the one electrical socket adapter for the power strip.

 

Several brands, like Lacie, that have rugged hard disk enclosures. The hard drives with USB power are more compact but also slower so copying over 20GB of data could take hours to accomplish. A FireWire800/USB2 drive like the Lacie All-Terrain would be my first choice and a FireWire PCMCIA adapter for a laptop without a FireWire port. FireWire move data at 250% the rate of USB2. If you want to shoot all day, edit, and then backup to a a hard drive and not have it run all night, a faster solution will be important.

[bjorke]

My last month-long trip saw me with a backpack carrying my gear and a 17" macbook pro -- the most expensive, heaviest, and most fragile piece of kit in the entire bag, just operating as way to get pix from my CF cards (and audio recordings) to the (La Cie) external hard drives and as an email/web device (actually, my HTC phone did just as well on those tasks). BAD IDEA.

 

Why waste your time while travelling by sitting in the dark trying to edit pix? Make the most of those 14 days! Unless you have an editor back in NYC who wants those wildebeests TODAY, leave the editing for when you get back home.

 

With the "basic should be basic and bags should be lightweight" ideas in mind, I too have switched to the ASUS Eee. It totally does the trick, weighs 1/3 what the Mac does, fits in a Domke, and for the cost of the Mac I can buy four or five MORE Eee's.

 

Still love the Mac closer to home of course :)