saving images without downloading onto a computer

[ol_r]

<p>Hello all</p>

<p>I have nikon d80 and a d300. I am planning a long period of uninterupted travel sans laptop. Is there anyway my photos can be backed up without downloading them onto a computer or uploading them to a website? If the latter is the only option, which website would you recommend uploading to?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

[mark_s8]

<p>I carry a Colorspace UDMA drive for such purposes. And extra memory cards. Works perfect!</p>

 

[rapyke]

<p>Just keep buying memory cards... or take a bunch with you.</p>

<p>You could also check local photo shops to see if they can/will download to USB memory sticks or even DVDs.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>There are several small devices which will transfer images from a CF or SC card to a built-in hard drive without a computer. Some have a viewing screen and confirmation of a valid transfer. See <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com">www.bhphotovideo.com</a>.</p>

[jim_momary]

<p>If we are talking civilized locations, one can go into most pharmacies in the US and put a CF card in one of those print making kiosks and have it burn a CD on the spot. Cost is a few dollars, it's trivial to do and takes only a few minutes.</p>

<p>I do this sometimes when I'm out and about.</p>

<p>Jim</p>

[ol_r]

<p>Thanks for the input guys. A Colorspace UDMA is the kind of device I'd need. Are they quite robust? Will it be okay travelling in a backpack for some weeks? Any cheaper brands to recommend?<br>

Is this the kind of device you were referring to Edward?</p>

[mikael_karlsson]

<p>Ol:<br /><br />Just make sure you have a way to make backups. Would be a tad irritating I'm sure if you download all cards onto a device such as a Giga vu Pro (Jobo) or a Wolverine PicPac or similar device just to have it experience a fatal crash corrupting all your image files. If you go with a storage device I'd also get a few big usb thumb drives to store copies of all your files on. Better safe than sorry and all that!</p>

[David_Cavan]

<p>I like the suggestion of having an extra backup burned on CD/DVD's when you can get that done. We carry pre-addressed, padded envelopes with us and every few days put the DVD's we've burned in one of those and send it home. It gets away from the potential problem of having your camera bag or backpack stolen and losing everything.</p>

[senthil1]

<p>Of course, those are robust and really fast. Have been carrying these to Africa and India (where 'm on safari now) for a few yrs. BUT they have hard disks in them, which are always prone to crashes. I had a disaster once in Tanzania while on safari and lost the images (hdd crash) as I was stupid enuf to skimp on another backup. Now, I carry 2 hyperdrives - 1 older version and 1 CS UDMA - perfect. Some ppl carry 3 of these just to be sure. But remember - never operate these (any hdd) while on motion, esp. jerky. These days I just leave the devices in the tent/lodge and keep a few high capacity CF's on me while actively shooting, and backup at the end of the day.</p>

[Damon DAmato]

<p>I'm curious what you're doing about batteries.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>These are the devices to which I referred.</p>

<p>My personal preference is to carry a laptop and backup to a small, portable hard drive and daily backups to DVDs. I carry the blank discs in a DVD "book" and return the burned discs to the book for safekeeping. There is/was at least one portable backup device which burned DVDs. I suspect that process is more demanding on batteries. I am cautions, short of paranoia, about trusting large numbers of images solely to hard drives. They can and do fail, usually without warning, and should not be used above 10,000 feet in elevation (thin air doesn't properly float the heads).</p>

<p>I'm seeing a lot of solid state drives for high-reliability applications, up to 160 GB in size. They are somewhat faster than ordinary hard drives, and much faster than CF or SD cards - all for a price (e.g., 160 GB @ $600).</p>

[Mary Doo]

<p>I carry two small portable 500gb drives (the "Seagate FreeAgent Go" is super, but make sure you get the light and thin type). Copy images to one and then backup to the other. Then I keep each in a separate location, such as one in the camera bag, one in the hotel. So far so good. :)</p>

[ol_r]

Lots of helpful information here. Basically I am planninga long trek in some remote parts of Asia. Don't think I can expect to download files onto a DVD nor will I be able to leave a back-up drive in a hotel as I will be moving constantly. Laptop I will have to do without also, in order to cut down weight. Seems the best choice is to get two or three portable drives and download directly from the camera and hope they survive the journey. I hope they're sturdier than your average computer external hard-drive which can fail with a single knock.

 

Cheers. Any further advice is welcome.

[meissner]

<p>While a full fledged laptop is big and bulky, another option is a netbook with a large disk and the smallest screen you can stand using. I just went over to newegg.com, and saw you can get a netbook with a 250GB disk in it for $300 compared to $267 for a Nexto 250GB extreme at B&H. A netbook is handy if you ever get to a place that offers internet wifi to check up on things (but don't plan on backing up across the internet, since the bandwidth is likely to be a killer).<br>

Note, the big names in the portable storage space are Hyperdrive and Nexto, both of which have fairly fast copies, and long battery lifetime. However, some of the competitors take a long time to copy and their batteries don't last too long. If you are going to be away from the power grid for an appreciable period of time, you might want to consider the units with the longest battery time and fastest time for copying.<br>

One thing that I ran into with a Vosonic unit a few years ago is the track for Compact Flash is pretty small and unlike most CF devices, it wants you to install the card with the label pointing down. I jammed in the card and bent the pins. So, if you have CF media, be careful in these units.<br>

Another thing is since these units have laptop disk drives in them, and it is possible to knock a unit off the table and make the disk stop working (been there, did that). Newer laptop disks are more rugged, but you probably want to get a shock bag to protect the unit from vibrations when the disk is turned off, and being careful to avoid vibrations when it is writing (I had some transfers fail when some kids were jumping on the concrete next to where I was sitting and I could feel the vibrations in the bench). Taking two units (or a netbook + PSD) and writing to both for redundancy would be a good idea.<br>

In terms of writing to CDs/DVDs in the field, many places only seem to write to CDs and the 640-700MB of a CD is awfully small these days. If you are going to be writing DVDs, it may make sense to have 4GB cards, since one card will write one disk, and you don't have to worry about spanning DVDs.<br>

For a long trek, it may make sense in addition to netbook, buy a compact portable DVD writer. Then burn two copies of your cards, keep one, and every so often, mail the other DVDs home in appropriate packing to survive the mail system. That way if your gear gets lost or stolen, you still have a partial record of your trip. You could also mail portable disk drives instead of DVDs.</p>

[ol_r]

<p>Thanks Michael. Great response. Gives me some options to consider.</p>