Where to download photos on vacation?

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Jolene,

Look under the "Storage and Media" thread or do a search for "Image Bank". There are several units designed to download images from a CF card to a hard drive. I own the Sima Image Bank and I love it. I just took over 1600 images on a trip to Scotland, all brought safely home using the Image Bank. With a 20 gig hard drive I easily installed, total cost was $300.

See: http://www.simacorp.com/cp150.html

Regards,
Doug

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...

Since you have access to a computer for this trip there is no problem. In general make sure you have enough in-camera memory; I consider 256 mb the bare minimum, as you will shoot many more pictures than you will want to save. 256mb CFs run less than $100.

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...

So what do you suggest. Shoot until the card is full and then download them to the computer where I am staying? then how do I get the photos to "my" computer at home?
thanks for your answers!

Mike K said:

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Jolene,

Check out products like the Digital Wallet, Mindstor, and Nixvue Digital Album also.

If you want portability, these types of devices are the way to go. You can download your photos right there on the spot and will not need a PC until you get home.

James

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...

i use a digital album, 20gigs. works well.

---Mike Savad

Doug Mac said:

I own the Sima Image Bank and I love it.
I just took over 1600 images on a trip to Scotland, all brought
safely home using the Image Bank. With a 20 gig hard drive I
easily installed, total cost was $300.

Click to expand...

Doug..

Where did you obtain the 20G drive, and is the whole space available for storage, or is a portion of it taken up by operating system, etc, and if so how much is available for photo storage? Also, how often must it be recharged and what adaptors did you need for power in Scotland, England, etc.?
Any way to view the images on this device??
Thanks
Bob V. (RV)

Jolene Lee

Check to see if your Brother-in-law has a CD player that not only READS but can WRITE to CD’s, then purchase some Writable CD’s at a Office Depot type store, then copy your pictures to the CD using his computer.

(I would temporarily save the pictures on his computer until you get home to make sure the CD works on your Computer), Then download your saved pictures from the CD to your Hard Drive, keep the CD as a backup.

If you want to make a print while at your destination, find a Walgreens or Costco that has a FujiFilm Frontier 370 developer, 2nd choice is a Kodak developer, they will make prints directly from your memory card, make a copy for your relatives.

Have a nice Vacation
Thomas

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...

Bob,

Here's your answers:

RV said:

Doug..
Where did you obtain the 20G drive...

Click to expand...

I bought an IBM Travelstar from newegg.com. It was $90. I've dealt with newegg.com several times and they're great. Easy ordering, good prices, fast shipping.

RV said:

...is the whole space
available for storage, or is a portion of it taken up by operating
system, etc, and if so how much is available for photo storage?

Click to expand...

Practially the entire space is available. I think 250K was taken up by system files, a mere pittance.

RV said:

Also, how often must it be recharged and what adaptors did you need
for power in Scotland, England, etc.?

Click to expand...

The unit does not have internal batteries, so you don't have to recharge it like some other units. All you need is a plug adapter. The AC input is rated 110-240VAC, so no power transformers are needed. We left the plug adapter at our B&B the second day of our trip and I used the lighter adapter and the supplied 6 AA battery pack for the rest of the trip. I must have done at least 16 downloads on the AA alkaline batteries and they still seem to be going strong. You could go to anyplace where AA's are available and not take any power cables.

RV said:

Any way to view the images on this device??

Click to expand...

No. This is the big tradeoff for price and simplicity. Deb and I developed a routine for reviewing our photograpy, though. We took 2 256, 1 128 and a 32 meg card on the trip. Sometimes, we'd fill all the cards by lunch. We'd get out the Image Bank, the G2 and a table tripod and ball head. We'd set the camera up on the tripod and while downloading one card on the Image Bank, we'd view the photos on the others. It takes 15 to 20 minutes to download all the cards. Another alternative would have been to take the cable supplied with the G2 and plug it into a TV to view the images. We were staying at B&B's and chose not to turn on a TV the entire trip. Instead, we wrote in our journals. Most nights, that lasted about 10 minutes before we were ready to go to sleep. Since it was light to 8:30, we weren't home until 9:00 or 9:30 anyway. We normally woke up at 6:15 and were packed and at breakfast no later than 7:30.

Doug

Where do I get a Digital Wallet? does AMazon have them? and which brand is best.
Thanks.

James said:

Jolene,

Check out products like the Digital Wallet, Mindstor, and Nixvue
Digital Album also.

If you want portability, these types of devices are the way to go.
You can download your photos right there on the spot and will not
need a PC until you get home.

James

Click to expand...

There are lots of posts on this topic on the Storage and Media forum. search for either the name of each product.

Jolene Lee said:

Jolene Lee said:

Check out products like the Digital Wallet, Mindstor, and Nixvue
Digital Album also.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I would transfer the images to the computer before your card was full. I could easily fill a 256 mb card in one day of touristing. Each evening you can review your shots on the LCD and delete the obviously poor ones, out of focus, movement, cut off somebodys head, etc. Download the rest and transfer to CDs at the end of the trip. Make sure your brother in laws computer can burn your pics to CDs (basic burning software).
Mike K

Jolene Lee said:

Mike K said:

Since you have access to a computer for this trip there is no
problem. In general make sure you have enough in-camera memory; I
consider 256 mb the bare minimum, as you will shoot many more
pictures than you will want to save. 256mb CFs run less than $100.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Does my brother in laws computer need anything special to be able to download my prints from my G2 to his computer? do I need to bring anythink with me to use on his computer?
thanks.
Jolene

Thomas B said:

Check to see if your Brother-in-law has a CD player that not only
READS but can WRITE to CD’s, then purchase some Writable
CD’s at a Office Depot type store, then copy your pictures to
the CD using his computer.
(I would temporarily save the pictures on his computer until you
get home to make sure the CD works on your Computer), Then download
your saved pictures from the CD to your Hard Drive, keep the CD as
a backup.

If you want to make a print while at your destination, find a
Walgreens or Costco that has a FujiFilm Frontier 370 developer, 2nd
choice is a Kodak developer, they will make prints directly from
your memory card, make a copy for your relatives.

Have a nice Vacation
Thomas

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
RoxyRidge

If you have a Staples nearby, get a PNV Compact Flash Card Reader for $14.94. You plug it in to the USB slot on the computer. No drivers, no re-boot, nothing, works great! It appears as another disk drive so you just drag and drop the pictures to the hard drive. Very fast and very simple. You do NOT need to install any of the Canon software. But, does he have an image viewer installed? If not, I would recommend downloading the viewer from http://www.irfanview.com - it's free and works great - use it in full screen view and your G2 image will fill the whole screen and you will enjoy looking at your photos each evening.

Keep in mind that SuperFine JPGs are about 2 MB each and you will quite it a bit of hard drive space on the computer. I just came back from a trip with my G2 and to avoid ANY problems, I bought a 40 GB USB 2.0 External hard drive which worked great. When I got home, I just connected it to my desktop and I have my pictures - no transfer needed.

Jolene Lee said:

Does my brother in laws computer need anything special to be able
to download my prints from my G2 to his computer? do I need to
bring anythink with me to use on his computer?
thanks.
Jolene

Click to expand...

Well... basic burning software won't work if it's not a cd burner. You would want to make sure your bro-in-law has a cd burner, not just a regular cd drive. If he does, that's gonna be by far the cheapest way to get your pics preserved. If it's not, you'll have to go with an image tank/bank or something similar or if you really didn't mind spending the time, you could transfer all images from the CF card to your bro-in-law's laptop (remember he needs USB port) during vacation. Then after vacation, you could move them back to the CF card in chunks and on to your pc. Using the CF card as a big floppy so to speak. Is it elegant? No but it's darn near free. You just have to borrow his laptop so you can work with your pc and his laptop together.

--
Eric
http://www.pbase.com/haglunde

Mike K said:

Jolene Lee said:

Mike K said:

Since you have access to a computer for this trip there is no
problem. In general make sure you have enough in-camera memory; I
consider 256 mb the bare minimum, as you will shoot many more
pictures than you will want to save. 256mb CFs run less than $100.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Jolene Lee

Ask you B-inlaw if he has a USB port on his PC, if yes, then purchase a Compact flash reader as gus Suggested, and print out this post that shows WEB site to the Picture viewer that Gus indicates.

You may want to direct your B-inlaw to DPREVIEW, and to this posting, so he can give feed-back on what his PC can do in regards to accomodating your need to download your pictures. If he can "burn" a CD, then this would be the cheapest way to go, otherwise you will need to buy a storage device to take with you.

Thomas B.

Gus Stangeland said:

Jolene Lee said:

Does my brother in laws computer need anything special to be able
to download my prints from my G2 to his computer? do I need to
bring anythink with me to use on his computer?
thanks.
Jolene

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

IMHO it would help those that are trying to help you if you could provide some more information, like:
1) How many Compact Flash (CF) cards do you have and what is/are the size(s)?

2) How many pictures do you expect to take before you take time to unload your CF cards?

3) What is the file size of each picture? For example, my G2 at SF JPG - the files are 2 MB each.

Let's say for example, that you have a G2 and you expect to take 250 SF JPG pictures each day. For that, you would need like, 2 each 256 MB CF cards.
4) Is the computer a laptop or a desktop?
5) Does it already have a CF card reader?
6) How much free memory is on the computer?
7) Does it have either an internal or external CD writer?

For example, let's say it is a laptop with 2 GB free space, no CD writer. Then you would fill up the laptop in 4 days, taking 250 pictures a day. But if it is a desktop with 20 GB of free space you could take pictures for 40 days.

8) When the adventure is over and you go home, can you take the computer with you? If not, then you have to have a way to copy the pictures off of his computer to some medium that you can take home. That's where you could use the CD writer. Just buy some 30 cent CD-Rs and burn all the photos to CD-Rs.

9) If you can't take the computer with you, and the computer does NOT have a CD writer, you could buy an external USB CD writer and go that way. You can always use the CD writer when you get home too, so it's not money down the drain.

10) Or you can do what I did - I bought an external 40 GB USB hard drive and each evening I copied my pictures directly to the external hard drive (using my computer). Then when I got home, I just hooked the hard drive to my desktop and I'm done - no more transferring needed. Plus you can always use the hard drive.

11) Or you can buy one of these portable storage wallets. I'm not so fond of that idea for a couple of reasons - first, they are a moving target, non-standard, they come and go. Second, what good are they when you get home? The CD writer or external hard drive you can use anytime. But that's just my opinion.

I hope I have not made this even more complicated for you. It is a real problem and there are lots of solutions, you have to decide what's best for you. Have fun! I really enjoyed my photo trip!

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...

Well, I will try and provide more info:

I have 2 128 MB viking compact flash cards and one 32 MB compact flash card. I will not be taking 250 pictures a day. Depending on the day, but we are going to the beach with the kids, I show dogs in dog shows so will be taking pictures their and then whatever else we do while we are in California. I'm guessing about maybe 75 to 100? but then I delete alot that I don't want. So, basically I think the burning onto a CD is going to be the best. I just need to find out if my brother in law has a burner on his PC.

Also, you recommended me getting a card reader at Staples? I don't have a Staples, but we have Circuit City, Best Buy, Costco, Good Guys, etc. What brand of compact flash reader is best?
well, thanks everyone for helping me, you guys are awesome!
Jolene Lee

Gus Stangeland said:

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
RoxyRidge

Jolene Lee said:

Also, you recommended me getting a card reader at Staples? I don't
have a Staples, but we have Circuit City, Best Buy, Costco, Good
Guys, etc. What brand of compact flash reader is best?

Click to expand...

There was a recent post comparing Compact Flash Card Readers, but I couldn't find it doing a search. But as I remember, several people, including me, have had trouble with SanDisk. The PNY reader that I bought at Staples for $14.94 is probably available at other stores. It was given a good report. I don't remember the others. There are many of them now that will take all the different memory cards, besides CF, Smart Media, MMC, Memory Stick, etc. But if you are like me and plan to stick (pardon the pun) with Compact Flash, there's no need to spend quite a bit more for these universal readers. Maybe someone else can find that post.

Jolene

My Wife and I recently went down the coast of California, from No Cal to the So. Cal deserts, and just about I filled up all of my memory cards, 2 ea.128M, 64M, 32M, so if you are going to do a lot of sight seeing,(and there is a lot to see), then you may want to buy some more Memory cards,
Thomas B
here is a picture that I took in Carmel By The Sea
http://www.pbase.com/image/2472119

Jolene Lee said:

Can anyone recommend what I should buy to be able to download my
photos from my compact flash card when we are traveling? I will
have access to my brother in laws computer. Should I just put them
on his computer and transfer to CD? or is there something portable
out there that I can store them on until we get home.?
thanks for your help!
--
RoxyRidge

Click to expand...