Honeymoon Question: Digital Photo Storage
Liz and I are planning to go overseas on our honeymoon – specifically, to Paris and then to Italy. We’ll be there for about two weeks, and in addition to planning for our wedding day… we’re working on all the stuff that one works on, when travelling to another country.
Depending on the responses I get, I’m thinking of posting up several questions here – looking for advice on suggestions or even logistical stuff for our trip. While Liz has travelled overseas, this will be my first time actually going to Europe. I’ve been to Mexico before, and Canada a little bit. This will definitely be my first, serious travel outside the US.
Since we’ll be travelling over two weeks, I imagine I’ll be taking a lot of photos. I only have two 1 GB Flash cards for my camera, which I expect I’d blow through in short order.
Here’s my question: what should I do about storing photos? An initial thought was that I would bring Liz’s laptop along, and just transfer/store images there. But this seems like overkill – lugging around a laptop, purely as a glorified storage device.
Not sure if just buying a ton of smaller memory cards makes sense (I’m not opposed to it). My only worry is that I’d be super conscious of running out of “space,” at some point down the road. I’ve read a few suggestions where people have burned DVDs along the way, and mailed copies home to themselves. That seems like a neat idea, but also a bit more work than I may care to do while on vacation.
Does a portable storage device like this make more sense? Has anyone else used anything like this, or have any additional suggestions?
I’ve always brought my old 12″ Powerbook along on extended trips and pulled off my photos onto that. I don’t know anything about the portable storage devices, but with memory cards being as inexpensive as they are I’d either a) go streamlined and bring a handful of those (hell you could borrow mine to add to the collection, if it matches ‚Äì it’s a 1GB SanDisk) or b) go full-on and bring a laptop. Maybe someone has a netbook you could borrow? You could certainly borrow my old Powerbook too! It’s nothing special anymore (like I don’t even know what I’ll do with it when I get a new laptop this year), but it works, has USB + Firewire + Airport, and is reasonably small.I suppose I could just walk 20 feet over and tell this to your face, but now I’ve already typed it out… so I’ll post it. :)
Allison (July 22, 2009 at 10:01 am)I always bring my laptop anyway. Seems like overkill, but it always ends up helping out if we need to look anything up in the area where we’re travelling too. Instead of getting a bunch of smaller cards, maybe you should get a few bigger ones. 4 and 8 gig cards are pretty cheap these days.
rachelle (July 22, 2009 at 12:34 pm)I did a crap-ton of research on this topic before my last India trip. I settled on an 80GB Archos device with a screen. I thought it would be useful for organizing and reviewing my photos and movies, and it was. But it was another expensive toy to take care of and charge, and I had to take a small hit on the resale value. I think it was the best option — portable, not too pricey, not “dumb” storage — and it worked out just as I’d hoped.If I had it to do over again, I would skip the expensive toy, because it’s just so easy to burn CDs and DVDs these days, even in less developed, off-the-beaten path places. Many hotels, hostels, photo stores, and internet cafes can burn your files to discs for you. (Don’t bother bringing your own discs, as these places include that in the price.) Photography shops sometimes print out contact sheets for you, as well. I can loan you a couple extra cards, too. With that amount of card storage, you could go four or five days at a stretch, unless you’re shooting mad movies.I bet that you’ll find speedy connections in internet cafes and hotels. If and when you do, consider posting your burned files to a server as a back-up precaution. For long trips, it would be wise to get double copies of the discs, then mail a batch back home every week or two. I’d advise you to take notes about your pictures, but I already know that you will.Also… I have a nifty little device, about the size of a zippo lighter, that does nothing but eat AAA batteries, blink, and record your location with GPS every 5 seconds. You can borrow that if you’d like to geocode all of the pictures you take when you get back. Bascially, you’d merge the GPS data recorded by the device with the photo data using software, via the timestamps. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll give you more details.
Justin (July 22, 2009 at 1:15 pm)Felix, When Darryl and I went to Europe we bought extra memory cards and a little leather case for them (the case is really small, pocket size). If you want you can totally borrow 5 memory cards and the case. We don’t use that many unless we are on a major trip. Oh we would need to see if it is even compatable. Well just a thought. Hope your having a great week.
Tricia Ford (July 22, 2009 at 3:06 pm)The Epson ones (P-6000) are the best in that genre, but IMO, you won’t need anything like that. However, memory cards are stupidly cheap these days. I’d just get a couple or three 4gb cards. And if you start to run out (which I doubt), you are traveling in the civilized world, and can buy more. :)
Liam Strain (July 23, 2009 at 1:58 am)Thanks for the all the suggestions and insights, guys. I’m leaning towards bringing the laptop, or just going with cards (and doing the CD/DVD burning thing). Even in some of the smaller towns in Italy I’m reading up on… there seems to be always at least one place with a decent Internet cafe.I anticipate needing a lot of space because I’ll want to take photos and movies, and tend to want to document everything. Which, for a vacation of 2 weeks or so, is a little nutty.This leads me to a more interesting, philosophical question regarding how much I want to document, and how much I want to set the camera aside and just enjoy things. I’m guessing I’ll be all touristy and camera-fevered the first day or two, and it’ll drop dramatically.
avoision (July 23, 2009 at 9:27 am)I say bring the laptop. Just remember to buy an adapter! Even though you’ll be on vacation, you’d be surprised how much you actually might use your laptop. As someone pointed out, you might want to surf and find things to do. Also, you might want to email family to let them know you’re safe or something, and it’s cheaper and easier than finding internet cafes. That sounds like an awesome honeymoon!
Marty J. (July 23, 2009 at 2:29 pm)I definitely see why folks advocate for the laptop, but I still suggest to skip it… especially if you plan to move frequently from place to place. It’s much nicer to travel light when you’re rambling, and not at all difficult. With cheap cards and abundant opportunities to surf and offload to discs, why worry about lugging an expensive, heavy, relatively delicate machine?
Justin (July 23, 2009 at 7:26 pm)Totally unrelated to technology — get a Eurail pass, and one that lets you travel a ton in the places where you plan to go. The trains rock.If you want to stay somewhere cheap, look into hostels (not at all romantic) or else pensiones. They’re kind of like bed & breakfasts, they can be less expensive than hotels, and they’re way more common in Europe than they are here.Of course, since it’s a honeymoon, you might have other goals besides going cheap, and you might prefer a bit more privacy. Ahem.
juliet (July 27, 2009 at 10:18 pm)