Going out of the country.

NecroticSoldier · 06-19-2010, 07:13 PM

Okay guys, I'm going out of the country for about 2 weeks. Do you guys think that 8gb would be enough for photos? or should I bring my laptop just incase?

George Lama · 06-19-2010, 08:02 PM

What are you shooting, JPG or RAW? If you're shooting JPG, you will have room for a a few thousand photos. If you shoot RAW, you might have room for 500-600 at full res.

That said, I would not recommend it. Putting all your photos on one card is asking for trouble. If it the card fails, cracks, gets lost or stolen, falls in your beer, you forget it in your pants and they go through the laundry...

You get my point. Safest option is to back them up, whether you take a laptop with you or arrange to use one at your destination and copy to other media.

Adam · 06-19-2010, 09:40 PM

Depends on how long you're going for, but I'm typically able to store 2-3 months' worth of JPGs on my 16gb card (which is falling apart, but that's a different story)

SpecialK · 06-19-2010, 09:44 PM

Originally posted by NecroticSoldier

Okay guys, I'm going out of the country for about 2 weeks. Do you guys think that 8gb would be enough for photos? or should I bring my laptop just incase?

Kind of depends how much you shoot and chimp. Card failures are very rare, but I back up to a netbook (I downsized from a laptop for travel) so I can at least review what I shot in the evening on a reasonable-sized screen. Why not get another card as they are cheap.

Marc Sabatella · 06-19-2010, 10:16 PM

Other options instead of bringing the laptop - bring more cards, or find internet cafes (assuming you'll be in towns & cities and not the wilderness) and downlaod to DVD periodically).

zinj · 06-19-2010, 10:30 PM

Just following up on Marc's suggestion, another possibility to consider is an external USB hard drive. As long as you have access to a computer (e.g., an internet cafe or your hotel) you can download files from your cards to the HD. Two memory cards and even a cheap external HD will have more than enough storage for your two weeks while still being small and portable. I also regularly go up to a week with 2x8gb cards, but that's me.

Cheers,

Andrew

Douf · 06-19-2010, 10:53 PM

I've only ever had one card failure and that was because the side of the casing cracked off (after 3 years of regular use).. But I still choose to back up onto a USB hard disk as a just in case measure.
I have a pelican case that is just larger than the drive and packed with foam inside, great for extra protection longer trips away.

Might sound a bit over the top but so far these methods haven't failed me.. Previously managed to lose over 200 shots when I was travelling through Guatemala and had backed up to CD at an Internet cafe then formatted the SD card and continued shooting only to find out the CD had read issues when I got back home!

So if you've got space for the laptop, take it.. Otherwise hard disk is a pretty safe option.

MoiVous · 06-20-2010, 12:39 AM

Like everyone else says, 8GB may not be enough if your shooting RAW.

I took my laptop with me on 4 weeks in the UK - but that was for work too. But the weight of the thing was irritating at times. And if you have a stack of lenses, then the weight is a pain

Since then, I've looked into other options:

netbooks - small, light, lots of storage - but an added expense - although the latest ones a very cheap (AUD$400-800 over here) for a reasonable machine
internet cafes (you'll need a card reader as a minimum) - and then:
- internet storage as others have suggested. A pretty cheap option, especially with things like DropBox etc out there. Only downside is that upload times can be a touch slow and the default storage is lowish (2GB free in DropBox, but easily increased to 10GB by inviting other) - or you pay for more
- external USB drives - both flash & small HDD. Flash can be slow. Cheap option.

At this stage, the netbook looks like the way to go (for me at least

). I found I could even run virtual machines on it with little performance penalty - so I'm porting a lot of my work and camera apps to a virtual machine and carry that around and use it any machine.

Enjoy your trip.

Cheers

**Kerrowdown** · 06-20-2010, 02:57 AM

I'd just take more cards

**RobA_Oz** · 06-20-2010, 04:30 AM

I'm just back from three weeks in France and Italy with the K20D and a few lenses. Mostly used the FA31 limited, but sometimes needed the breadth of the DA14/2.8. Anyway, I shot RAW (because I do) and I came back with 22GB of files on SDHC cards, backed up onto my 13" Macbook Pro (call it paranoia, or just that I don't get out much).

I also tried the Apple MobileMe free offer, just to see how well it worked, but found that hotel wireless broadband isn't that fast, and sometimes isn't there at all.

The main advantage of taking the notebook is that it's easier to cull, edit and tag all your files on the spot, as you go, than be faced with scratching your head about several thousand photos in umpteen locations later on. I use CS3, and Adobe Bridge is invaluable for that, but I guess that similar facilities exist in other programs, even Picasa (although its editing features are too basic for me, eg recovering potentially blown highlights, and you'll get lots of those in travel pictures, unless you've got heaps of time).

NecroticSoldier · 06-20-2010, 08:11 AM

Sorry, I wasn't that specific, I shoot RAW. Netbook is not an option ;/. I'm going to be in town so I bet there are many internet cafes, sounds pretty good, but for online uploading I don't think I have the time or space to store online.

Eh... that's sorta sad... I have a 4gb usb drive... a broken 500gb hard drive. My laptop only has about 10gb free, I can clear some stuff up if I wanted, it's a 14".

So I'm actually thinking of either going laptop or cards.

Wow, I didn't expect to have so many responses! Thanks again ;D.

Money is sorta tight atm too...

r0ckstarr · 06-20-2010, 08:59 AM

You can never have enough cards. Figure out how many GB of space you estimate that you will need, and take 3 times as much with you. Better to have extra's than not enough.

Nothing sucks more than running out of card space at the time you really really wanted to get a shot of something.

JeffJS · 06-20-2010, 07:04 PM

Originally posted by NecroticSoldier

Sorry, I wasn't that specific, I shoot RAW. Netbook is not an option ;/. I'm going to be in town so I bet there are many internet cafes, sounds pretty good, but for online uploading I don't think I have the time or space to store online.

Eh... that's sorta sad... I have a 4gb usb drive... a broken 500gb hard drive. My laptop only has about 10gb free, I can clear some stuff up if I wanted, it's a 14".

So I'm actually thinking of either going laptop or cards.

Wow, I didn't expect to have so many responses! Thanks again ;D.

Money is sorta tight atm too...

I wouldn't want to lug a laptop around, even a 14" one. I'm guessing you are taking one anyway though for other purposes. Just free up some space if needed and back up your card nightly (but don't clear it unless you have to). 10Gb will hold a Lot of RAW files. On my K7, a typical RAW file is just under 13Mb. 10Gb will hold roughly 760 photos.. If you're shooting RAW+Jpg, knock that down to roughly 500 photos (max).

Have a good trip and show us some of the world through Justin's eyes when you get back.

NecroticSoldier · 06-20-2010, 08:15 PM

Originally posted by JeffJS

I wouldn't want to lug a laptop around, even a 14" one. I'm guessing you are taking one anyway though for other purposes. Just free up some space if needed and back up your card nightly (but don't clear it unless you have to). 10Gb will hold a Lot of RAW files. On my K7, a typical RAW file is just under 13Mb. 10Gb will hold roughly 760 photos.. If you're shooting RAW+Jpg, knock that down to roughly 500 photos (max).

Have a good trip and show us some of the world through Justin's eyes when you get back.

LOL! I hope so ;D get to test out my nice Sigma 17-70! Also bringing my 50mm just incase... and my 55-300mm for birdies ;D... more exotic birds over there... than just pigeons. Yeah... guess I'm bringing it... to send some pictures to my GF! ;P.

I am sorta worried now though... read more and more about Malaysia... while it isn't the most dangerous place on earth... it says here there are robberies (ones on motorcycles)... and kidnappings... and even some slashing stuffs.

;( It's too early to get my camera stolen! I really really love my camera...

Hehe you will also get to see Bruce Lee's statue in Hong Kong through Justin's eyes.

George Lama · 06-20-2010, 08:29 PM

Cards are cheap, but your trip is not. If this is one of those once in a lifetime trips, I'd recommend having an alternate backup method regardless of how many cards you take. You could have a dozen cards but a set of photos will remain on one card at all times. If you're shooting on 8GB cards, that's hundreds of photos on one card.

For my gigs, I purposely stick to 4GB cards so I can backup as I go. Think of it in terms of film, back when you had to lug around dozens of rolls of film until you could get them developed - One lost roll could be irreplaceable, same with cards. Note I'm not talking about cards failing. I'm talking lost, stolen, oops moments.

If you don't want to take a laptop, you could consider a stand-alone data storage device. A couple of non-fancy models are around $150 and fit in a pocket while still providing you enough storage for a month long trip. This way you can keep images on the SD cards and back them up to the storage device. Two backup methods, just in case.

Digital Foci: Photo Safe II Portable Picture Storage

How about 250 GB of storage for $130?
Digital Foci - Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data - P19-250 -

P.S. As far as fear of robberies, wear jeans and use your front pockets. Tougher to get into. Best of luck on your trip!

06-19-2010, 07:13 PM	#1
NecroticSoldier Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Scarborough, Ontario Photos: Albums Posts: 488	Going out of the country. Okay guys, I'm going out of the country for about 2 weeks. Do you guys think that 8gb would be enough for photos? or should I bring my laptop just incase?

06-19-2010, 10:30 PM	#6
zinj Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Sacramento, California Posts: 59	Storage while Traveling Just following up on Marc's suggestion, another possibility to consider is an external USB hard drive. As long as you have access to a computer (e.g., an internet cafe or your hotel) you can download files from your cards to the HD. Two memory cards and even a cheap external HD will have more than enough storage for your two weeks while still being small and portable. I also regularly go up to a week with 2x8gb cards, but that's me. Cheers, Andrew

06-20-2010, 12:39 AM	#8
MoiVous Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Adelaide, South Australia Photos: Gallery Posts: 677	Like everyone else says, 8GB may not be enough if your shooting RAW. I took my laptop with me on 4 weeks in the UK - but that was for work too. But the weight of the thing was irritating at times. And if you have a stack of lenses, then the weight is a pain Since then, I've looked into other options: netbooks - small, light, lots of storage - but an added expense - although the latest ones a very cheap (AUD$400-800 over here) for a reasonable machine internet cafes (you'll need a card reader as a minimum) - and then: internet storage as others have suggested. A pretty cheap option, especially with things like DropBox etc out there. Only downside is that upload times can be a touch slow and the default storage is lowish (2GB free in DropBox, but easily increased to 10GB by inviting other) - or you pay for more external USB drives - both flash & small HDD. Flash can be slow. Cheap option. At this stage, the netbook looks like the way to go (for me at least ). I found I could even run virtual machines on it with little performance penalty - so I'm porting a lot of my work and camera apps to a virtual machine and carry that around and use it any machine. Enjoy your trip. Cheers

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06-19-2010, 08:02 PM	#2
George Lama Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Buffalo/Rochester, NY Photos: Albums Posts: 1,133	What are you shooting, JPG or RAW? If you're shooting JPG, you will have room for a a few thousand photos. If you shoot RAW, you might have room for 500-600 at full res. That said, I would not recommend it. Putting all your photos on one card is asking for trouble. If it the card fails, cracks, gets lost or stolen, falls in your beer, you forget it in your pants and they go through the laundry... You get my point. Safest option is to back them up, whether you take a laptop with you or arrange to use one at your destination and copy to other media.

06-19-2010, 09:40 PM	#3
Adam Administrator Site Webmaster Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Arizona Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 51,594	Depends on how long you're going for, but I'm typically able to store 2-3 months' worth of JPGs on my 16gb card (which is falling apart, but that's a different story)

06-19-2010, 09:44 PM	#4
SpecialK Pentaxian Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: So California Photos: Gallery Posts: 16,480	Originally posted by NecroticSoldier Okay guys, I'm going out of the country for about 2 weeks. Do you guys think that 8gb would be enough for photos? or should I bring my laptop just incase? Kind of depends how much you shoot and chimp. Card failures are very rare, but I back up to a netbook (I downsized from a laptop for travel) so I can at least review what I shot in the evening on a reasonable-sized screen. Why not get another card as they are cheap.

06-19-2010, 10:16 PM	#5
Marc Sabatella Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Denver, CO Photos: Gallery Posts: 10,685	Other options instead of bringing the laptop - bring more cards, or find internet cafes (assuming you'll be in towns & cities and not the wilderness) and downlaod to DVD periodically).

06-19-2010, 10:53 PM	#7
Douf Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Sydney Photos: Gallery Posts: 58	I've only ever had one card failure and that was because the side of the casing cracked off (after 3 years of regular use).. But I still choose to back up onto a USB hard disk as a just in case measure. I have a pelican case that is just larger than the drive and packed with foam inside, great for extra protection longer trips away. Might sound a bit over the top but so far these methods haven't failed me.. Previously managed to lose over 200 shots when I was travelling through Guatemala and had backed up to CD at an Internet cafe then formatted the SD card and continued shooting only to find out the CD had read issues when I got back home! So if you've got space for the laptop, take it.. Otherwise hard disk is a pretty safe option.

06-20-2010, 02:57 AM	#9
Kerrowdown PEG Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Highlands of Scotland... "Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand" - William Blake Photos: Gallery Posts: 57,815	I'd just take more cards

06-20-2010, 04:30 AM	#10
RobA_Oz Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Tasmania, Australia Photos: Gallery Posts: 8,195	I'm just back from three weeks in France and Italy with the K20D and a few lenses. Mostly used the FA31 limited, but sometimes needed the breadth of the DA14/2.8. Anyway, I shot RAW (because I do) and I came back with 22GB of files on SDHC cards, backed up onto my 13" Macbook Pro (call it paranoia, or just that I don't get out much). I also tried the Apple MobileMe free offer, just to see how well it worked, but found that hotel wireless broadband isn't that fast, and sometimes isn't there at all. The main advantage of taking the notebook is that it's easier to cull, edit and tag all your files on the spot, as you go, than be faced with scratching your head about several thousand photos in umpteen locations later on. I use CS3, and Adobe Bridge is invaluable for that, but I guess that similar facilities exist in other programs, even Picasa (although its editing features are too basic for me, eg recovering potentially blown highlights, and you'll get lots of those in travel pictures, unless you've got heaps of time).

06-20-2010, 08:11 AM	#11
NecroticSoldier Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Scarborough, Ontario Photos: Albums Posts: 488 Original Poster	Sorry, I wasn't that specific, I shoot RAW. Netbook is not an option ;/. I'm going to be in town so I bet there are many internet cafes, sounds pretty good, but for online uploading I don't think I have the time or space to store online. Eh... that's sorta sad... I have a 4gb usb drive... a broken 500gb hard drive. My laptop only has about 10gb free, I can clear some stuff up if I wanted, it's a 14". So I'm actually thinking of either going laptop or cards. Wow, I didn't expect to have so many responses! Thanks again ;D. Money is sorta tight atm too...

06-20-2010, 08:59 AM	#12
r0ckstarr Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Texas Photos: Gallery Posts: 3,507	You can never have enough cards. Figure out how many GB of space you estimate that you will need, and take 3 times as much with you. Better to have extra's than not enough. Nothing sucks more than running out of card space at the time you really really wanted to get a shot of something.

06-20-2010, 07:04 PM	#13
JeffJS Inactive Account Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Michigan, USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 7,484	Originally posted by NecroticSoldier Sorry, I wasn't that specific, I shoot RAW. Netbook is not an option ;/. I'm going to be in town so I bet there are many internet cafes, sounds pretty good, but for online uploading I don't think I have the time or space to store online. Eh... that's sorta sad... I have a 4gb usb drive... a broken 500gb hard drive. My laptop only has about 10gb free, I can clear some stuff up if I wanted, it's a 14". So I'm actually thinking of either going laptop or cards. Wow, I didn't expect to have so many responses! Thanks again ;D. Money is sorta tight atm too... I wouldn't want to lug a laptop around, even a 14" one. I'm guessing you are taking one anyway though for other purposes. Just free up some space if needed and back up your card nightly (but don't clear it unless you have to). 10Gb will hold a Lot of RAW files. On my K7, a typical RAW file is just under 13Mb. 10Gb will hold roughly 760 photos.. If you're shooting RAW+Jpg, knock that down to roughly 500 photos (max). Have a good trip and show us some of the world through Justin's eyes when you get back.

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06-20-2010, 08:15 PM	#14
NecroticSoldier Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Scarborough, Ontario Photos: Albums Posts: 488 Original Poster	Originally posted by JeffJS I wouldn't want to lug a laptop around, even a 14" one. I'm guessing you are taking one anyway though for other purposes. Just free up some space if needed and back up your card nightly (but don't clear it unless you have to). 10Gb will hold a Lot of RAW files. On my K7, a typical RAW file is just under 13Mb. 10Gb will hold roughly 760 photos.. If you're shooting RAW+Jpg, knock that down to roughly 500 photos (max). Have a good trip and show us some of the world through Justin's eyes when you get back. LOL! I hope so ;D get to test out my nice Sigma 17-70! Also bringing my 50mm just incase... and my 55-300mm for birdies ;D... more exotic birds over there... than just pigeons. Yeah... guess I'm bringing it... to send some pictures to my GF! ;P. I am sorta worried now though... read more and more about Malaysia... while it isn't the most dangerous place on earth... it says here there are robberies (ones on motorcycles)... and kidnappings... and even some slashing stuffs. ;( It's too early to get my camera stolen! I really really love my camera... Hehe you will also get to see Bruce Lee's statue in Hong Kong through Justin's eyes.

06-20-2010, 08:29 PM	#15
George Lama Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Buffalo/Rochester, NY Photos: Albums Posts: 1,133	Cards are cheap, but your trip is not. If this is one of those once in a lifetime trips, I'd recommend having an alternate backup method regardless of how many cards you take. You could have a dozen cards but a set of photos will remain on one card at all times. If you're shooting on 8GB cards, that's hundreds of photos on one card. For my gigs, I purposely stick to 4GB cards so I can backup as I go. Think of it in terms of film, back when you had to lug around dozens of rolls of film until you could get them developed - One lost roll could be irreplaceable, same with cards. Note I'm not talking about cards failing. I'm talking lost, stolen, oops moments. If you don't want to take a laptop, you could consider a stand-alone data storage device. A couple of non-fancy models are around $150 and fit in a pocket while still providing you enough storage for a month long trip. This way you can keep images on the SD cards and back them up to the storage device. Two backup methods, just in case. Digital Foci: Photo Safe II Portable Picture Storage How about 250 GB of storage for $130? Digital Foci - Photo Safe II 250GB Stand-Alone Data - P19-250 - P.S. As far as fear of robberies, wear jeans and use your front pockets. Tougher to get into. Best of luck on your trip!