Digital photo storage while on safari

We will be camping in South Africa for 3 weeks in September. My wife
has a Canon 10D, which she loves. She will probably be shooting 200+
pictures per day on the trip, knowing her.

I really would prefer not to take along a laptop. Bulky, easy to break,
and power hungry. We will be 3 or 4 days at a time with no access to
electricity other than possibly the jeep battery.

I've seen a $500 device intended to offload CompactFlash onto a hard
disk, with a small display to review the images. Not sure I want to
spend that much on something that will be used once a year, and the
review I read recently panned it anyway.

I saw a $100 device recently that will turn an iPod into a photo storage
device. Unfortunately, it only works with the latest generation iPod,
and I have an older one (which I love). This is a possibility, as we
might swap with my sister-in-law during the trip (she has a newer iPod).

Does anyone have any experience with either of these solutions? Or any
other? What do you recommend for a lengthy trip where unloading to the
computer daily is not feasible (and we don't want to buy 20 CF's
either...)

--
- Burt Johnson
MindStorm, Inc.
http://www.mindstorm-inc.com/software.html

Burt Johnson wrote:
We will be camping in South Africa for 3 weeks in September. My wife
has a Canon 10D, which she loves. She will probably be shooting 200+
pictures per day on the trip, knowing her.

I really would prefer not to take along a laptop. Bulky, easy to
break, and power hungry. We will be 3 or 4 days at a time with no
access to electricity other than possibly the jeep battery.

I've seen a $500 device intended to offload CompactFlash onto a hard
disk, with a small display to review the images. Not sure I want to
spend that much on something that will be used once a year, and the
review I read recently panned it anyway.

I saw a $100 device recently that will turn an iPod into a photo
storage device. Unfortunately, it only works with the latest
generation iPod, and I have an older one (which I love). This is a
possibility, as we might swap with my sister-in-law during the trip
(she has a newer iPod).

Does anyone have any experience with either of these solutions? Or
any other? What do you recommend for a lengthy trip where unloading
to the computer daily is not feasible (and we don't want to buy 20
CF's either...)

All my normal suggestions are not going to work for you. While I think
that a little more selective shooting and a rigorous editing every evening
is in order and a good idea anyway, I don't think it is going to do it for
you.

More storage cards or a micro drive like:

http://www.memorysuppliers.com/ibmmicrodrives.html

Might be the best idea.

--
Joseph E. Meehan

26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math

Burt wrote:
We will be camping in South Africa for 3 weeks in September. My wife
has a Canon 10D, which she loves. She will probably be shooting 200+
pictures per day on the trip, knowing her.
I really would prefer not to take along a laptop. Bulky, easy to break,
and power hungry. We will be 3 or 4 days at a time with no access to
electricity other than possibly the jeep battery.
I've seen a $500 device intended to offload CompactFlash onto a hard
disk, with a small display to review the images. Not sure I want to
spend that much on something that will be used once a year, and the
review I read recently panned it anyway.
I saw a $100 device recently that will turn an iPod into a photo storage
device. Unfortunately, it only works with the latest generation iPod,
and I have an older one (which I love). This is a possibility, as we
might swap with my sister-in-law during the trip (she has a newer iPod).
Does anyone have any experience with either of these solutions? Or any
other? What do you recommend for a lengthy trip where unloading to the
computer daily is not feasible (and we don't want to buy 20 CF's
either...)

What you want is called a portable storage drive. Some have a display and use
more battery power, and some have no display and use less battery power. In
either case, inside it is a laptop-style hard disk drive.

There are several manufacturers, Flashtrax and Vosonics come to mind. Vosonics
sells theirs with different labels on the case. I have one solution that was
less than $140. It is just what you need when you need to be portable, and
maybe you only have internal battery power, or maybe a little 12VDC from a
vehicle.

---Bob Gross---

My suggestion, failing a decision to buy an external storage device,
would be to pick up a couple of extra cards and then get very
disciplined about the resolution at which you are shooting. What I do on
these foreign trips is try to make a determination of what I am going to
do with my photos. For web stuff and 4x6's I reduce resolution
significantly, saving the high settings for those larger prints. With
good software tools at home you can generally make up for some loss of
resolution. Oh, and shooting at lower resolution now and then reduces
power consumption. Having a good power supply is generally more
important to me than being able to blow my camera's brains out with top
resolution photos. When I am doing an out of the way domestic trip I
bring along a very small Sony subnote. Its batteries run about 90
minutes, giving me plenty of time to offload photos, and even back them
up to an extra card reader or my MP3 player, which has a hard drive. In
a pinch I can recharge it off car batteries. Just my opinion.

Burt Johnson wrote:

We will be camping in South Africa for 3 weeks in September. My wife
has a Canon 10D, which she loves. She will probably be shooting 200+
pictures per day on the trip, knowing her.

I really would prefer not to take along a laptop. Bulky, easy to break,
and power hungry. We will be 3 or 4 days at a time with no access to
electricity other than possibly the jeep battery.

I've seen a $500 device intended to offload CompactFlash onto a hard
disk, with a small display to review the images. Not sure I want to
spend that much on something that will be used once a year, and the
review I read recently panned it anyway.

I saw a $100 device recently that will turn an iPod into a photo storage
device. Unfortunately, it only works with the latest generation iPod,
and I have an older one (which I love). This is a possibility, as we
might swap with my sister-in-law during the trip (she has a newer iPod).

Does anyone have any experience with either of these solutions? Or any
other? What do you recommend for a lengthy trip where unloading to the
computer daily is not feasible (and we don't want to buy 20 CF's
either...)

"Joseph Meehan" wrote in message . ..
Burt Johnson wrote:
We will be camping in South Africa for 3 weeks in September. My wife
has a Canon 10D, which she loves. She will probably be shooting 200+
pictures per day on the trip, knowing her.

I really would prefer not to take along a laptop. Bulky, easy to
break, and power hungry. We will be 3 or 4 days at a time with no
access to electricity other than possibly the jeep battery.

I've seen a $500 device intended to offload CompactFlash onto a hard
disk, with a small display to review the images. Not sure I want to
spend that much on something that will be used once a year, and the
review I read recently panned it anyway.

I saw a $100 device recently that will turn an iPod into a photo
storage device. Unfortunately, it only works with the latest
generation iPod, and I have an older one (which I love). This is a
possibility, as we might swap with my sister-in-law during the trip
(she has a newer iPod).

Does anyone have any experience with either of these solutions? Or
any other? What do you recommend for a lengthy trip where unloading
to the computer daily is not feasible (and we don't want to buy 20
CF's either...)

All my normal suggestions are not going to work for you. While I think
that a little more selective shooting and a rigorous editing every evening
is in order and a good idea anyway, I don't think it is going to do it for
you.

More storage cards or a micro drive like:

http://www.memorysuppliers.com/ibmmicrodrives.html

Might be the best idea.

Take your storage cards, shine them up real good, then stick them up your candy ass!

I use and would recommend the Apacer Disc Steno CP100. Cost in the UK
about 160GBP supplied with big Li-Ion rechargeable battery, power
adaptor and 12 volt lead for car power socket.

Copies to CD ROM and accepts most memory cards except Xd. No display
but not let me down yet!

Ned


(Burt Johnson) wrote
We will be camping in South Africa for 3 weeks in September. My wife
has a Canon 10D, which she loves. She will probably be shooting 200+
pictures per day on the trip, knowing her.

I really would prefer not to take along a laptop. Bulky, easy to break,
and power hungry. We will be 3 or 4 days at a time with no access to
electricity other than possibly the jeep battery.

"Joseph Meehan" wrote in message
news []
Does anyone have any experience with either of these solutions? Or
any other? What do you recommend for a lengthy trip where unloading
to the computer daily is not feasible (and we don't want to buy 20
CF's either...)

All my normal suggestions are not going to work for you. While I
think
that a little more selective shooting and a rigorous editing every
evening
is in order and a good idea anyway, I don't think it is going to do it
for
you.
[]
Joseph E. Meehan

There seems to be an untapped market for renting CF cards for events such
as this!

Cheers,
David

Take a look a www.vosonic.com

They have a range of portable storage devices.

I have a XS Drive II VP 2060. The device is cheap (got it for something like
85 US $). Then you put a laptop harddrive inside it (or you can buy it with
the device). You don't have a viewing screen but personally, I don't care, I
think it's a pricey gadget.

Once you're back home, you plug it to you PC or Mac via USB 2 and it's a
multi card reader and an external harddrive.

The autonomy on batteries is something like 1.5 hours, enough to upload
plenty of memory cards.

One restriction : the device is a harddrive, so it's better not to shake it
while transfering. (Don't imagine you will transfer your data while
travelling in a jeep on a safari...)

I own the device for 4 months, tried it in many situations and it always
worked great:

- I went to Ski-Lanka (many visits and safaris, hot weather) and it worked
perfectly.
- I climbed some mountains with it and went skiing (I live in Switzerland) :
no problem.

So my advice is : get yourself such a device !

Second advice : DON'T get a microdrive instead. I have one and my experience
is the following :

- They don't work when the weather is too hot (had numerous problems with it
in Sri-Lanka, so as you're talking of safaris, be careful...)

- They eat a lot of batteries.

- They don't work above an altitude of 3000 m (perhaps it's not a problem
for you, it definitely is one for me)

Third advice : don't take very big memory cards, but take many smaller ones
(not too small). If you have only one 2 or 4 Gb card and if it fails during
a safari, you will be in great trouble... It's the old story of not putting
all the eggs into the same basket...

Greetings.

Pierre.


"Burt Johnson" a écrit dans le message de
...
We will be camping in South Africa for 3 weeks in September. My wife
has a Canon 10D, which she loves. She will probably be shooting 200+
pictures per day on the trip, knowing her.

I really would prefer not to take along a laptop. Bulky, easy to break,
and power hungry. We will be 3 or 4 days at a time with no access to
electricity other than possibly the jeep battery.

I've seen a $500 device intended to offload CompactFlash onto a hard
disk, with a small display to review the images. Not sure I want to
spend that much on something that will be used once a year, and the
review I read recently panned it anyway.

I saw a $100 device recently that will turn an iPod into a photo storage
device. Unfortunately, it only works with the latest generation iPod,
and I have an older one (which I love). This is a possibility, as we
might swap with my sister-in-law during the trip (she has a newer iPod).

Does anyone have any experience with either of these solutions? Or any
other? What do you recommend for a lengthy trip where unloading to the
computer daily is not feasible (and we don't want to buy 20 CF's
either...)

--
- Burt Johnson
MindStorm, Inc.
http://www.mindstorm-inc.com/software.html

The problem is that is is not really USB2. It's USB1.1 with a small speed
improvement. It works, but I wanted to use it as a backup drive for my PC
too, and it is useless for that. When challenged, they said it was USB2
"compatible" (as everything USB1.1 is).

Tom
"Pierre Gilles" wrote in message
...
Take a look a www.vosonic.com

They have a range of portable storage devices.

I have a XS Drive II VP 2060. The device is cheap (got it for something
like
85 US $). Then you put a laptop harddrive inside it (or you can buy it
with
the device). You don't have a viewing screen but personally, I don't care,
I
think it's a pricey gadget.

Once you're back home, you plug it to you PC or Mac via USB 2 and it's a
multi card reader and an external harddrive.

snip

In article ,
Ned wrote:
I use and would recommend the Apacer Disc Steno CP100. Cost in the UK
about 160GBP supplied with big Li-Ion rechargeable battery, power
adaptor and 12 volt lead for car power socket.

Copies to CD ROM and accepts most memory cards except Xd. No display
but not let me down yet!

Ned



Burn duplicate CDs and mail them home, seperatly, or at least pack them
in seperate bags.




(Burt Johnson) wrote
We will be camping in South Africa for 3 weeks in September. My wife
has a Canon 10D, which she loves. She will probably be shooting 200+
pictures per day on the trip, knowing her.

I really would prefer not to take along a laptop. Bulky, easy to break,
and power hungry. We will be 3 or 4 days at a time with no access to
electricity other than possibly the jeep battery.



--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m