storage problems

I travel overseas quite frequently and take up to 2-300 photos a day.

I have been lugging my laptop to use as temp storage unit but being a
few years old, it only has a few gigs available.

Going into local photo shops and getting CD burnt is not an option
now.

What I am looking for is a 'black box' that I can plug a CF into and
download the images for temp storage until I get home again.

Does such a device exist?

(No I dont want to lug and external HD with the laptop!)
(I do have several 512 CF cards but dont want to buy a load extra)

Advice on storage solutions when away from home for extended periods
requested please.

Donald Gray wrote:
I travel overseas quite frequently and take up to 2-300 photos a day.

I have been lugging my laptop to use as temp storage unit but being a
few years old, it only has a few gigs available.

Going into local photo shops and getting CD burnt is not an option
now.

What I am looking for is a 'black box' that I can plug a CF into and
download the images for temp storage until I get home again.

Does such a device exist?

(No I dont want to lug and external HD with the laptop!)
(I do have several 512 CF cards but dont want to buy a load extra)

Advice on storage solutions when away from home for extended periods
requested please.

OK you will not likely take my word for it, but I'll bet that if you
would spend a few minutes each night going over the photos you took that day
and eliminating all the duplicates and second rate photos that you can
identify you will likely be down to no more than 20%. After you get home
hopefully you will be down to no more than 10% of the original total.

By selectively eliminating, not just errors and duplicates, but well
those that just did not turn out as you might have hoped, the resulting few
will be of a much higher quality and anyone seeing your work will be amazed
at the high quality of it.

It also saves a lot of problems storing all those files.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

(No I dont want to lug and external HD with the laptop!) (I do have
several 512 CF cards but dont want to buy a load extra)
Advice on storage solutions when away from home for extended periods
requested please.

There are a bunch of black boxes, like the ones shown at the B&H site he
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...&Q=&ci=3369You are probably best off getting the cheapest gig-per-dollar one, versusthe ones with the most bells&whistles. I have been VERY happy with myWolverine over the past two years.I've also found that other units under different names, sometimes for verygood prices are available at mega-electronics dealers within Europe (likeSaturn in Germany).But don't discount the portable hard-drive option, because there may be bigunits, unworkable for you, that you typically find when looking for externalhard-drives (the size of a hard-cover book) that use a desktop-sized driveto hold the data, but there are also external hard-drives that use themuch-physically-smaller LAPTOP-sized drives--that will fit in a shirtpocket--and which will hold up to 80gb of data. If you are taking yourlaptop, you could simply use the laptop to transfer your CF cards to a smallhard-drive like that--or even better, you could free up some space on yourlaptop (maybe even by transferring it to that very same shirt-pockethard-drive) and then keep copies both on your laptop, as well as on yourshirt-pocket external drive, so that your pictures will not only be saved,but will have a back-up as well (if possible, I always keep TWO copies oftravel pictures while on the go).

There are products that take digital camera memory and either transfer
the data to an internal harddrive, or which burn CD or burn DVD, all
without a PC. The harddrive-transferred data then can later be plugged
into the USB port on any PC and accessed like any external drive. Or
you stick your CD/DVD into the appropriate drive on your PC.
I have one made by a company called Digital Foci, 80GB in size. There
is no internal (LCD) display of photos, but since storage devices need
to be able to read the multitude of RAW versions (even merely to add
new cameras like 5D or D200!) the ability to read and display raw is a
rather transitory capability until you buy a new camera!

Donald Gray wrote:
I travel overseas quite frequently and take up to 2-300 photos a day.

I have been lugging my laptop to use as temp storage unit but being a
few years old, it only has a few gigs available.

Going into local photo shops and getting CD burnt is not an option
now.

What I am looking for is a 'black box' that I can plug a CF into and
download the images for temp storage until I get home again.

Does such a device exist?

(No I dont want to lug and external HD with the laptop!)
(I do have several 512 CF cards but dont want to buy a load extra)

Advice on storage solutions when away from home for extended periods
requested please.

We use an Epson P-2000 and have been very pleased with it:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/epsonp2000/

Not only does it do 40GB of storage, but provides a high-quality
slide-show device when you need it. There's an 80GB version as well.
Takes CF and SD cards.

David

On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 23:05:37 +0000, Donald Gray
wrote:

I travel overseas quite frequently and take up to 2-300 photos a day.

I have been lugging my laptop to use as temp storage unit but being a
few years old, it only has a few gigs available.

Going into local photo shops and getting CD burnt is not an option
now.

What I am looking for is a 'black box' that I can plug a CF into and
download the images for temp storage until I get home again.

Does such a device exist?

(No I dont want to lug and external HD with the laptop!)
(I do have several 512 CF cards but dont want to buy a load extra)

Advice on storage solutions when away from home for extended periods
requested please.
My thanks to all who responded.

I like the Epson P-2000
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/epsonp2000/ as suggested by David

Also a good contender is the Alera Digital Photo Copy Cruiser Plus
as suggested by Douglas
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...goryNavigation


David - How do you fid the p-2000 stands up to travel? - I will need
to take the chosen unit aroung the globe with me when I go
'walkabouts'. Involves land/sea/air travelling

Donald Gray wrote:
[]
I like the Epson P-2000
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/epsonp2000/ as suggested by David
[]
David - How do you fid the p-2000 stands up to travel? - I will need
to take the chosen unit aroung the globe with me when I go
'walkabouts'. Involves land/sea/air travelling

No problems, although obviously you would need to protect the LCD screen
from breakage.

We took the box to Barcelona (air trip + taxi), and Cecilia took the Epson
to Antarctica involving 5 flights, coach journeys and an extended period
on board a ship. Of course, the Epson stayed indoors, but it was used
both to store images and to make slide-shows for display to fellow
passengers.

On both trips, we also took sufficient memory cards so that we didn't have
to overwrite the cards. This meant that the Epson was a backup insurance
rather than our primary storage. I had several 1GB and 2GB cards, and my
wife several 512MB and 1GB. Neither of us take RAW files, which can be a
lot bigger. Cecilia took two cameras to Antarctica for the same reason
(backup).

David

On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 13:35:03 GMT, "David J Taylor"

wrote:

Donald Gray wrote:
[]
I like the Epson P-2000
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/epsonp2000/ as suggested by David
[]
David - How do you fid the p-2000 stands up to travel? - I will need
to take the chosen unit aroung the globe with me when I go
'walkabouts'. Involves land/sea/air travelling

No problems, although obviously you would need to protect the LCD screen
from breakage.

We took the box to Barcelona (air trip + taxi), and Cecilia took the Epson
to Antarctica involving 5 flights, coach journeys and an extended period
on board a ship. Of course, the Epson stayed indoors, but it was used
both to store images and to make slide-shows for display to fellow
passengers.

On both trips, we also took sufficient memory cards so that we didn't have
to overwrite the cards. This meant that the Epson was a backup insurance
rather than our primary storage. I had several 1GB and 2GB cards, and my
wife several 512MB and 1GB. Neither of us take RAW files, which can be a
lot bigger. Cecilia took two cameras to Antarctica for the same reason
(backup).
Thanks for the feedback David - That seems to be the same sort of
travel punishment I would be giving it.

I like the philosophy of back up rather than primary storage - I shall
be buying at least 1 1Gb Sandisk Extreme III (depends on how much my
eBay sales go!)

Donald Gray wrote:
[]
Thanks for the feedback David - That seems to be the same sort of
travel punishment I would be giving it.

I like the philosophy of back up rather than primary storage - I shall
be buying at least 1 1Gb Sandisk Extreme III (depends on how much my
eBay sales go!)

I must confess to not buying that quality of card - it's wasted on me (I
think). But I have gone for the SanDisk Ultra II (in both CF and SD
formats) and been pleased with it.

I take enough memory for about two weeks shooting, and if I'm away for
longer I'll be a bit more careful editing at night! By careful checking,
I've concluded that Nikon's "Standard" JPEG quality (at full resolution)
is good enough for my needs. I don't see a great benefit to "Fine" or
"Extra fine" - your criteria may differ, of course. I have found myself
working out a number of photos per day I have capacity for, and trying to
stick roughly by that number. Some days I'll take more than others of
course.

David

On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 12:07:29 -0600, Jim Townsend
wrote:
[]

Sell your current laptop and get a new one

[]
I've had an HP laptop that burns CDs for going on two years now.. They're
the greatest thing since sliced bread and FAR more versatile than a dumb
storage tank. :-)

Hi Jim

At first I thought who would want my slow p2 laptop... But the more I
think about it, your suggestion is very attractive... A new laptop
would certainly be the answer - I guess I still have the high price of
yesterday's laptops in mind and have never given it thought.

I guess my Dell machine will be on eBay soon! Thanks for the thought!

Cheers

Donald