Photo backup/storage on a trip

mipevo6

mipevo6

Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,624
Name
Martin
Edit My Images
Yes
Folks,

I did a quick search, couldn't find anything close.

I am doing a 10 day trip in March to SA with my 450D. Lots sightseeing, small safari etc... I assume I will be taking quite a few pictures and am worried / paranoid I will run out of space.

I have 3 x 8gb and 1 x 4gb SDHC and I only shoot RAW.

I was wondering what you folks do for storage/backup on a trip ?

It looks like the options are:-

1) More SDHC cards - Feels like a waste the rest of the time
2) One button photo backup device - don't get good vibes on how reliable these are?
3) Netbook - useful for other things but obviously more to carry
4) Photo viewer/backup device - look expensive for what they do

Struggling to know which option is best.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance...
 
I'm interested in the replies here too. I'll be in a similar position soon but with CF. The purchase of the 5Dmk2 since our last holiday hasn't helped much either with its giant raw file sizes.

I've sort of already ruled the netbook out due to size.
 
Hi I always take a laptop with me when traveling, as it gives the best of both worlds, data storage and internet access.
 
28 Gigs will give you a huge amount of images, even in raw. Average of more than 2 Gig/day!!!!

My advice would be take one extra 8 Gig card if you are really worried and weed your shots in the hotel of an evening. Shoot less and come back with more keepers.

....... and you will have less to carry!!!
 
I am using the Epson P6000 viewer/storge device. It is a bit pricy and you can buy a netbook for the same money. It does have a great screen and it well built and small enough to toss in the bag.

Most of the longer trips I do I need to travel light and the Epson suits me. I think you have summarised the choices well. If you want a netbook and can afford the internet access over there that may be an option for a similar price. There is of course the penalty of carrying it around which may or not be a problem.

If you are taking a laptop/netbook with you then this is clearly the way to go.

IMO if you only want the storage for one trip I would buy a shed load of cards as it is by far the cheaper option.

One thing will be certain it will be a fantastic trip for you. Enjoy.

Paul
 
I use a hyperdrive colourspace. Lets me backup all my pictures on the go and its smaller and less conspicuous than a netbook or laptop. It was cheaper for me to buy the backup device than buy more memory cards, in the end I took 32GB of pictures on my trip!
 
I currently get around 500~550 shots on a 16GB CF with the 5D2. I currently have 4x 16GB cards.

Over a two week period that only averages around 150 shots a day. Last holiday with 40D I rationed myself to around 250 shots a day.

Admittedly not all will be keepers but I'd rather not have to worry about while I'm away.
 
One thing to bear in mind is that memory cards whilst available in SA are very expensive so if you are going to take the route of memory cards buy before you go!!!

I was there with the wife 2 years ago for 3 weeks and shot 8k between us.
 
Thanks folks,

Tough to know what to do..

The camera estimates 450 shots per 8Gb

That's 1575 in total over 10 days including a wedding and a safari, that only equals about 150 shots per day....

Part of me says take loads and wade through them when I get back as I would hate to miss a shot or worry about taking too many and hold back..

The netbook idea might be good to get internet access, email, facebook etc.. and a backup of the pics...

But then I could just buy 2 extra cards for about £34 which maybe the cheapest route even if they will sit around most of the time doing nothing...

Hmmmm

Decisions Decisions
 
I went to Sri Lanka last year, took 6 x 16gb, 8 x 4gb cards and gave my 2 and 1gb cards to my lad for his 400D.

Only just had enough ;) Never had a failure of a sandisk CF card though and if you've got plenty then you can swap them every day/couple of days

I also have an innoplus iwith, kinda a chunky mp3 player based on linux, but it's bulletproof. The added plus is it has a cf slot and a one push record button to dump the cf card in incremental folders. It also reads and displays canon raw files natively.

I doubt you'll find one now though. How about something like an archos?
 
I use a small Acer One Netbook, 160GB of storage for photos and also useful for viewing photos. (Also makes a nice movie player for those boring hours on the plane with its 10 hour battery) - And of course as already mentioned gives easy internet access while you are away. Being a netbook it weighs about 1Kg and you can slip it in a pocket on your backpack.
 
mipevo6 said:
That's 1575 in total over 10 days including a wedding and a safari, that only equals about 150 shots per day....
Click to expand...


150 shots a day average, :lol: 10 years ago that's be 5 x36 exposure films a day and would have cost you a fortune.

you can tell if a shot's worth keeping or not from the viewfinder, just delete the duffers every evening
 
wack61 said:
150 shots a day average, :lol: 10 years ago that's be 5 x36 exposure films a day and would have cost you a fortune.

you can tell if a shot's worth keeping or not from the viewfinder, just delete the duffers every evening
Click to expand...

Hahaha...

I never thought of it in those terms.... Made me smile :-) waiting nervously for your prints to arrive back in the post :)

I guess it is because storage is so cheap you can become lazy and just snap away. I also will be with the other 1/2 who will get bored if I spend ages taking pictures so it will be take lots and trim later...

I also will be shooting quite a few on the safari I am sure which should burn through a lot just for those 2 days....

I would hate to fly 1/2 way round the world then miss a shot because I ran out of space or was trying to save space...
 
I am spending 3 weeks in Botswana this summer, going with my husband and my parents. Between us, we will have 2 DSLR's and 2 point and shoots. We will have 2 4gb and 2 8gb CF cards, a 2gb XD card and a 4gb SD card.

I will be taking my laptop, and external hard drive (possibly a WD passport one) and will also back up to CD every evening too. We will keep the laptop locked in a suitcase during the day when in hotels, and keep the CD / DVD's in my parents room, the hard drive will be carried in one of our pockets. That way if the laptop gets nicked, we still have 2 copies of the photos in case something goes wrong with either of them! We will be uploading them to the internet too, as and when, but from my experience in the past, the connections in Botswana are very slow, so it may be a case of just putting the best ones up to share with family here.

The reason why I am being a little over zealous is because we are having our marriage blessed in front of my husbands family, so these photos will pretty much be our wedding photos - if I come back and can't show anything to my family who cannot make it over there, my life will not be worth living! :thumbs:

Normally, I would just take the laptop and an external HD. If we had a netbook, I would probably just use that, but I can't justify the additional expense at the moment.

As for 150 shots per day, I would say that is pretty normal - in 3 days on safari and a trip to Vic falls, I shot 10 rolls of 36 exp. film. The last time I was there, I shot 4 rolls of 36 exp. film in a day (best day of game viewing ever!), plus had shots on my digital compact too.
 
I think you should go with what you have and be selective in what you shoot, 10 well thought through and well shot pictures is better than 2000 snaps you'll look at once then delete in 6 months time.

More isn't always better, if you want something as a reminder take a video camera as well
 
I recently got a netbook for this purpose (and on the fly emails etc). You can probably forget using it to view photos. DPP won't run because the resolution is too low, and zoombrowser / picassa just chomp for hours trying to render both G11 and 5DII Raws for previewing. However, as the thing itself was less than the 250GB HD in it a few years back, and having fiddled about with power settings it reckons on over 15h de-tuned for flights to oz reading journal papers, it seems a reasonable buy...
 
Have you thought about a small solid state hard drive - like the Lacie back up hard drive you can get. There are others, but a 160GB portable hard drive is under £50 now. It will save you loads of work when you get back - and gives you the peace of mind.

Take a converter plug with you too - RSA electric plugs are a weird 2 pin on a slant jobbie. Converters are hard to find out there, even in Cape Town (we build the kayaks in CT and am there quite a bit). A charger would be a must to take with you - I have discovered the plug for the Nikon D3 charger is exactly the same as for the Canon compact! So I take both chargers but only 1 lead.
Converter sets were in Lidl not so long ago for about £6 - covers the entire world. Brilliant! AA batteries - I would get a stack from 7-day shop or Tesco on offer on something, save the weight and hassle of a charger (you don't want to be carrying dead rechargeables on holiday.) A box of 24 were £9.99 the other day....you can't go wrong.
 
Im on a gap year now and i was worried about backing up all my photos. However being away for 6 months i had a little more photos to deal with. However i dont shoot in RAW very often so im not eating up data like you would be. At the moment while im in New Zealand and the next couple of months in Auz im not to worried because i always have power to hook up my net book. Im storing on the netbook and then on a external HDD plus im resizing all my photos down and uploading them all. If i were to lose them i would want some reminder of the moments even it was only a low res one. Its better than nothing. However when i get to Thailand and out to the island im not going to have power all the time so iv got 5x 4gb HCSD cards which hopefully will keep me going long enough untill i get chance to upload.

Your thinking a lot about data but have you thought about power have you got spear battery's? Again for me its not an issue at the moment but it will be so got 5 battery's before i came out.

So even though you think buying cards that your not going to use very often i think its the most logical and cost effective option for you. Plus some spear batterys. Also i dont no about you but im not very good with lens caps so i picked up some spear caps before i left.


I hope you have an amazing trip.

Joe
 
Hey folks, thanks for the replies...

Trying to cover all the replies..

1) I have external HD's I use at home for backup (as well as a NAS), but without a PC, how can you get the pictures off the camera....

2) I am very tempted by the netbook idea... I could use this for all kinds of trips etc.. so it wouldn't be something I only use once...

3) power plugs and batteries... I have 4 batteries now for my 450D, I got some higher capacity ones and have a travel charger and a car charger for them, so I shouldn't ever run out of those.

I have a bunch of Eneloops for the flash but I doubt I will be doing much flash Photography so I should be ok.

As to power plugs....

It looks like this is what comes up on the web ?

vc-pluggrndsoafrica.jpg


Is this the right one?

I am really looking forward to this trip... I have been to many places all over the world, but never been to Africa so it is a first for me.

Thanks for the great support on this one folks, great discussion and community spirit :thumbs:

Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top