We are preparing for a 7 week holiday throughout Europe, including France, Belgium, Italy, Germany etc and Hungary, Romania and Greece. I have just purchased two 512Mb cards for my 4Mb camera (an IXUS 400), and alreay have a 128Mb card. I usually get good pictures with the second lowest level of compression, so get 1 picture per Mb.
I chose 512Mb for the new cards because a local camera store pointed out that 1Gb is too much to fit on a CD. They also suggested that I should have no worries finding a store to copy the cards onto CD. However, based on some of the discussions on this board, I am worried that finding somewhere to get the cards copied onto CD might not be as easy as the store had suggested. I am also worried that someone suggested in another thread that stores might not reliably copy across 'movies' (animated JPEGs in my case). I had also been thinking about taking a few CD-Rs in case I could copy the cards across myself at an internet cafe or something.
Should I be buying more memory, or thinking of getting some other sort of storage device (hard drive or Ipod). If so, how easy are these devices to use, and how heavy are they to lug around (I presume you would need to keep them in your hand luggage)?
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Justin

Justin

I have the same issue although I've decided not to purchase the extra cards solely on a $$ factor. I recently paid ~$200 for a SD extreme 512mb card (didn't get the gig card for the same reason as you)and wasn't prepaired to outlay another $200-300 on extra cards when I can dump them easily on disc. Numerous people I have recently spoken to have said that CD dump/copy stores are are common as there are here in OZ.

Besides you can always buy another card overseas if the CD's dont work out.

Mark

I'd personally recommend getting a hard disk storage device - that way everything is under your control. It's not always easy finding somewhere to write a CD from a memory card, especially if you're only in a place for an hour or so.

Movies, by the way, are generally stored in MPEG format; there's no such thing as an "animated JPEG" .

Regards,

Chris

Hi Chris...

"there's no such thing as an "animated JPEG"

Are you sure? We have them arcoss the pond.

I'm pretty certain. You can have animated GIF files - they, of course, are very common on web sites - but the JPEG file format does not, to the best of my knowledge, support animation.

The movie format is MPEG, not JPEG.

Regards,

Chris

Cat:

I'm sorry but Chris is right, the format is MPEG. JPEG is only a still format (of course, someone could string a bunch of stills together like the old time "movieolas.")

Justin:

If your calculation is correct (1 image per Mb), you have room for 1100+ photos. That's a lot of images. If you review your images in the evening, deleting those that you know you don't want and those that should never see the light of day, that may be sufficient.

Last year, in 14 days in Italy, I took 850 images. If you shoot that kind of volume, you will want a couple more of those 512 cards.

I agree with Chris and carry a PSD (Portable Storage Device), essentially a portable harddrive. Even when I don't totally fill up my memory sticks (like last month when we visited Colorado), the PSD makes a great backup.

Glenn
www.pbase.com/gsrunyan

Glenn & Chris...

Ok, but why are there several web sites (search on Animated JPEG) that refer to them? Could they be incorrect, or what?

This is not an area I am an expert in, so I will lean towards what you guys say.

Regards

Cat's

...................................

When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.

Hi Cat's,

I've done a web search for "animated JPEG" and you're right; there are a number of web sites which discuss them.

What they are talking about (and illustrating) is doing animation using JPEGs. Typically this is done with the aid of a Java "Applet" which rapidly cycles through a series of images, producing animation. The animation is achieved programmatically on the web page; it's not a "feature" of the JPEG file itself as it is, for example, with animated GIF files.

Regards,

Chris

I am very new to digital cameras, and I'm taking pics more for fun than to impress anyone with my photography skills. My biggest concern is the storage issue. When I asked at work about using a memory stick or microdrive, everyone said it wouldn't work.

Not sure how you physically download to the PDS that's mentioned. Do you have to have special drivers to be compatible with the camera? Do you use an intermediate device? I have no idea what card reader is, for example. Can anyone enlighten me? Thanks.

Your camera stores pictures on some type of memory card - a compact flash (CF), secure digital (SD), or some other type of card.

A picture storage device has a slot into which you insert the memory card, then all you typically have to do is press a button to copy the pictures from the card to the storage device.

When you get home, you connect the storage device to your computer, normally with a USB connection, and it automatically appears as an additional "disk drive" in Windows Explorer. You then simply "drag" the pictures from it onto your computer's hard disk.

They are very, very easy to use. You don't have to be a computer expert, I promise you!

Regards,

Chris

Hi Chris, Can these storage devices plug into the ports on a TV for viewing the pics? If this is a crazy question for you, you can see how lacking my techno skills are? lol

All: Re costs on CFs, I ordered a Viking 128MB CF card several weeks ago for $29.99 from Amazon, with a $20 rebate coupon. The rebate check came yesterday; net cost: $9.99. On Last months 3 week trip to Eastern Europe, I was determined to fine tune the quantity of pics. I deleted faithfully and used up 1 256MB card/342 pics (thought there'd be more space on this one) (did include 3 or 4 movie mode shots), and about 120 pics on one of my two 128MB cards I brought along. It is such a pleasure to shoot ten shots of one special scene and then delete to the best of the lot and no storage device needed!

I believe the more expensive ones can. Mine is a very basic one; it just stored pictures with no "viewing" options at all. The more expensive ones generally have a screen on which you can look at your pictures.

Regards,

Chris

Roxy, one thing you should be able to do is plug your camera (with the provided cable) directly into your VCR and view your pictures. I do this all the time. And you should also be able to record them on the tape.

Hi Rarogirl, that is very, very interesting! Currently, I attach my camera cables as follows: one end into the camera and the other end goes into the A/V ports in front of my TV. I don't have any ports on my VCR. Maybe extra ones in the back somewhere?? If I do have them (have to fold myself into a tight spot to be able to check to see LOL), are you saying that my VCR can tape the pics directly from my CF card while it's in my camera? Or do you tape the pics as they are being presented as a slide show on the TV. I Can't quite figure that out...what do you set your VCR on to do it? ....the plot thickens!

My VCR has audio/video input jacks on the front--yours may have them on the back. You must be able to see the picture on your tv screen in order to record it. You could run a slide show and record it or manually scroll through your pictures and record just the ones you want.