All you digital camera user/travellers ... help! I look with envy at various websites wher travellers post their holiday snaps and want to do the same. Can someone tell me how/where you can download your snaps when travelling so others can see them back home? Is this an easy task or best to wait till get home? Also, would welcome any camera suggestions - I plan to spend about US$250-350 or $AUS$500-$600. Awefully basic questions but hope someone can assist.

Hi Bam,
I post my picturees for free at
www.Webshots.com
but I do it when I get home, no way to do it on the road unless you carry a laptop and the cables to download. You can have your pics put into a CD in a lot of places in EUrope, but it will be expensive, so get yourself a lot of memory or an x-drive (see post about digital storage).
Also get yourself an image manipulation software like Photshop Elements, wich will save a lot of mediocre pictures, or even better, Microsoft Digital Image Pro 7.0, which can even add flash to dark pictures and remove wrinkles from faces.
You will enjoy digital when traveling, it's easy to reviwe your pics at night and delete the ones you're not happy with.
As for cameras, check the Nikon Coolpix series, they have diferent models and prices and take awesome pics.
Good luck,
Fab

Bam:

There is a whole world of choices in digital cameras. I went through this same process myself a few months ago.

In your price range, you probably should be looking at 3megapixel cameras. These produce fine prints up to 8X10 and, with special software, up to 11X14. The Nikon 885 is a great camera but is near the top of your price range and the zoom on the lens is puny.

You might consider the Fuji 3800 that is just out: less than US$ 300, 3.2 megapixels and a zoom out to (the equivalent of) 220mm. Primarily designed to be a point and shoot camera. Major drawback: uses the new xD memory card adopted by Fuji and Olympus. Although hard to find, I found a site with 128meg cards for $67. Check it out at http://www.fujifilm.com. />
It is hard to off load digital picts while traveling. You must carry a USB cable for the camera or a memory card reader. In the case of the former, you may also have to carry the cd that has the drivers for the computer to read the files from your camera. The same may apply to a memory card reader. And this assumes that the internet cafe you go to will let you load the drivers.

Other choices: 1)buy a bunch of memory cards. Unload the cards to your computer when you get home and then share. 2) Use less detailed files. On my digital, I can get only 50 highest resolution picts per memory card; the next lowest gets me 100, etc. If you are going to use only the the least dense resolution, you can probably get 300 picts on a card but these will not be printable beyond 3"X5". 3) We are beginning to see stand alone kiosks that allow you to insert your memory card at it will return you prints or a CD with your files. I don't know how common they are in Europe-Maybe Chris Marriot will know.

I hope this helps.

Glenn

PS: Fabiola, did you actually get the x-drive? How do you like it?
G

Glenn,
My X-drive is sitting at my office waiting for my son to install the drive ( not daring enough, men are men after all, lol), as soon as I can put some pictures on it, will report.
Happy Thanksgivin all,
Fab

Do any Aussies know if the x-drive is available in Australia? I have made some enquiries but nobody seems to know what I am talking about!

Hi Margaretc,

Try one of the Camera House or Fletcher Photographic Stores, I'm sure there must be one in your area.

I purchased my first Digital camera recently, an Olympus C730 3.2 megapixals. It uses an XD Picture Card. I've been having a ball trying it out from the time I picked it up. I bought it from Camera House at the same price one of the Duty Free stores were quoting.

Malh - thanks for the reply. I will give it a try. I got my Kodak LS420 for my birthday and I just love it!!! After reading about the x-drive on this board I thought it sounded like a good idea. I originally thought that once I had the digital camera up and running I would only retain the "good" photos but I still find I can't delete them and save them all to a CD.

Margaret,

Read your manual once more, I'm sure there's a way you could delete the bad pics any time and save the good ones to the PC so yoou can put them in a CD later on. I'm sure there's also a feature that lets you protect the ones you don't want accidentally deleted.
Happy Holidays,
Fab

Margaret,

Check out this web site:

http://www.powerinnumbers.com.au/

Digitalstore (or Power In Numbers) in Melbourne carries X-Drive.

7 Lambeth Ave
Armadale 3143, Vic
Melbourne, Australia
Ph: + 613 9500 1905
Fax: + 613 9500 1595
Mobile: + 61 (0)411 393 666


Fabiola,

Can you tell me where you ordered your X-Drive and hard drive? Thanks.

Fabiola, That came out all wrong didn't it? I am able to delete the "bad" pictures from my camera but since I enjoy looking at all my holiday and family photos from time to time I just can't bring myself to do it yet, so I save them to a CD. My manual is my best friend and I do have lots of features on the camera which I am able to use, including protecting photos I do not want to delete. Now if I could just find a way of cataloguing.......

tpc, thanks for that tip. I will check it out.

tpc, I got the x-drive at my digitaldiscount.com, $199 no shipping cost for 20GB hard drive.
Margaret, do a search for Jasc Software, they'll let you download and preview for free their Jasc After Shot, wich is a great cataloging and image manipulating software. It sells for $40 for the premiun version and you can have it free for a month. After that they'll take away the premiun features, but you'll be left with the free cataloging program. I'm sure you'll enjoy it!
Fab

Fabiola, Thanks a lot - I'll try it this weekend. Might even get around to deleting those "bad" photos too.

Hi Fab, thanks for your reply.

Margaret,

Also BITS online store...another store selling X-Drive in Australia.

http://www.bits.com.au/newbits/engine.asp?CatID=8&BSR=E&OS=P