Hi,

We just bought a digital camera and the guy in the store recommended that when our memory card is full, we get the photos put onto a cd by a internet cafe?

Has anyone done this on their trip? If so how much did it cost and did you lose any of your photos?

We are going to be away for 10 weeks and are expecting to take a lot of photos. We bought a 256mb card which holds 320 3 mega pixel photos, but don't think this is going to be enough. First trip to Europe

Fern

Camera shops are the places which generally offer CD writing services, rather than internet cafes. The trouble is, it's very often not a "while you wait" service, but a "come back in a few hours" type service, and that can be a bit problematical on a tour.

I'm a little puzzled by your comment about "losing pictures" - why should you lose any pictures? Writing a CD is a virtually 100% reliable operation, and you'd be a fool to erase the memory card until you've verified that the CD is readable and all your pictures are there.

To be honest, I think you're pushing your luck in relying on finding CD writing facilities. You'd be a lot better off with your own picture storage facilities - either a laptop computer, a storage device such as an "X-Drive" or one of the numerous other similar devices, or a portable CD writer. Numerous such devices are available from any good digital camera shop.

Alternatively, you could simply take along extra memory cards. Take along a couple of 512MB cards, and you'd probably have more than sufficient storage for your whole trip - well over 1000 pictures.

Regards,

Chris

I was able to have my digital photos copied to CD in Nice at an Internet shop. You must take your camera's computer cable with you. The disk cost eur1.50 and the time on the PC cost us Eur3. The operating system was in French and the lady in the shop was French, so took a bit longer than expected, but we got it done succesfully. Some of the internet shops I went into did not have facilities to plug in the camera or even a disk drive.
We also copied some to a CD (120 at a time)in a photo shop outside the Vatican. This cost Eur7.50 and one did it oneself on a computerised machine (Kodak), ie stick in the camera card and CD and follow the prompts (read carefully (its in English)). The machine prints an index card of all the photos on the CD. It took about 15to20 mins which seemed ages as we were in a rush to meet the tour bus. You can even make prints at an additional cost.
I saw others on the tour also having photo's copied in a shop in Venice, but did not take note of where tho.
We have about 950 photos.
Also depending on your budget you may not want to go to this trouble and then Chris's suggestion is best, take more cards.
Philip

Thanks Chris for your quick reply

I will check out the portable cd writers or more memory cards.

Fern

I own & run an Internet Cafe here in New Zealand and also read & burn memory cards to CD.

Philipca, the places you went to can't have been set up very well at all. All I need is the memory card, (no cables at all), and they are done while you wait or are using a workstation. On average, for a 256MB card it takes me 10 minutes to read, burn & check (with the customer) the photos. The cost is $NZ10.00 (�4.50).

The only time I have ever seen any photos lost has been when the person has turned camera off while camera is still writing photo to the card & it has been corrupted. Lucky for them I could retrieve the photos for them.

Fernangle, if you are lucky, as the people on our TT last year were, there could be a fellow passenger (like me) with a laptop with CD burner that could burn them for you (as I did).

That even worked out much cheaper..... 1 or 2 drinks a night was all it was costing them & that was good for me!!!

Guy, Internet shops (actually internet everything) are much better organized and set up in OZ and Kiwi land than in Europe.

Here in the US it is very inconsistent: in the San Francisco area, wi-fi is everywhere and an internet cafe without the latest of everything will soon go out of business. Here in Louisiana, most folks think an internet cafe is a place that sells chicory coffee and beignets.

I think Chris will agree that, particularly on the Continent, internet related services are not as well organized as elsewhere.

Fernangle: I know there are portable cd burners but Personal Storage Devices don't require you to carry around cd's (both blank and burned). Some will even play mp3s as well as store your photos.

I took 850 images last year in Italy in a two week period. Barely made a dent in my x-drive's capacity.

Glenn
www.pbase.com/gsrunyan

>>I think Chris will agree that, particularly on the Continent, internet related services are not as well organized as elsewhere.<<

I'm afraid I couldn't comment on that, as my experience of "elsewhere" is distinctly limited . The vast majority of my travelling has been within Europe, other than a few trips to the US, and on those trips I've not really had a need to get "on line".

These days you'll find internet cafes everywhere, but their facilities do vary dramatically. All internet cafes these days offer decent speed (at least 512kbits), but the majority of such places don't allow you to plug your own machines into their network, due to virus risks. I don't recall coming across an internet cafe which offers CD burning facilities - as I said in my earlier message, you tend to find such facilities offered by camera shops, rather than internet cafes. That's not to say that such places don't exist, of course; just that I've not come across them!

Public WiFi access is still very much in its infancy in Europe, due to regulatory difficulties with our telecomms systems, many of which are still government regulated. When you do find it, it tends to be extremely expensive. Free public WiFi is completely unheard of!

I always travel with either a small laptop computer or with my XS-Drive. One or the other is vital to me for a trip of any length; my camera eats memory cards at an alarming rate .

Regards,

Chris

Believe it or not, a special area of the boarding area in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Airport of Continental Airlines had a WiFi area with seats in a circular designed sitting area!!!

i had no problems in europe (rome thru to london) getting my photos put on to CD. usually an hour wait or some places did them while you wait.
the only problem i had is losing a few movies (see my thread in the photography section).

cheers