Travel Storage

[imago57]

Hello everybody, here I am with yet another question about travelling equipment.
I will be spending 4 or 5 weeks in Brasil in March, and I know that when I owned a Canon Powershot G2 I would be back with a 1 GB microdrive full of photographs. I would take the time to inspect them on a TV monitor in my hotel room and keep only the good ones. That was when using the G2, this time I will be using my new Canon D60, and I am planning to shoot RAW only.
My choices are:

1) Bring my laptop with me and store the files on its HD, (not very practical, the laptop loss would set me back $2500. 00, I would be spending too much time at the computer and not enough time having fun shooting and swimming.)

2) Buy a 20 GB Digital Wallet (or equivalent) and bring it with me and store away to my heart content. (The problem with this is that if anything happens to the Digital Wallet I would have lost all of the work.)

3) Buy a bunch of CF cards and do what I did the past years, remove the obviously bad pictures as I go and keep the good ones only to be processed once back home. (The negative side of this solution is the cost...20 GB of CF cards would run several thousand dollars, as opposed to the $250 of a digital wallet.)

Please give me some advise, let me know if you have ever find yourselvels in this situation and have experimented with one or the other solutions. If any of you has had experience with a Digital Wallet I would like to know if you find them very reliable, and if there is a particular brand you would recommend. Or maybe there is some other way that I have not considered...

All comments will be welcome and appreciated.

[robertwgross]

imago57 wrote:
Hello everybody, here I am with yet another question about travelling equipment.
I will be spending 4 or 5 weeks in Brasil in March, ...
this time I will be using my new Canon D60, and I am planning to shoot RAW only.
My choices are:

1) Bring my laptop with me and store the files on its HD, (not very practical, the laptop loss would set me back $2500. 00, I would be spending too much time at the computer and not enough time having fun shooting and swimming.)

2) Buy a 20 GB Digital Wallet (or equivalent) and bring it with me and store away to my heart content. (The problem with this is that if anything happens to the Digital Wallet I would have lost all of the work.)

3) Buy a bunch of CF cards and do what I did the past years, remove the obviously bad pictures as I go and keep the good ones only to be processed once back home. (The negative side of this solution is the cost...20 GB of CF cards would run several thousand dollars, as opposed to the $250 of a digital wallet.)

...

All comments will be welcome and appreciated.


First of all, I don't think that a laptop computer should cost you $2500. To get one outfitted for a traveling photographer, it would likely be well over $1000, yet much less than $2500. There are many "gotcha" details like power supplies, cords, card readers, cables, etc.

I understand the concern about the Digital Wallet. It's hard to say.

So far, I have gone with the "mucho compact flash" solution. I have to pay about $280 per GB for those, but it is much lighter in weight than other alternatives. I tend to be human-powered, so excess weight can be a concern. I also shoot in RAW mode, so my D60 burns up a lot of compact flash memory until I can edit out the bad shots.

I'm not certain that there is a perfect solution.

---Bob Gross---

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Max,

(I hope that's your name. :) )

Buy good travel insurance and take your PC.

This is what I do. I have a Digital Wallet and a Sony Vaio, which is quite old (in PC years :) ). I download to the PC. Review and delete crap images and then download to the Digital Wallet. My laptop has only limited HD of 4gb, so I keep copies of only really good images on the PC as additional security.

Another option is PC with DVD/CD writer. Lots of CDs by the time you finish.

I hear what you are saying about spending time on the PC instead of living on the the real world, but... you will regret it, if you cannot review your photos, and you could discipline yourself to "no editing, review only". If you doubt your ability to do this, uninstall your editing software before you go. :)

You could buy two digital wallets. If there is a bigger capacity than 20gb, buy it. I have a D30 and a 10gb DW, I don't think I'd have enough space for 5 weeks away and with a D60 the problem is worse.

Regards,

[henkbos]

Ah, those problems opf luxury.
Normally I take my laptop with me on holiday to access email as well, BUT... During the last few trips I was really fed up with the weight, additional stuff, etc
Of course it's great to review pics during the trip. Editing on a laptop is a disaster since the screen is not good enough (I hardly will make a comment on a picture that I've only seen on a TFT-screen).

My choice would be the digital wallet (no experience with it yet). If 1 is not enough, buy 2. Compared to all the costs in cameras, glass, cards, the costs of a DW are next to nothing. You can even courier one back once it's full.

The lastest has a capacity of 30Gb so that will give you enough space to store more than 4000 pictures in RAW (meaning 120 pictures a day). Add your cards once the DW is full and man, you can shoot away.

[Longwatcher]

I used a 30 gig Delkin Picture Pad (which I assume is a digital wallet) recently on a trip. I also use it to save time during other photo shoots. No problems other then battery life when not plugged in. I have 2 CF cards and a microdrive as well. If I travel again for more then a week. I will probably pick up two more CF cards. The reason is I am slightly paranoid and although I copied all of the images to the picture pad, I kept one of the CF cards intact just in case, since I knew I had some good shots on it. The picture pad allows me to review the shots and if I desire to transfer the files back to a CF card. The catch is you will need a CF card reader (meaning the picture pad or a CF card reader) to transfer the files you copied back to to CF card as the camera will not read them any more.

Use a Picture pad (or other digital wallet that allows you to transfer back to CF cards) and then keep a couple of CF cards for the best of the images. I liked the picture pad, because I could review at least the jpeg images on the picture pad itself. I keep forgeting to check and see if I can also review the RAW images, so the review portion may not work for you.

Lastly I recommend the picture pad or digital wallet over a laptop unless you will need to edit the photos while traveling as laptops are more likely to be stolen. However, good insurance should cover this anyway.

Just my opinions

[eyphoto]

The problem with digital wallets is the battery consumption. From what I've read, the DW will only download a couple of 256mb or 340mb MD cards until the battery is drained.

The best way to determine your needs, is to determine your capabilities of your equipment on a daily basis. For example, in the D60 RAW mode and a charged battery, you can shoot about 500 images or 4 Gb. With 2 batteries, you can shoot 1000 images or 8 Gb and so forth. Now, you see you need 4 to 8 Gb on a daily basis for 500 to 1000 images. Now to achieve that storage need, you'll need 4 to 8 1 GB MicroDrives or 1 1 GB MD and a DW. Now, the DW will need to be able to flush the card 4 to 8 times. So, you'll need the equivalent amount of batteries to sustain the single card flushing. The cost of the multiple MDs is pretty high compared to the multiple batteries of the DW. This is what you'll need to consider. Then, on a daily basis, you can flush to the DW (on an AC cord) or the laptop back at the hotel. Now, on the daily basis requirements, if you shoot 4 GB a day for 1 week, you need 28 GB or so. This is only about 1 DW's worth. On a newer laptop, you may only get 2 or 3 DW's storage. As far as weight and cost, I would opt for the multiple DWs. This is all assuming you are shooting this much images. You will probably delete the bad images and come up with more storage at the end of each day. In summary, you'll need to match your needs based on the how much you can store untethered in the field on a daily basis. Sorry, if it sounded like I rambled. Just my 2 cents....

Eric

[AJSJones]

For my D60, I have a couple of 1 GB drives and a 340 MB so I don't need more on a typical hike. My tiny (that's good here!) iBook has a 30GB HD and a CDR and it weighs about 5lb with the Firewire CF card reader - one battery allows many, many 1 GB downloads* . The charger is a few oz and if it's mainly as a storage device and there's a shaver outlet, I won't need the spare battery. While the screen (or any portable's) may not be up to critical editing, it's certainly good enough to weed out the out of focus ones and other duds. If I get close to filling the 20 GB free hard drive when I'm away from home for s few weeks, I can burn CDs. For me, this is a perfect solution (the iBook also has about 50 music CDs as MP3s on it for entertainment - and OK a couple of games) - it's smaller than many/most notebooks (11x9x1 1/4"), high capacity, can make archival backups, allows critical review - and, uh, it's a full computer too! Should be available for around $1200 or so...

* The time factor here is about 3.5 MB/sec to get from CF to HD via Firewire, about 10x the USB rate from the camera, for about 5 minutes for a 1 GB drive.

Works perfectly for me
YMMV

Andy

[Longwatcher]

eyphoto wrote:
The problem with digital wallets is the battery consumption. From what I've read, the DW will only download a couple of 256mb or 340mb MD cards until the battery is drained.
Eric

My experience with the Delkin Picture pad has been five downloads of a mix of 256meg CF cards and 340meg microdrive. Based on the way I used it and the battery level indicators, I suspect I could get six to eight 256meg CF card downloads, if I did not use the microdrive or show off the image display capability. Still an annoyingly small amount of downloads to one battery.

My guess would be fewer cards, but more total images downloaded if you were using larger CF cards.

A note on my useage: The file transfer is a three step process; transfer, verification, and erasing. I tend to put the card in and start the transfer and then put my second card in the camera and continue shooting while the first card is downloading, when the second card is full I then take a short break while I verify and then erase the first card and then start the second card on it's way. This means that I leave the thing running until it auto shutsdown from inattention. If I were to monitor the transfer, I suspect I could get even more extended battery life (beyond 6-8 transfers) by shooting both cards and then taking a break to transfer both back to back and then shut it down again. The other thing I have not tried yet is the solar panel I have for recharging my iPaq, It (or something similiar) might work for the Picture pad, which would allow for a couple more cards during a days shoot.

[rspaulson]

I use a 40gb X-Drive. I've had no problems with it, it's quick, easy, and it's a lot easier than dragging my laptop around;

You can also stop by any internet cafe that has a CD-burner, and burn your photos to CD;

or email the photos to yourself back home.

[aglang]

I have (soon to be HAD) a brand new Delkin 30 GB Picture Pad.
Took it on (it's first use) a combined business/pleasure trip over Xmas.
Got back and found that one of six directories was corrupted, I lost a gig of images. On the unit now I cannot view the directory or images, but I can see the other folders, and HOPEFULLY will be able to retrieve the other images today.
Wife and D60 going to China tomorrow, and she refuses to even consider taking the picture pad along.
Since I only have a 1 GB and a 340 GB microdrive, looks like I'm gonna have to run out and buy (at retail prices)
a couple more.

Delkin technical support was friendly and supportive, but basically recommended returning it to seller.

I cannot recommend this unit.

[fredsam]

I recomend the X-drive. it cost only 200 for a 20GB unit.
I have one and 2 256 CF for my G3. I´ve got all last noveber when I was in USA.
The firmware 1.03 of the x drive correted all the problems. you cam buy it from http://www.powerinnumbers.com.au
Vasa is one gueat person. you can get the fastest CF from Ridata 28X and Transcend 25X with great price. About US$ 90 for one 256 CF.
All the people from Dpreview forum can recomend powerinnumbers for buy CF and digital stuf.

Fred

Belo Horizonte - MG
Brazil

[fredsam]

If you want, you can wait feb. to get the USB 2.0 of the X-Drive.

Fred

Belo Horizonte - MG
Brazil

[Longwatcher]

aglang wrote:
I have (soon to be HAD) a brand new Delkin 30 GB Picture Pad.
Took it on (it's first use) a combined business/pleasure trip over Xmas.
Got back and found that one of six directories was corrupted, I lost a gig of images. On the unit now I cannot view the directory or images, but I can see the other folders, and HOPEFULLY will be able to retrieve the other images today.

Delkin technical support was friendly and supportive, but basically recommended returning it to seller.

I cannot recommend this unit.

I have not had this problem and have been using my 30 Gig Picture Pad frequently since August. Given that it uses a laptop harddrive, perhaps you got a bad harddrive? You might try getting it replaced and then use it along with some more CF cards as a secondary back-up to the cards. It might also be an intermittent problem with specific CF card versus picture pad, just a thought. Anyway I like mine so far with no problems other then battery life. It works for me, but that does not necessarily mean it works for everyone.