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 03/13/2011 06:34:31 PM · #1
I'm going to be going on a week long road trip vacation with my wife and kids and I just realized I don't know what to do about storing my pics while on the road. I shoot a lot of RAW files and the only computer I have is a mac desktop, not very portable. Does any one have any advice? Is a portable HD the way to go and if so how do I go about uploading my pics to it on the road when one of my CF cards is full?

Any advice is welcome. Thanks in advance.
 03/13/2011 06:51:04 PM · #2
It's a good question. A few years ago, there were several devices designed for field storage and backup, which you would use to off-load your CF cards... in order to free them for the next day's shooting. I can't find many of those devices available anymore. And they were hundreds of dollars expensive. I think what happened in the interim is the capacity jump and cost reduction of CF cards. What I would do is buy more CF cards and store files on the CF cards until you are close to a computer. Then, use a card reader to backup to DVDs at the first opportunity.
 03/13/2011 07:07:45 PM · #3
kind of depends on where youre going and where youre staying. if its hotel/motel and/or a city an external hard drive would work. there are always internet cafes around cities, or the hotel would let you use a computer if you push a bit, sometimes they even have public computers for guest use that you could hook up to.
 03/13/2011 07:21:24 PM · #4
Originally posted by hahn23:
It's a good question. A few years ago, there were several devices designed for field storage and backup, which you would use to off-load your CF cards... in order to free them for the next day's shooting. I can't find many of those devices available anymore.

I found several such devices still available in a search at B&H Photo.

For the ones which support USB memory sticks/thumb drives, I would take some of those along as a second backup:
1. copy from camera card to portable drive
2. copy from portable drive to thumb drive
3. erase from camera card

Message edited by author 2011-03-13 19:25:21.
 03/13/2011 07:25:45 PM · #5
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by hahn23:
It's a good question. A few years ago, there were several devices designed for field storage and backup, which you would use to off-load your CF cards... in order to free them for the next day's shooting. I can't find many of those devices available anymore.

I found several such devices still available in a search at B&H Photo.

Thanks for the research. Some very good ones listed. If away from a computer for many days, then this type of device is good insurance. By "good" insurance, I mean worth the cost of the device in case something happens to the CF cards.
 03/13/2011 07:30:58 PM · #6
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by hahn23:
It's a good question. A few years ago, there were several devices designed for field storage and backup, which you would use to off-load your CF cards... in order to free them for the next day's shooting. I can't find many of those devices available anymore.

I found several such devices still available in a search at B&H Photo.

For the ones which support USB memory sticks/thumb drives, I would take some of those along as a second backup:
1. copy from camera card to portable drive
2. copy from portable drive to thumb drive
3. erase from camera card


Thanks everybody. I think they have exactly what I need on that link GeneralE
 03/13/2011 07:40:17 PM · #7
Just buy a bunch of cards and return them when you get back (wink).
 03/13/2011 07:50:57 PM · #8
Just remember before going out and spending 300 bucks on one of these you can actually pick up a brand new laptop for that price with usually around the same amount of hdd capacity. But the el cheapo models wont have a card reader so a few more bucks is required for that. Just saying I would rather have the laptop as a dumping station.
 03/13/2011 08:18:50 PM · #9
Originally posted by RainMotorsports:
Just remember before going out and spending 300 bucks on one of these you can actually pick up a brand new laptop for that price with usually around the same amount of hdd capacity. But the el cheapo models wont have a card reader so a few more bucks is required for that. Just saying I would rather have the laptop as a dumping station.


I like netbooks. Netbook computers work very well, very portable, good capacity, good battery life, and more versatile than a dedicated storage device, and you can review your work.

R.
 03/13/2011 08:29:13 PM · #10
When I went to Germany for 2 weeks I took hundreds of photos. CF cards are cheap, so I had about 4 cards with me. I copied them all to my laptop and uploaded them to an external site. I never filled up all my cards, just had enough to get be through the trip.

I also didn't always shoot RAW. Most of the time, there were just some quick clicks to get the memory of the place. When there was something I really liked, I switched to RAW. In fact, when I was in the churches and couldn't use a flash, I shot RAW. For most bright stuff outside, I went to JPG which was certainly good enough.

Anyway you shoot, CF cards are cheap.
 03/13/2011 08:51:37 PM · #11
When you can buy 4 GB flash form Sandisk for $12, why would you buy external storage? I shoot nothing but RAW and with a wallet with 10 4GB cards I have never run out of storage.
 03/13/2011 09:09:57 PM · #12
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by hahn23:
It's a good question. A few years ago, there were several devices designed for field storage and backup, which you would use to off-load your CF cards... in order to free them for the next day's shooting. I can't find many of those devices available anymore.

I found several such devices still available in a search at B&H Photo.

For the ones which support USB memory sticks/thumb drives, I would take some of those along as a second backup:
1. copy from camera card to portable drive
2. copy from portable drive to thumb drive
3. erase from camera card


I have the Wolverine ESP 80 GB version, which I bought several years ago. For the most part it works fine but sometimes it can be very buggy. Occassionally it won't recognize the drive unless you turn it off and back on again and other weird stuff. It also doesn't hold a charge very well. Of course mine is old and I rarely use it any more so the newer models may be different.
 03/13/2011 09:19:33 PM · #13
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
When you can buy 4 GB flash form Sandisk for $12, why would you buy external storage? I shoot nothing but RAW and with a wallet with 10 4GB cards I have never run out of storage.


On my last vacation (about 10 days) I took approximately 4000-5000 photos which came to around 120 GB. That's not even counting what my gf took. If I had 30 cards I probably would have lost half of them.

Message edited by author 2011-03-13 21:20:56.
 03/13/2011 09:33:39 PM · #14
I have two mini 500 gig Hard Drives that I cart with me whenever I travel. I view the images on someone else's computer, download one copy of one HD and a spare on the other in case something happens.

At the price these things are today, they are most certainly within everyone's reach.

Ray
 03/13/2011 10:16:25 PM · #15
Originally posted by yanko:
On my last vacation (about 10 days) I took approximately 4000-5000 photos which came to around 120 GB. That's not even counting what my gf took. If I had 30 cards I probably would have lost half of them.


Wow 500 exposures a day, that's a lot of shots.

In college my brand new Nikon Fm got stolen so I spent half a year shooting with an 8x10 large format camera so a weekend of shooting might be 12 exposures. I feel like a wastrel blowing off 100 shots in a day, but give the move towards video grabs and burst shooting someday the normal will be 4000 images a day, then we can spend a month editing a days shoot.
 03/13/2011 10:23:25 PM · #16
I have an inexpensive netbook that I use for offloading my photos when traveling. It's got a 160Gb hard drive, which is plenty for temporary storage and it also serves as a very convenient travel computer. Not super powerful, but it's also not my main computer. I also have a 500 Gig external drive, if needed.
 03/13/2011 10:44:12 PM · #17
Originally posted by chazoe:
I'm going to be going on a week long road trip vacation with my wife and kids and I just realized I don't know what to do about storing my pics while on the road. I shoot a lot of RAW files and the only computer I have is a mac desktop, not very portable. Does any one have any advice? Is a portable HD the way to go and if so how do I go about uploading my pics to it on the road when one of my CF cards is full?

Any advice is welcome. Thanks in advance.


Memory cards are dirt cheap right now in large sizes. Consider buying a few more large cards.
 03/13/2011 11:25:35 PM · #18
Originally posted by Dr.Confuser:
Memory cards are dirt cheap right now in large sizes. Consider buying a few more large cards.

This addresses the issue of running out of space to capture more photos, but not of backing up those already taken. Especially when traveling, when things are apt to get "lost" more easily, it seems especially important to me to have two copies of the photos in two different locations and formats. Ideally you'd have enough cards to not need to erase any images as you go, but also a backup device or media to make copies along the way.
 03/14/2011 01:09:04 AM · #19
Netbook is an excellent solution with lots of extra bells and whistles. The extra CF cards is another good solution.
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