[adam]

Hi - This is my first post here, and unlikely to be the last, so I'd like to start by saying hello, and by thanking those responsible for the site - good work, and very easy on the eye

One of my main travel dilemas is as follows - I'm heading to India for the first time in late July: Just under 3 months solo, Delhi - Himachal - Leh - Rajhasthan and south down the west coast before leaving from Chennai being the rough plan. Needless to say my beloved Canon DSLR is an essential - but what to do when the 1GB memory card runs out? I might get an additional 2GB card too, but that won't solve the problem. I'd be very interested to hear the solutions other more experienced travelling photographers have utilised. Here's a list of possibilities I've considered so far, and there pros and cons..

1. Laptop. The obvious solution. I already have a 6 month old 14" ibook with a DVD burner, taking it would solve all storage related problems, and be useful for numerous other reasons, and it wouldn't mean extra expenditure - it's just a bit bulky and fragile. I haven't totally ruled out taking it, but it would be preferable to find a more compact solution.

2. iPod - I just got a 40gb ipod photo for £140, I don't yet have a camera adaptor for it but it's cheap enough. This ipod is near full with music but buying another one for photo storage only currently looks like a fairly cost effective solution. Interested to hear if anyones used an ipod this way, especially how you get the images off the ipod later..

3. Portable hard drive/card reader. For example. A device of this type looks like a very good option, there's a bewildering number of these products, with and without lcd screens - anyone have any experience of/recommendations for anything like this?

4. Relying on internet cafes and burning to DVD/CD there. This doesn't sound ideal, but maybe you know better? I could easily take a USB card reader, I have little knowledge of windows though, and always evisage problems with absent software drivers, CD/DVD burners etc..  

That about sums it up, unless there are other possibilties I've overlooked. Any input would be very welcome indeed - I'm sure I'm not the only one in a similar situation. Thanks for reading

Adam

Edited by adam, 22 May 2006 - 12:07 AM.

[cyberhippie]

Hi Adam and welcome to The India Tree or TIT    

All your options have some merit. However for the ease of travel I would recommend just burning as you go!! There are simply thousands of places where you can upload your card onto a PC and burn to disc, perhaps your Digital camera has a usb cable if so just plug it in and your camera acts as a hard drive and on PCs running XP will automatically be found, when you plug into a usb slot.
From here using something like Nero, just locate the drive, Usually something like HP/SONY drive, select the photos you want and drag and drop them into the burn project window and press burn!

Check the disc afterwards to see if the project was burnt correctly and and make a back up disc!!

Most cybercafes these days, will have XP, Nero and a card reader already installed (in caser there is no USB cable with your camera)
The cost for this will be somehwere between 100 and 200 rupees including disc burning and a disc cover.

Whilst most cybercafes will do the whole process for you, it pays to learn to do it yourself before you go, as I've heard of the odd accident by staff, where cards were wiped accidently with no back up!

You'll be able to do this in almost any place in India, although the more off beat the place the wiser it is to know the whole Upload/burn process yourself!!

This will save you a lot of money and is a perfectly viable way to store as you go!!

Hope that's been of some help!!

[john.sw]

Although I have an office in S. India, so haven't used the service myself, there are many computer shops and cybercafés using the Windows XP operating system.

Windows XP doesn't need any driver to read a memory card, so simply plug it into a slot (or a card reader) and you can burn a copy to CD.

Alternatives to this would be to upload your photographs to a server on the internet.  There are many free and paid-for services of this type, including Flickr and Photobucket, and when you find a cybercafé with a fast connection you can upload lots of photos in a few minutes.  This method also has the advantags that you can't lose your pictures - bearing in mind that you may lose a CD, a memory card or an iPod - and you can share your pictures with friends and family as you travel!

If you are not going to print many photographs onto paper (especially at a large size) you could also consider limiting the resolution of your pictures to 2 or 3 million pixels.  This resolution is more than adequate for viewing on screen or printing at up to 8" X 10", and it uses far less memory than shooting at 5 million pixels or above.

All the best,

John.

[cyberhippie]

I thought about mentioning uploading to a site as well John but experience tells me, uploading a full card onto a website from your average cybercafe (including Iway or Reliance) can be a long and frustrating experience!!

Though as you say at least you can't lose them once you've uploaded them!

I always make a copy of the disc just in case!!

[justmakebelieve]

I've been thinking about this one - can anyone tell me how one goes about transferring photos from computer to MP3 player (won't be an ipod, but how to do this on an ipod might help anyway) I can do transferring photos from camera to computer. Will I then need software or anything to then get it onto an MP3 player? Can I just write to it like an external hard drive? Will probably be using a Zen sleek photo.

[john.sw]

An MP3 player with a USB connection shows up on Windows XP as a removable drive, as does the memory card of a camera.

You can simply drag and drop from one to the other using Windows Explorer.

[justmakebelieve]

genius. I shall be doing that then

[adam]

Thanks a lot guys, very helpful

Uploading/burning at a cybercafe sounds like the way to go then, good news, and certainly the best solution in terms of packabilty. I do use flickr and will attempt to do so there too ( - on that note, I suppose any hopes of encountering Photoshop ( for it's Save for Web function principally) at said cybercafes are a bit ambitious?) - I shoot usually RAW + JPG on a 8MP camera and would like to keep the larger files for possible priniting on my return. Is Windows XP installed in the majority of Indian Internet places? I can probably cope with XP without too much difficullty, but the prospect Windows 98 or 2000 fills me with dread..

[cyberhippie]

You'll find machines with XP the length and breadth of India these days!! You will also find copies of Photoshop 6.0-7.0 on a lot of machines!! Though the coverage will still be sparse!!

Why not take a copy of your own Photoshop with you to install as you go!! With Photoshop 7.0 you don't need to activate online!!

Doesn't the GIMP have a similar function???

I'll go check!!

[adam]

cyberhippie, on May 21 2006, 09:04 PM, said:

You'll find machines with XP the length and breadth of India these days!! You will also find copies of Photoshop 6.0-7.0 on a lot of machines!! Though the coverage will still be sparse!!

Why not take a copy of your own Photoshop with you to install as you go!! With Photoshop 7.0 you don't need to activate online!!

Doesn't the GIMP have a similar function???

I'll go check!!

Thanks again cyberhippie!  

[vistet]

Based om my latest trip I would  advise against bringing the iBook to Leh, and some precautions for portable harddrives. I met  three owners of jammed harddrives in Ladakh & Tibet +  afrowning iPodder, and a couple of days ago someone here - mridula ?-  who mentioned a toasted HD with pictures from Ladakh.

The problem is not using it in Leh (although the warranty  says max 10 000 feet) , but getting there.  The common denominator for all abovementioned was going over 5000.

I used a harddrive myself, which worked fine with two precautions : I bought a simple but sturdy airtight box, and the HD  never left the box above 4000 meters.

4000 may seem  an arbitrary figure , but it works : there are few treks , or roads , that doesnt come down to that level at least once a week.

The box I used was basic, there are some dedicated boxes around now  that appear very solid -check out otterbox for example (while we wait for the mp3 player/photo bank with a large flash memory).

Photoshop : used it in Leh, Manali, Dhasa internet places... not too difficult to find.

[Poiple Shadow]

A word of warning....Viruses on shared machines over here are common place (so be warned).  I can't imagine uploading any pictures from a computer in India to the web, most have terrible connection speads so t would take forever especially with RAW photos.  Memory cards are cheap now-a-days, you can also buy memory sticks about for example

For £65 you can get
4GB Corsair USB 2.0,19MB/s Read, 13MB/s USB Memory Stick

Buy them off the web in the UK or I guess on your travels in HongKong, Usa etc but not in India - They not so cheap here.

[Anders]

cyberhippie, on May 21 2006, 10:04 PM, said:

Doesn't the GIMP have a similar function???
I'll go check!!

There is a version of GIMP called PortableGIMP that does not have to be installed and can run from a USB Flash Drive.

[Shyam from NJ]

adam, on May 21 2006, 02:24 PM, said:

Hi - This is my first post here, and unlikely to be the last, so I'd like to start by saying hello, and by thanking those responsible for the site - good work, and very easy on the eye

One of my main travel dilemas is as follows - I'm heading to India for the first time in late July: Just under 3 months solo, Delhi - Himachal - Leh - Rajhasthan and south down the west coast before leaving from Chennai being the rough plan. Needless to say my beloved Canon DSLR is an essential - but what to do when the 1GB memory card runs out? I might get an additional 2GB card too, but that won't solve the problem. I'd be very interested to hear the solutions other more experienced travelling photographers have utilised. Here's a list of possibilities I've considered so far, and there pros and cons..
Adam

I have a Nikon coolpix (8700) with a 1 gb compact flash card.  Nikon saves in jpeg format and the pictures are about 1 mb each.  If I open it in MSPAINT (which comes free with the windows operating system) and then save it again in jpeg  (.jpg) format, the same picture shrinks to about 60 kb without any visible loss of quality. There is about 17 fold decrease in size.  In theory, it should work the same way with canon pictures.  You should try it out in any Windows system.  If it works, you have to go to a computer somewhere in India and convert it one picture at a time.  You can save it again in smaller format in the compact flash or thumb drive which are quite cheap now.  This way, your 1 gb card would be able to hold more pictures (~150/day) than you can take in 3 months.

As mentioned by other posters that XP will read any USB card reader easily, but  you can also attach your USB card reader or camera to a 2000 system  except that you have to turn off the computer before attaching and before removing the USB system.  In my two Dell laptops, that will be the major difference between XP and 2000 operating systems.


P.S.  I forgot to mention that when I open these pictures in MSPAINT, I have to reduce the picture size horizontally and vertically to 20% each to fit the screen that also reduces the byte size proportionally.  For normal size prints, it does not have any effect but enlarged pictures may run into classic pixel problem. I have not printed enlarged pictures.

Edited by Shyam from NJ, 23 May 2006 - 07:44 AM.

[iwanttogoback]

burning, definitely.
and take your own software - you will be surprised at what cybercafe owners let you load onto their computers!
take some cds, but you can buy them as you go, and a lot cheaper than at home. think I paid around ten rupees (?)

[vistet]

Another way to go is a portable cd/dvd burner. You are independent of computers & internet wallahs, semi independent of power (rechargeable battery). Cost somewhere between the cheapest portable harddrives and the more expensive ones. Burn two, one in the pack, one by mail.

Main drawback is weight (around 0.7 kilo) and size . Good solution for pair/group.

[Guinness]

For what it's worth, I wouldn't travel anywhere without a portable hard drive.  In fact, I own two of them...an Epson P-2000 (slower, but it has a kick ass photo viewer, great passing time and making friends on long train or bus journeys...) and a PD-70X by Eastgate out of Singapore (no photo viewer, but lightning fast and bulletproof).  They are like my little kids alongside my Canon DSLR...

Since you said that you you are taking your Canon DSLR, i'm assuming that you will be shooting fairly large files (4MB and up depending upon model, resolution, etc), which will fill up a memory card pretty fast.  And I'm also assuming that because you are taking the time to haul some mid to high end gear along with you, that you plan on taking more than just the odd shot here and there.

Burning CDs as you go is a decent option, but the problems I see here are two-fold...  First, you are gonna be spending lots of time in cybercafes!  Secondly, you are going to end up with LOTS of CD's to cart around with you.

With the portable hard drive, you can dump your files as you go...just pop the card out of the camera...insert into drive...press a button...a couple of minutes later and you are done.  No hassles.  No fiddling with software, slow computers, configurations, etc...

Of course the main drawback is that ANY hard drive can fail...and since you are heading to Leh, I would be somewhat leery about any drive (laptop, PHD, ipod, whatever) at that altitude.  Is leaving the drive somewhere safe an option when you head up there????  Then you could shoot onto the CF card, and dump when you return.  Then there would be no worries about HD failure at altitude...

And finally, don't even consider COMPRESSING your files when you save them!!!!!!  You own a DSLR...use it to it's full capacity!  Now I'm not advocating shooting in RAW for the duration of your trip (which would be virtual madness BTW), but by shooting in anything less than maximum resolution JPEG you would be doing yourself a major disservice.  

Hope that helps you somewhat...

[vistet]

Maybe I´m repeating myself , but I don´t see any real risk at Leh`s altitude. After all , hard drives are all over the place , in cyber cafes etc,  and  keep spinning - same thing in Lhasa. You might argue that mini hard drives could be more sensitive , but mine took some pounding a regular drive will never see : rattling around on the flooor of disintegrating military trucks and on top of buses in my backpack.

I did take backups on cd´s as well, when it was possible. Problem with this, for  Windows users is the possibillty of getting an infected card out of the process. After Shimla , every time the card went thru virus inspection before downloading to cd burn , it was fllagged as having virae.

I guess that the day  when dvd starts to replace vcd in India, the ideal solution would be 4 gig cards and the burn two , send one solution.

Until then I´ll keep packing my hd, and get an even better airtight solution for going 4000+ , I´ve been looking in to Otterbox and Pelican cases.

[Guinness]

vistet, on May 24 2006, 11:57 PM, said:

Maybe I´m repeating myself , but I don´t see any real risk at Leh`s altitude.

I would agree with this as well...I would have no qualms about taking my portable hard drives to Leh.  However, were I to HAVE a failure, and were I to LOSE my entire cache of pictures, I know I wouldn't be enjoying the beautiful mountains quite so much

What I'm really trying to say here, is don't put all of your eggs into one basket.  If your pictures are important to you, make a backup!  Peace of mind is a wonderful thing....

[radz]

Hi
I use when traveling EPSON 2000,its coming with LCD viewing.
80GB..Its small and compact,easy to carry.
Easy to trasnfer to pc,as its like extended hardisk when u connect to pc.

Cheers
Radz

Edited by john.sw, 04 June 2006 - 04:53 PM.