[doctorb]

Hi there,

I am heading to China for 2 months and intend to shoot a lot of photos with my Canon SD630, hopefully in full 6 megapixel mode. The problem is that I don't feel that I can rely on China to have safe internet cafes to burn my images to disc, or be fast enough to upload my images to a server. Thus, I am faced with a few options as I see it:

1) Bring my Powerbook to use purely as photo storage. Problem is that it is a bit large for that purpose.

2) Buy an iPod camera adapter. Problem is that I've heard it zaps the iPods battery life and is so slow that you may not be able to upload 1gb of images before the battery dies.

3) Buy a portable photo storage device. I don't want to buy an Epson one as they are $600 bucks in Canada. This one seems more affordable http://www.digitalfoci.com/media_buddy_selection.html

4) Buy 3 or 4 one gb SD cards and just hope i don't shoot more than 4gb of photos.

5) Buy a small 40gb HD and go to an internet cafe and transfer images from my camera to my small HD.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Thanks!

[brassplayersrock²]

number 5 seems the best bet. i have taken trips that are around the same amount of time as your going for, and I thought taking 5 or 6 one gig SD cards with me would be enough. was I right? no.

only concern that i can think of is that you should buy a very very sturdy external drive, as for during travel it will get handled a lot.

good luck with your travels.

Alex

side note:

since your going to China, you might want to get a plug converter for your harddrive

[slugslugslug]

Number 5 seems good if you're confident you'll have access to computers that let you connect external HDs/cameras. I'd say 2 and 3 are your best bets, since the only limiting factor is a power supply, and if there are any options that rely on AA batteries, you might not even need to be near an outlet for a while.

Of course, with the whole standalone storage device, there are a bajillion options to choose from, and I've been unaware of what's up with this market for a while. But I imagine there are still plenty of products that cost less than the Epsons (or the new Canons) because they leave out the high-quality screen. Check the forums at dpreview.com to get opinions and advice on those.

[doctorb]

Thanks a lot for the advice. I will see if any of my local camera stores have the low cost equivalents of the Epsons.

[paul w]

I travelled all over Ethiopia for several weeks with my macbook pro and a dslr setup. Having the computer to look at and edit photos at the end of the day was indespensible.

Thats said it was work related and theft really wasn't an issue - even in dinky little hotels in dinky little towns. My point is, though, that if I went to China I'd try and figure out a way to bring the laptop - even if that meant leaving it somewhere safe for periods at a time. Then benefits of having access to the photos should be considered.

I'd also ask this question at of the good folks at dpreview.com's forums.

[all2ofme]

I used to travel with my laptop for the same reason, but have since taken to using a Jobo Giga One instead. I got the 40GB version and it's been great.

Things that I don't like:
- battery could last longer (I get two or three 1GB transfers between charges).
- you won't always see the reassuring "100% copied" message you get at the end of a copy if you've left it to its own devices while it copies, as it'll turn itself off once complete to save batteries.

Apart from that, it's fine (and it *was* cheap).

A happy corollary has been that I spend more time out and about taking photos or with friends than I do fiddling with my laptop

Hope that helps.

[hab]

First I heard about the iPod camera connector (option #2 above) being problematic. Can anyone confirm this?

[doctorb]

My understanding of the iPod camera connecter is that it uses a lot of power and is quite slow. Thus, you must ensure your iPod has a complete charge before transfering. Also, when transfering 1gb of data, the iPod may actually run out of power mid transfer.