Hey folks,
I"m headed to southern europe in october and i'm struggling with different ways of saving my photos. I have 1 2 GB card and i'm going to buy 1 more (either a 2 or 4 GB card).
I'd go with more than just two memory cards.
From there, I can't decide if I should buy/rent any of the following:
1. a photobank
2. rent a macbook (if i can...one store already said they don't have any to rent)
3. maybe a refurb ipod video to connect to my camera?
4. maybe the new ipod touch <drool>
some other way?
In general, my comments/suggestions are tempered by you being much closer to civilization (gives you more options) and by the general question of how many photos you're expecting to shoot (thus, how much storage do you need). For example, I just returned from a 12 day business trip in Europe (Belgium, Germany, Austria) and didn't even fill 1GB, but this is partly due to most of my time being spent in meetings instead of sightseeing, plus this was an old 4MP camera shooting JPG's, so consumption per image wasn't all that high.
Insofar as your options:
#1: I had bought a pair (for redundency) of Sanho HD80 HyperDrive's in 2005 for a trip...used them in 2006 for my two weeks in Tanzania. I was quite satisfied with them, particularly their battery life. However, while they're small, they're pretty darn heavy and in order to get data redundency you need two of them, so you'll probably looking at a $500 investment. In general, I think that digital wallets are most suited for when you're away from civilization and really need a battery-powered device other than a latop.
#2: I'd not rent. You'll be travelling around, so there's damage & theft potentials. If you do pursue this route, if the laptop is lost/damaged, you'll lose your only copy, unless you also have an external HD to make another copy do, or are bringing with you a stack of DVD's to burn backups to.
#3: I think that an iPod video might be a reasonable way to go, but do make sure in particular that you can have things set up with both the iPod and the digital camera running on wall (plug) power...don't do it if you're running off of batteries. Main reason for this is the notoriously slow transfer rate.
#4: I don't think that the iPod Touch has enough storage capacity to be worth bothering with.
#5 (other): If you're going to be packing light and you don't think that you'll be taking too many thousands of photos (particularly if you're not shooting RAW), I'd be inclined to just recommend buying "X" GB worth of memory cards...they're getting quite cheap today.
PS. of course, I also have to consider getting an international power source (of which i'm talking to CAA about).
"Southern" Europe sounds like Italy to me. They use the standard European 240v plug (two round prongs). France, Germany & Austria are the same, and while Switzerland claims that they are too, in some instances I've found that the Swiss use a slightly smaller diameter round prong in their plug, and one of my adaptors fits fine but the other doesn't fit.
For power adaptors, be aware of two major things:
1) A lot of electronics these days support automatic 110/220v switching, so no heavy transformer is required...just a plug adaptor.
2) Adaptor plugs do not need to be expensive, nor do they need to be ones that are a single complicated box that flips out to support every country. I've used both and strongly prefer the KISS adaptor that's specific to that country/region. I'll usually carry more than just one adaptor, in case I misplace one.
TIP: What you'll also want to do is to hit up your local Radio Shack store (or website) and buy the
6 inch long extension cord that they sell. These are great in that you can use it to put 2-3 devices through onto a single adaptor plug.
TIP: the typical Apple power adaptor brick with the flip-out plug is not particularly compatible with some of the above adaptor plugs and/or Euro wall outlet plugs even with an adaptor.
For example, one of my adaptor plugs has had one of its sides nibbled away with a pair of toenail clippers because I really wanted to get that iPod recharged
Overall, this is why I really like those Radio Shack 6" cords.
-hh
