Jong storage question

[Benny Profane]

I have my first serious digital camera on order, which I'm taking on a ten day trip to Tuscany. Is carrying a laptop the only way to transfer files off the card to a hard drive? Is there any other way? Can it be done on an IPad?
Should I just buy a bunch of cards? They're cheap enough these days. I'll be shooting Raw. How many Raw images fit on a 32 gig card?

[systemoverblow'd]

How many can fit on a card depends on the if the camera is a crop or full frame and what the MP of the seonsor is. Actually, it matters the content in your image as well. If you take a picture of foliage it takes a lot more data than to take a picture of a black wall.

I can get 800+ with my Canon 5dII. The thing is, you are putting all your eggs in one basket if the card craps out. I keep 5 32GB with me and switch every day to disperse the images in case a card fails. I never had one fail, but I am anal about backup/safety. And if you are shooting more than 800/day, you are spraying and praying and you need to up your game. Hell, a 5 day trip to iceland and I think I took 600 or so? And that was only because I was doing HDR's

You can also get a drive that you can insert your cards into and it automagically copies the contents to the drive. I bought one and never use it. Nowadays, ultrabooks are almost the size of an ipad so you can always get one of those to use a transfer machines and use it as a real computer instead of just a tablet.

[Supermoon]

1) what system said about multiple cards. By far the easiest/cheapest route to go

2) they do have SD readers for iPad. I'm planning on using this in my trip to Central America this spring as a way to share some photos while still on the trip, and to send the best ones to Dropbox or other online backup in case I get jacked for all my shit along the way (or any other transit related catastrophe), if you already have an iPad this is cheaper than buying an ultra book.

[Hugh Conway]

At least with the 1st Gen iPad the SD card reader is glacially slow; it's imo not really great for editting and storage is too small. Unless it's some long trip where you don't want to drag a laptop, I wouldn't bother. Just get multiple cards. I haven't been to Italy for a bit but there was public wifi but you had to register w/documents and often pay to access and it wasn't always good enough quality to upload large amounts of data. Some terrorism bullshit (or more likely, job/revenue protection). Unsure if that's changed. The how much storage is something only you can answer. How many pictures will you take (and more likely - how many pictures are you willing to sort and process?)

[Benny Profane]

Thanks all. I think I'll survive with 3 32 gig cards.

[DJSapp]

If it comes down to it, you can buy memory cards in Italy. It's not quite Siberia.

[Supermoon]

If it comes down to it, you can buy memory cards in Italy. It's not quite Siberia.

That's a dirty lie!! Those commies hate our freedoms and our memory!!

[Hugh Conway]

If it comes down to it, you can buy memory cards in Italy. It's not quite Siberia.

memory cards are probably cheaper in sibera than the spare memory cards they vend at tourist traps for nuts money

[outabounds]

Is there a way to transfer files home if you have a wireless SD card and a phone with a wifi connection?

[systemoverblow'd]

Possibly. But do you really want to use 64GB+ of mobile data transfer overseas? You may as well fedex cards home every morning.

[outabounds]

Possibly. But do you really want to use 64GB+ of mobile data transfer overseas? You may as well fedex cards home every morning.

I meant a wifi connection like at the hotel.

[kalisto]

^ Still probably slow as hell.

When I travelled around for a few months. I'd just mail myself home a DVD every couple of weeks in case shit happened. Even cheaper/easier now with USB sticks/memory cards.

[Hugh Conway]

I meant a wifi connection like at the hotel.

research where you are staying. at least, ime, some small places had shitty connections, larger more expensive places with nice connections could have metering software of some type that would make it less than useful. There was/is a tremendous range in what's out there (or at least an effective range of speeds for people trying to upload GB of data).

[house]

Hotel wifi, and even "business center" computers often have slooow connections. If you really want to back up while on the trip, a half hour in an internet cafe to dump all your files into dropbox or flickr/whatever might be the easiest.

[Todds]

option 1) I backup to a laptop and to a 128GB USB stick. I leave the laptop at the hotel or the car and carry the usb stick.

option 2) a few SD cards.

option 3) You may be able to use a smartphone or tablet with a USB OTG (on the go) cable and card reader to either backup the card to the phone or to transfer to a second card or USB stick via a powered USB hub. I tried it once with my android phone and it worked, but it won't work with all phones/tablets.