When I 'went digital' in 2004, I bought a storage device along with it, a 40GB Smartdisk Flashtrax. This device cost me at the time 600 euro incl a spare battery. The latter you will be needing as these things dry out after downloading two 4GB cards. Don't really know about todays devices but I think you might consider a minilaptop as well. I recently saw a 10" netbook with 250GB harddisk and battery life upto 7,5 hours for less than 300 euro. This offers so much more than just storage, consider it!
When I 'went digital' in 2004, I bought a storage device along with it, a 40GB Smartdisk Flashtrax. This device cost me at the time 600 euro incl a spare battery. The latter you will be needing as these things dry out after downloading two 4GB cards. Don't really know about todays devices but I think you might consider a minilaptop as well. I recently saw a 10" netbook with 250GB harddisk and battery life upto 7,5 hours for less than 300 euro. This offers so much more than just storage, consider it!
Ever since my friend Tieme's mobile storage device crashed during a trip, I promised myself not to travel with just one set of photos. Imagine what you would feel like if you went to Japan for two weeks, and your only set of photos was lost by a crash of your mobile device or was stolen on the last day of the trip.....
This is what I use on major trips:
2 x 16 Gb CF-card (plus several very small ones)
1 x 40 Mb Epson P-2000 mobile storage
1 x Laptop
1 x 250 Gb portable mini disk (USB)
I would never recommend the Epson P2000 to anyone anymore, but Tieme's new Hyperdrive Colorspace is a very good replacement for about 200+ euros. Mini laptops are available for as cheap as Euro 250,- and these gadgets do provide you with more than just storage capacity (internet, entertainment etc). The 250 Gb LaCie USB-disk cost me Euro 59,- and can be attached to any laptop.
In case of small trips I have at least three places where I keep a copy of all my photos. I back-up my photos every evening, and try to keep my copies in different places (camera bag / laptop bag / luggage). I know it's a bit "over the top", but I'd rather be safe than sorry in case of crashes or robbery.
Hope this helps....
Cheers,
Iwan
Fox2 - for everything about low flying in Wales........and more !!
I bought a Vosonic VP2160 four years ago. It had to be repaired twice within the first 18 months because of HD failures. I was lucky not to lose any pics, but as I didn't trust the device anymore I threw it away.
Nowadays, I just make sure I have enough CF cards for every trip. On longer trips I bring a laptop for backup purposes.
Iwan Bogels wrote:Hi Chris,
In case of small trips I have at least three places where I keep a copy of all my photos. I back-up my photos every evening, and try to keep my copies in different places (camera bag / laptop bag / luggage). I know it's a bit "over the top", but I'd rather be safe than sorry in case of crashes or robbery.
Hope this helps....
Cheers,
Iwan
So this is what you use on small trips Iwan, I am wondering if you also use Kodachrome25 during big trips, that would be the ultimate backup...
I already use my Epson P2000 for 6 years, no problems at all. But nowadays my main backup system is a MacBook Pro with a 500 Gb Lacie Rugged FireWire800 drive. But I have plenty of CF and SD cards to last for one extreme day of photography.
CF and SD cards are relatively cheap nowdays. I opted for cards+small laptop (an old EEPC+external HD) as as Maurice already said they are really cheap and you get for the same money a lot more.
CF and SD are for safety in the field (you have not to loose time and download the pics into device). At night you can download in the small laptop. The cons with laptop is that you must pay more attention to thefts and it is bigger than a storage device.
My EEPC has an internal SD slot and for CF you can buy a cheap CF reader.
you may have also 2 minor problems with storage devices IF you do not buy an expensive one:
1) download speed
2) batteries often last very soon....
Like most here, I always used a small portable harddisk (PD70X) to empty cards while "on the road". I usually didn't took a laptop with me because of the weight of my camera bag (12kgs) and the problems that already gives me when flying with airliners.
However, during my last trip in Italy I noticed 2 problems with the PD70X. First, it really has some issues with the rechargable batteries that came with it (Sanyo's). It doesn't charge them (well) anymore when attached to its powersupply. So I replaced the batteries with different rechargables, with even higher mHa rating. But the PD70X refuses to work with them!! So I stopped using the PD70X "in the field" and only used it in the hotel room at the end of the day. To overcome this issue, I bought an additional 8GB CF so I am now using 2x 8GB and 1x 4GB throughout the day, with another 2x2GB and 2x1GB as backup cards.
Second issue is the harddisk size - the 40GB Hard Disk in the PD70X is getting full very easily on trips and without a laptop, it's not possible to sort out the good stuff from the bad to save space.
I was thinking about getting a bigger hard disk for the PD70X but the problems it has with the batteries annoys the heck of me - so I have now written it off completely. Instead, I am now looking at a netbook / small laptop that is no more than 1.5kg max.
I was looking at Atom driven notebooks but these seem very slow and certainly not powerful enough to edit images or browse RAW images. Does anyone have any experience with using Canon DPP, Photoshop or FastStone on modern netbooks (possibly even the new dual core Atoms)?
I am now considering getting an Intel i3 12" notebook instead, the ASUS UL20FT to be exact - a little more expensive than a "beefed up netbook" but with 4GB RAM and 500GB HDD, it seems more fitting to my needs. In reviews, the UL20FT delivers more than twice the CPU performance of the ASUS 1215n netbook (with a Dual Core Atom).
Before I buy it, I was just wondering if more people could share their experiences using small notebooks / netbooks - especially in combination with Photoshop/Lightroom/DPP etc?
Is anyone considering to use a tablet to do these kind of backups? The latest and upcoming Android tablets (such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 & Motorola Xoom) offer a more 'desktop-like' experience with features such as USB, a file browser and built-in SD card slots. I don't think Apple will offer such features because it will affect their laptop -or should I say Macbook- sales. My idea is to connect an external HD as well a CF reader to the tablet to copy flies from card to HD while in the car/hotel.
Did anyone else come up with this same idea and, if so, what tablet(s) are you looking at?
Erik_7Xi wrote:I was looking at Atom driven notebooks but these seem very slow and certainly not powerful enough to edit images or browse RAW images. Does anyone have any experience with using Canon DPP, Photoshop or FastStone on modern netbooks (possibly even the new dual core Atoms)?
I'm using a 10 inch ASUS Seashell (eee) netbook on trips. Canon DPP cannot be installed because it requires a minimum desktop resolution and checks on that during installation. Instead I've installed Irfanview which can display RAW images, but you have to be a little patient (I'm talking about EOS50D raw's).
I never took the effort to install Photoshop because I don't see the point in editing pictures on a screen which is so small. The main purpose of the netbook is to backup my pictures and browse the internet.
I use a digital foci picture porter elite HD with screen, these are not that expensive compared to the major brands.
For me, it just works fine.
I bought it years ago so it is a legacy product now.
Newest version is the 35, with a 3.5inch screen, and some nice features.
Totally agree with Patrick/Squadmin. I use my netbook (Acer Aspire One D150 with Intel Atom and WinXP) for internet, MS Office, photo storage/back up and sometimes for making a raw selection of the photos. And I'm very satisfied with my netbook for these purposes. I like the 10' size because it's small and therefore light-weight, so it's easy to take it with you. I'm never going to get myself a notebook larger than 10'.
I really don't see the point in editing photos on a netbook while on trip due to the small size and low quality of the screens most, if not all, notebooks have.
