memory digital cameras

hardy you can take them to camera shops and get them downloaded on to dc takes about an hour steve
ps you could also cut back on resolution

Just buy one or two of the higher sized memory card.
Iv'e got a 32mb card (114 photos) and the standard 4mb (15 photos i think)
If you buy a 60+ card thats alot of pics and don't forget if your running out of memory you can go back and delete unimportant ones.

Cheaper than a laptop !

Hardy I have just returned 3 weeks ago from a 6 week trip to Europe. We visited 7 European countries including the Czech republic and took over 500 photo's. We found that, as previously stated it is best to find someone who downloads media cards to cd. Everywhere had the digital photo shops but as we were on a tight scheduke we could not get them downloaded everywhere as it can sometimes take overnight if they are busy. The actual process takes only 5-10 mins per mem card. I like taking photos on the highest res. as it is clearest if you decide that you want to blow a picture up after the fact. I do have two memory cards though which definately does lighten the load. If you were planning to travel through regional Aus. I doubt you will find many Digi cam shops outside the major cities/towns.

We looked at expensive storage devices and even the salesmen advised against them due to their cost and inconvienience. My suggestion is to just get a good sized spare card and download to cd when you can.

Happy snaps

Charlie.

ps if you need some more specific info, respond to the reply and I will czech sorry check tomorrow.

Check out www.flashmemory.com.au - good prices on good quality memory cards.

We only got a 128 MB (approx 180 photos) as we have a laptop and can download as often as necessary, but if I didn't have a laptop I'd get a 512 MB card.

I too use max resolution so at a later date I can blow them up or just alter them in Adobe Photoshop7 but I have the advantage of a laptop which I take on trips so I can download them.
If all else fails then a kodak photo shop will download them to a CD for you..at a price( not sure what)
If a laptop is an option you may want to consider what you really want it for, if it is just for the camera pictures then a good second hand one will save you thousands. You may want to buy a new one if you wish to use it for your editing of pictures etc and do away with the PC all together. You will need to make the choice and what is best for you.
Just my thoughts.

PS Memory cards I found to be coming down in price in a big way.

It would be nice with a little more information on the size and type of camera you have to give a clearer picture of what sort of numbers we are looking at.

I have a 256 Meg memory card and that allows 1,581 regular pictures, and 395 hi resolution ones.

That's a heck of a lot of photos. I have a laptop and find that after a while it gets extremely cumbersome to carry around in safety (From dust and dirt etc) so I would look more into the mem card for travelling in the outback.

Lets be honest, you cant match the prices on SD cards than from the USA... They are LOADS cheaper, but remember if you get your 128/256 chip(someone said 114pics to a 32meg?) some cameras wont take them.

But then if yours does, then 2 of them SHOULD be WAY more than enough!

The other option is a cheap laptoip and use OziExplorer and Maps on the laptop.. Also handy for jotting down notes, and story of your trip.. You could get a cheap P2 300 for around $500 I would guess, you dont NEED world beating power, a 3gig HDD would rock! You can also delete the ones you dont want to keep..

FWIW, I have a mates Mavica here I borrowed last week, up to 128 pics so far on 1024 size and HIGH resolution! How do you tell when its full.

I have an Olympus C730 which takes both xD picture cards (new technology) and smart cards. Anyway xD picture cards will be 512 mb any day now (already 128 available) but I believe by end of this year anything up to 8 gig will be available. That should just about cover it I reckon!
Personally 512mb will do it for me which will allow for movies etc. and anything else would see a change of batteries anyway.
Availability of such large storage mediums HAS to reduce costs of others.

Truckster - my camera tells me when card is full and I'm sure the Mav will be the same.

I'll second the advice on buying cards from flashmemory.com, excellent service.
On the laptop front I use an old Toshiba 486/75 laptop both for mapping with oziexplorer/gps etc and storing pictures from the camera. I have a 1.3 megapixel camera and three 16mb cards which store 56 pics each on high res.
When hooking up to the laptop I use an adapter which takes the compactflash card and plugs into a pcmcia slot, the laptop sees the card as a tiny h/drive. Nearly as quick as usb and the adapter is very cheap. also available from flashmemory.com
When the laptop hard drive is getting full we download to zip discs, use a 200watt inverter to run the lot.
A much faster laptop would be great especially for the mapping but hey it only cost $100 5 years ago and has been on lots of the Beadell roads in those five years. Unbreakable!

Peter

Hardy , Just came back from the Cape We had 1x 16mb & 1x 64mb cards using med resolution we had to down load a few times fortunatly we had a laptop . We came back with about 420 shots and 3x 20sec video clips.
If you don`t have the beauty of laptop and a photo shop ,May I suggest one of the local P.C repairers could poss burn then for you or some of the big van parks may ( I stress May ) be able to help out ( Wepia or Punsand bay ) . these guys usually have all the good gear and would probibly get a kick out of doing it for you.
Like one of the guys said above you won`t get much above Cains.
All the best
Craig.

Hardy, one of the many benefits of having a laptop is sharing the day's photos each evening with others. Seeing your pics on a 14.1" screen makes it hard to ever consider printing photos onto little pieces of paper ever again. A second hand laptop with a 4 or 6 GB drive will store thousands of pictures. Go for a Mac powerbook (3 year old G3, 400MHz ideally) if you can (iPhoto is an excellent free app for managing your pics). If you can't get a Mac, programmes like Nikonview provide some functionality for Wintel machines. If money is no object (I wish), a laptop with a big hard drive and a combo optical drive will allow you to edit video (iMovie), and burn DVDs (iDVD) or CDs on the road. If you need to justify your purchase to someone in authority, consider how much you would spend on film/processing/printing over the life of the laptop (say three years before you upgrade), and convince her that you will actually be saving heaps;-)

Laptops are great- when they work. They are fragile and BLOODY expensive to repair. I'd be buying extra flash memory rather than the laptop if possible.
(I have owned four laptops and have had a fairly long list of problems with them both in and out of warranty- none due to dropping/mechanical damage or drowning etc. ie: they have been looked after.)

just a note about laptops. The tax office presumes they are for work and therefore are FBT free, that means if you have an emploer (or even self employed) and get salary or income that is in the top income tax bracket - have it purchased by your employer out of pre-tax dollars and you will get a laptop for about 51.5% of the shelf price. ie, about the cost of a good digital camera - then you can sell the laptop at the end of the FBT year second hand probably for more than you bought it and buy another.

David is right in issuing a warning. This is how it worked for me. I resarched the second hand market and found there was a very strong market for laptops in the $1,000 to $2,000 bracket because that is the region in which they commence their new prices, so you are therefore able to offer a relatively new good laptop against a less than ordinary brand and spec'd new one. So do your math and it works if using your 48.5% discount you can make your money back by selling it around the $1,500.

I think that way everyone wins. And i don't want to avoid taxes and i pay my dues but if i can give a start up business a cheap good laptop then everyone wins except howard's war. (oops opinion)