I am going to be traveling in Europe later this year and I am wondering what the best option is for saving a lot of image files. I will not be taking my laptop and my iPad does not have enough capacity to store my photos. At this point I think my options are to buy more SD cards, buy a photo storage device of some type, or find a way to download them to a cloud service periodically. Does anyone have any suggestions?
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greyelm
All-Pro
- Location
- London, England
I would go down the multiple SD card route. If you keep the cards separate from your gear and your gear is stolen then you will only lose those shots, if you have a card failure then you can swap it out on the go. Obviously you may not want to get 14 SD cards for a two week holiday but for a trip of a lifetime 14 smaller capacity cards may be cost effective. Even if you get a portable backup device you still have the risk of theft or failure. On line backup via the internet could be very time consuming and or expensive.
Lightmancer
Legend
- Location
- Sunny Frimley
- Name
- Bill Palmer
On my recent trip to Greece, I went the cloud storage route. I use a Kingston Mobilite Wireless solution. I connect this to my 'phone, and my 'phone to a free wi-fi hotspot (my hotel had one as did many cafes and restaurants). My photos were then automatically uploaded from my SD card (which it accessed as an external drive) to my Google Cloud backup account. This works, but make sure that you stipulate only allowing data upload over wi-fi!
Before I left for Africa, I looked into a photo storage device but found the lack of ability to view, edit or upload the images using that device to be major downsides (this was for a longer trip during which I wanted to update my family periodically through my blog).
Cloud storage requires a way to upload the images, meaning a tablet or phone will be part of your gear anyway. I ended up buying a used Google Nexus 7 with 32gb harddisk for € 125, and using that as backup, as well as uploading images to flickr every once in a while. I was somewhat strict in editing images before I transferred them to the tablet, so I never even got close to filling the full capacity (which is about 27gb after software, btw).
Cloud storage requires a way to upload the images, meaning a tablet or phone will be part of your gear anyway. I ended up buying a used Google Nexus 7 with 32gb harddisk for € 125, and using that as backup, as well as uploading images to flickr every once in a while. I was somewhat strict in editing images before I transferred them to the tablet, so I never even got close to filling the full capacity (which is about 27gb after software, btw).
Does the the Kingston Mobile Wireless work with Fuji RAW files. The website lists tif & JPEG image files but nothing more. If I understand correctly, you use the device to upload pictures from the SD card to the Cloud, but it is not a storage device in itself. Is that correct?
I use a large SD-card and download the pictures every night to my laptop as a copy. Can you maybe attach an external drive/stick to your iPad? Another option would be to go to a (photo-)store where you can often copy pictures from SD-cards to CD/DVD for little money. But I guess this depends on how often you want to make the copies.
kaito
Regular
- Location
- Wiltshire UK
- Name
- Dave
My 2 cents, just come back from a fortnight in Japan, I chose the extra SD cards method. Memory cards are just cheap and easily available. I bought 2 SanDisk 8gb cards from Amazon before leaving for about £8 or $14 each. A card from a high street retailer isn't much more. If you have the facility in place to upload your images to the cloud that's good, finding the time to upload several gigabytes of data maybe another challenge.
RFPhotog
Rookie
- Location
- Oshawa, ON Canada
- Name
- Robert Fisher
If you're taking your iPad, then 1 or 2 (2 if you want a backup) WiFi hard drives would do the trick. You can use the iPad as the conduit from either the camera or the card reader to the WiFi drive. These drives have their own built in WiFi chip and create their own network you can connect the iPad to. Transfer speeds aren't overly fast, but if you set it up when you get back to the hotel after a day out then let it run while you go have dinner, the speed won't be a problem. Both Patriot and Seagate make such drives. I have one of each. Both work well.
Thanks, I have ordered a WiFi Drive and should have it this week.
RFPhotog
Rookie
- Location
- Oshawa, ON Canada
- Name
- Robert Fisher
If you don't have one, you'll need a USB adapter for your iPad. You might also want to look into Lightroom Mobile which is now available. I can also recommend a book called iPad for Photographers by Jeff Carlson. The third edition came out a few weeks ago. He discusses a mobile workflow that includes using the iPad and external hard drives.
RFPhotog
Rookie
- Location
- Oshawa, ON Canada
- Name
- Robert Fisher
If you don't have one, you'll need a USB adapter for your iPad. You might also want to look into Lightroom Mobile which is now available. I can also recommend a book called iPad for Photographers by Jeff Carlson. The third edition came out a few weeks ago. He discusses a mobile workflow that includes using the iPad and external hard drives.
For my own playing/vacation photos, I bring my 11" Apple MacAir, and an external hd to store my images, I also do carry a number of SD cards both 16g and 32g, But I usually dump and reformat them every night. I find that it too easy to lose a card to use them as longer term storage
deaconpete
Rookie
- Location
- New Jersey
Sandisk now offers 32g wireless flash drives
Sent from my iPhone using FujiXspot
Sent from my iPhone using FujiXspot
bobmielke
Regular
- Location
- Portland, Oregon USA
I carried a portable, rechargeable Colorspace hard drive in my camera bag. Nothing reads and saves memory cards faster and then automatically formats the card. I bought the 250 gig version.
Koban
Regular
- Name
- Daan
I looked a different options. I ended up with keeping to bring my retina MacBook Pro 13 or Surface Pro3. The Surface Pro3 is a very light tablet/laptop. I have 256GB in the Surface and rMBP. For me these systems are used for traveling. So I can backup and also edit photos while traveling.
