Flash Cards vs Notebooks

[LinhLe]

Sinse we could have a notebook with 20G memory around $700,
I wonder how many flash cards in propriate size do we need for a long shooting trip?
Note: We could also use notebook for another purpose relate to digital photography too.
Please help me out.

Lính Lệ

[Swampy]

I use a laptop with a 60gb hard drive. I just got back from a 10 day trip. I shot all Fine JPG at 4256 resolution. I ended up shooting an average of 100 pictures per day. I took 2 512mb CF cards and that held me for the trip with the laptop. Although some days I shot more than 100 and one day I didn't shoot any at all, the two 512mb cards give me 208 shots before filling up and needing to transfer to my laptop.

It will all depend on how many shots you plan on taking per day and what file type/size you'll be shooting. If you're shooting RAW, then a 512mb CF will get you about 47 shots. You'll need to do the calculations yourself once you figure out about how many shots and what file type you're shooting. Another thing to consider is how often will you have access to your laptop to copy images down to it? If you won't be able to use it for a couple of days at a time, then you'll need more CF cards.

The laptop will have an operating system and supporting software installed on it, so, plan on only having 12-15GB free when you get it. If you're purchasing the laptop, a lot of places can/will upgrade the hard drive size for a modest price.

Since I shoot all Fine JPG on 512mb cards, I use a burner to burn basically each card to CD while I'm away. Not that I have to with 60gb (I haven't been on a trip long enough to fill that one!), but more for safety. Also, if you're going with others, you can process the images and burn them to CD for them as well.

Hope this sheds some light for you.

[LinhLe]

Dear swampy101

Thank you.
I plane to buy 3 or 4 of 512M flash card and a laptop.
I think it should be more convenient and we could save a lot of money too.

Lính Lệ

[JetEye]

Have you guyes looked into the "digital wallet" that let you copy from CF?

check these out..

Nixvue
digibin
flashtrax
usb tripper
archos av300

[Wichita Wayne]

You should also be ready to buy more if you need them on your trip. What we also use is a small external USB 2.o hard drive. You can get the HD box for about $25 and load it with any 2.5 inch laptop hard drive. I bought my HD box from Computer Geeks for $20 and installed an old hard drive in it. It uses the USB power or you can hook a power cord to the PS2 plug. (nor power brick to carry.) It is not much bigger than a check book and also provides "on the road" backup power with my laptop. For under $200 you can have an external 60MB disk that should provide all the storage you need.

[Wichita Wayne]

You should also be ready to buy more if you need them on your trip. What we also use is a small external USB 2.o hard drive. You can get the HD box for about $25 and load it with any 2.5 inch laptop hard drive. I bought my HD box from Computer Geeks for $20 and installed an old hard drive in it. It uses the USB power or you can hook a power cord to the PS2 plug. (nor power brick to carry.) It is not much bigger than a check book and also provides "on the road" backup power with my laptop. For under $200 you can have an external 60MB disk that should provide all the storage you need. Here is a picture of my traveling rig that includes the portable HD.

[LinhLe]

Dear Wayne

Thank for your advice.
Anh do yoy think that the Power kit(Do it Yourself) works well with the notebooK?
Sincerely yours
Lính Lệ

[Wichita Wayne]

The power cord came with the case and does operate off of the battery. However, I usually never hook up the external disk unless I have the computer plugged into a wall plug. If you have a 20MB disk then you should have plenty of room to store a day or two of shooting then when you get to a power source you plug in and charge up the batteries and copy the pictures to the external disk. We also use a power inverter that plugs into our car and will run the computer. When I plug into the power inverter I always leave the car engine running. The inverter was about $50 at a local Office Depot.

[Jovifly]

Has anyone heard of going wireless? I heard from another photographer friend of mine that he saw someone shooting with the use of some sort of wireless device which automatically sent the image to his laptop. I know...a case of he said/she said. But I know there are wireless CF cards out on the market. Has anyone heard of something like this for our S2? Imagine having an 80G card(wireless enabled laptop) instead of a 1G or even the new 4G CF? Please enlighten us...

[Baron]

By the way, there is a wonderful CF card reader I found last week:FireWire CF reader .It can load files with 1.4-1.5 MB per second. My USB reader does only 0.4-0.5 MB