Image Storage

[martinuk]

What equipment do people use to store images when on holiday and away from their PCs for a long time? Do you carry a laptop or has anyone experience of Imagetank or similar products?

[bcurrie]

Hi Martin,

I personally have not done it, but know people who have used a laptop and image tank. Both were fine, but they prefered image tank due to the bulkiness of a laptop.

Have you check on dpreview.com for comments on image tank?

Brian

[IanF]

Also Fotoshow I've heard is very good.

Personally I just use Smartmedia cards. They have dropped in price so much that I think they are a cheaper option than the larger storage devices, but each to their own.

[Angie]

We took a laptop with us on holiday. As I only got the camera 2 weeks before, it was brilliant to see the results quickly.

The only problem now is that I have an old laptop with a 2GB hard disk nearly full of holiday photos, and an old pc with an 8Gb hard drive filling up fast. To add to this equation, I should be getting a new pc in the next month or so!

I believe I could network the laptop and old pc both running WIN98. But I believe this would not work with a new pc. The end result is to write them to CD's but not sure how to get there at the moment.

As a warning, if you take a laptop through airport security especially in the US, take it out of the case along with all the wiring so it is all completely visible. This also goes for any electrical or battery items as the US are now paranoid about them. Heathrow didn't bat an eyelid.

[nigelblake]

Laptop without doubt is the only way, preferably one with a CD writer, I took a Laptop to gambia and burnt all the days images to disc each evening and stored them in a safe, that way should anything get stolen the images are safe, the gear should of course be insured, burning the images to disc is the only way to 'insure' them, as no compensation will replace them.

[birder]

I know of an MP3 player, made by Archos, which not only plays music, but also saves wordprocessing and excell or any other computer files as well as having the capacityo to download images from a card reader directly to its 20 gigabyte hard disc, while in the field.

I would be delighted to hear if anyone actually has tried this.

birder

[ivewalmer]

Funny you should post this "birder" as I was just looking at one on the net - looks good. Missus wants an ipod for b'day. Might try and get one of these instead so I can put my photos on it while on holiday as well!!
I'd secondthe request for info from those who have one.

Ivan

[birder]

Hi Ivan. I bought my wife an Archos MP3 player in July - not the model I was talking about above, and had to take it back faulty about a month later. The model has now been discontinued. I bought her a Creative Labs Nomad MP3 player instead - it is fantastic and, if all you want is to download music or other files from your laptop or PC -

[birder]

Sorry - pressed the wrong button on my keyboard!

As I was saying, the CreativeMP3 player is excellent and I recopmmend it. However, no good for transfering digital files in the field. I 'felt' the Archos model which odes this in a PC World store in Cambridge recenlty and it feels much more sturdy than the one which broke. The buttons feel 'sure' and amazingly its hard disc (20 gigabytes) can store up to 200,000 images.
Birder

[ivewalmer]

Sounds good I may go squeeze it tomorrow (the archos not the missus of course!). All she wants is the music player but if it could archive CF cards as well, plus double as a photo reference guide well.......................................

[birder]

Good idea Ivan - let me know what you think.
I've had no time (work, exams etc) so far to try one out in a shop. Hope to have a go in the next month.

Birder