More memory cards or a portable card-reader/hard-drive?

[havoc]

Right,

I'm now shooting 100% in RAW, which means that my 2,500 photos from the S'stone Classic took up about 36Gb of card-space.

Unfortunately I've only got ~20Gb of CF cards at home. Not a problem when I can go home and upload stuff each day. But I'm thinking it could be a problem on holiday...

So...can anyone recommend an affordable (and reliable! Don't want to risk any foul-ups) portable card-reader to take with us. Doesn't need to have a screen, just a decent amount of memory (min 50Gb, pref ~100Gb).


Thanks very much,

Martin.

[nre]

havoc said:

Right,

I'm now shooting 100% in RAW, which means that my 2,500 photos from the S'stone Classic took up about 36Gb of card-space.

Unfortunately I've only got ~20Gb of CF cards at home. Not a problem when I can go home and upload stuff each day. But I'm thinking it could be a problem on holiday...

So...can anyone recommend an affordable (and reliable! Don't want to risk any foul-ups) portable card-reader to take with us. Doesn't need to have a screen, just a decent amount of memory (min 50Gb, pref ~100Gb).


Thanks very much,

Martin.

Make sure you consider battery life too, I have a 60 Gb Archos job which sounds great but the battery runs out after transferring three or four 2Gig Cf cards. so it's OK but not great. I would go for one with a screen though as its a nice double check that everythings tranferred before formatting the card to use again.

N

[trackdemon]

havoc said:

...my 2,500 photos from the S'stone Classic took up about 36Gb of card-space....

Holy mackerel!! Can I ask why so many shots? 2500 is A LOT imho.

Do you ditch anything which doesn't reach a minimum standard (I presume there are some throwaways from panning for example?)

[havoc]

trackdemon said:

havoc said:

...my 2,500 photos from the S'stone Classic took up about 36Gb of card-space....

Holy mackerel!! Can I ask why so many shots? 2500 is A LOT imho.

Do you ditch anything which doesn't reach a minimum standard (I presume there are some throwaways from panning for example?)

This was over 2+ days at a circuit*, seeing a lot of cars I haven't seen before (so I got a little carried-away!), and I tend not to review more than cursorily on the day because of battery life (and time - I don't want to spend half my time behind the lens and half looking at the camera screen!). But I do delete the obvious misses - blur/cut-off/exposure.

The 2,500 I've now whittled down at home to 1,700 in-focus decent (or half-decent) captures, and I'll then run through them to see which I want to process properly and which I'll delete the RAW files and just keep the med-sized JPEGs as a memory.

On a typical 2-week holiday I tend to take maybe 1,500 - 2,000 shots tops, but this is a 3-weeker to NZ and the Cook Is., so I can see me doubling that at least!

So I think I'll probably need ~50Gb or so of storage (CF cards + portable HD) - does that sound about right?

• I always over-shoot at circuits because I ramp the exposure time up quite a lot to get more background blur on the panning shots...which means I can never be sure what IS in focus until I look at home - the camera LCD isn't good enough without zooming in. From the pit-wall I probably deleted 1 in 2 on the day and 1 in 2 of the rest at home, whereas at the complex I've probably got a 75% hit-rate of 'focus and exposure'.

[miniman]

I've always been a bit nervous about the hard disk / solid state portable storage. I keep memory cards in different places, especially if on holiday, so if I fall in a river or lose a bag or whatever, I should still have some of the shots. If they all go on a storage device and then I lose it / break it...

[havoc]

Does ANYONE use one of these?

Or am I the only trigger-happy person on here?

[CVP]

I use an old Flashtrax (40GB) but it's getting really old and creaky now. The battery drains after doing one 2GB card. That's Ok if you can recharge each night or run it from the mains but not so good if you can't.

With the price of cards coming down so much now I have about 20GB or so of cards and this lasted me 3 weeks in the Galapagos althought I did do a lot of reviewing and deleting at night on the boat.

I'll probably replace mine with something similar when the Flashtrax dies as I do like to have a second copy out in the field. I also keep the cards and the flashtrax seperately so that if a bag gets nicked / lost then I still have one copy of my images.

I'd second the recommendation for one with a screen as a nice belt and braces check before reformatting your cards.

Chris

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

havoc said:

Does ANYONE use one of these?

Or am I the only trigger-happy person on here?

It's something I've been pondering for a bit as well. We're going to the Singapore GP this year and both of us will be taking lots of shots I'm sure. Like you we both use RAW. That's about 8MB an image for the 1D2 and 23MB for the 1DS3!

I looked at lots of them, with and without nice screens.

The Epson 5000 and Canon M80 both looked good but they're not small and £400+.

The Jobo range get good reviews but the range that looked the best was this lot http://www.digitaldepot.co.uk/Drives,_Viewers_&amp...

[CVP]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

The Jobo range get good reviews but the range that looked the best was this lot http://www.digitaldepot.co.uk/Drives,_Viewers_&amp...

Looks a really good download speed and battery life. Only downside is the smaller screen than Jobo but of course that gives better battery life and much cheaper in total. Thansk for that, thye may be high on the shopping list for a replacement to the Flashtrax.

Chris

[911newbie]

For what its worth -

I use a portable USB powered hard drive which is great value for money -
http://tinyurl.com/64s5sj
250 Gb for less than £60, it's hard to say no to.

The downside is you need a laptop to transfer between the portable HD and the CF cards, and maybe a card reader. Nor can you see the images unless you open them on your laptop.

How about a solid state linux laptop -
http://tinyurl.com/6dj2pp about £200
cheap, small, tough, v light and has wifi built in. You can even run image editors such as Gimp on Linux (it's home OS in fact) and viewers such as Irfanview (incl Irfan Thumbnails)
You can pick up a card reader from amazon or 7dayshop for under £4

What I tend to do is go in from the card reader or camera USB into the laptop and straight out again via onto the portable HD. It's very fast.
The Asus has 3 USB posrts to that's possible.
The two Western Digital portable HDs I own have survived several knocks and bumps, incl falling onto the hard kitchen floor, to no detrmiment.

So big big space, flexibility and useability for about £280. Same price as some portable storage/viewers.

Edited by 911newbie on Thursday 31st July 15:41

[havoc]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

The Jobo range get good reviews but the range that looked the best was this lot http://www.digitaldepot.co.uk/Drives,_Viewers_&amp...

£200 notes is still quite a wedge...was hoping for something cheaper, but they do look good. Thanks!

This is proving to be quite an expensive holiday...

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

If you've got a new(ish) iPod the camera adapter might work. You have to plug the camera into it and it copies the pictures onto the internal HD. It's not fast (I've got one somewhere...if I could find it I'd do some timings) and you have to run it and the camera, so that's twice the amount of charging.

But it could be a good use of an 80gb iPod.

[CVP]

Agreed, but think of it as an extra backup and then GBP 200 is not so bad, plus it's really a cost you should only incurr every three / four years. In that way it's not too expensive at all.

Chris

[VxDuncan]

I've got two - first a digimate caddy which I fitted a 30gb drive to, and a second, newer ebay caddy with 120GB. The caddies were around £20 each delivered from ebay then you fit with the laptop drive of your choice (cheap per mb). First is okay, but HD can work a bit loose, second better but goes into sleepmode after a couple of minutes, even if it's copying a card at the time. Means you have to press a button every gb or so so that the cards copy properly. Has a swapable LI-ION battery.

They are good and charge over USB so crucially you can reduce the amount of stuff you need to take away. I took about 40GB on my last trip and wouldn't do without them - you simply don't worry about space running out. I try and copy to both, leave one in the hotel safe and make sure they are carried in different bags.

[ian in lancs]

PC World have just bought out a fantastic 10" laptop, very light and little larger than a paperback. It has 80GB drive and runs XP all for £275. The model number is Advent 4211. In fact I'm using it now. It has wireless and bluetooth connectivity too. I have loaded Nikon Camera Control so it can interface with my D80 etc, MS office, Itunes and library, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom plus about 30GB of my favourite pictures. Very portable and so cheap. I don't understand why people bother with portable storage devices when there is kit around like this!

ETA is has an SD card slot as well!

Edited by ian in lancs on Saturday 2nd August 21:51

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

ian in lancs said:

....The model number is Advent 4211....I don't understand why people bother with portable storage devices when there is kit around like this!

Because with PSU it weighs over 1.5kg compared to less than 300g for the storage boxes, and when loaded with software you're lucky to get 65gb of storage compared to 250gb.

Weight's the killer though. I've a Sony X505 that's 950g, but with PSU it all adds up....

[ian in lancs]

why do you need to carry power lead around? The way I use it on holiday is evening viewing, trial edit/enhancement and storing of files at the end of the day. And as for size 65GB is a lot of files! I have never shot more than 2GB in a day so easily covers a two week holiday. Lastly, I wouldn't ever store large quantities of files on non PC based devices - there's no file recovery options and theres the risk of loss and theft. I always store my files on my home desktop and backup drives.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

ian in lancs said:

why do you need to carry power lead around?

Not during the day obviously, but it still goes on the plane with you etc etc. I used to carry all manner of electronics around with me. Now I'd rather save my aching arms!

To be honest next time I might try the whole holiday on CF card. You can do backups at the local Internet cafe which almost everyone will now burn you a DVD backup.

[fluffnik]

havoc said:

Does ANYONE use one of these?

Or am I the only trigger-happy person on here?

I've got a couple of DigiMateIIIs:


Bought them disk free for c.£25 each and added 80GB disks which I formatted FAT32 under Linux to avoid Windows' 32GB limit...

The units have been entirely reliable but one of the disks has been retired. They charge from USB and will dump ~8-10GB on a charge.

Great bits of kit.

[RobDickinson]

I have an image tank, only 40gig as its 4+ years old, dont use it very often.