How's my memory?

[neuroanatomist]

Yes, I know...an ironic question coming from a neuroscientist who works on Alzheimer's disease. [:P]


In this case, of course, I'm referring to flash memory. I'll be going to China in a month or two, for a little over two weeks. I'm taking my 5DII andPowerShot S95, and at this point I've got 40 GB of CF cards (16GB + three 8GB) for the 5DII, and 12 GB of SDHC cards (8GB + 4 GB) for the S95. That works out to ~1500 RAW images of 5DII storage and ~1000 RAW images of S95 storage. I have no plans to shoot video as I'll also have a camcorder.


I am taking my laptop with me, and although I don't have a huge amount of storage space remaining on the internal drive, I've got a 96GB ExpressCard SSD for storage. If needed, I could bring along a 500 GB external HDD as well.


The main purpose of the trip isn't photography, so I won't be out shooting all day. But I won't have time to review and cull images during the trip, either - if I've got any free time in the evenings/nights, I'll be using it for night scene shooting! I'd appreciate input from people with travel experience (or other situations where storage might have been a limiting factor) - should I get more CF cards?


Thanks in advance!


--John

[HDNitehawk]

It depends. If you take the external HD and do not mind downloading to the lap top frequently, then backing up to the externals (both of them) every night you would probably be ok.


This summer at yellowstone I was there 10 days. Before I left I added a 32gb card, I had 72 GB of CF cards with me. I Came back with all cards full, and alot backed up to the exteranl 1.5tb External and lap top. With 72GB I didn

[Alan]

John, if you can bring another CF card, that would cover it. The difference between Rick's situation and yours is that he was in Yellowstone with the intent of shooting all day.


You won't be, so you won't need nearly the card space as he did.


I did a 10 day trip into Yellowstone, Glacier, Tetons and Banff, and shot 5000 on a 5D (smaller sensor), but I was shooting all day long, too.


If you're only out and about, you probably will be okay. The laptop would be all I would haul around for downloading, unless you want an additional backup with the external drive.


Definitely don't erase anything on the cards til you get back.


Alan

[Daniel Browning]

It

[Richard Lane]

It sounds like you have this under control. I happen to have a Western Digital external portable Hard Drive 1TB ($99) from Costco that utilizes USB power, so therfore there is no external power supply to carry around. It's very light any easy to pack and it won't require it's own power supply converter.It only spins at 5400 rpm, so it transfers a little slower than the 7200 rpm version with the external power supply.


Two backups would be the way to go. Another suggestion would be to upload your photos to Flickr as a third backup if you have unlimited internet access, however it will be in Jpeg


Rich


edit: Don't pack all of the back-ups in the same suitcase on the way home, in case it gets lost or stolen.

[jimr]

It all depends on how much photography you will be doing.


I had travel to Europe for three weeks and consumed my memory by end for week 2. Just far more interesting things to take photo of than I first anticipated. In Japan took more memory and still ran out - luckily I was able to pick up more locally for a fair price.


Depending on you budget and how much you typically take photos I would try to bring a few extra memory cards. They are small and easy to transport. Last trip I bought two brand new ones and tried to keep then un-opened so I could easily return them if I did not use them - that worked well as I used them right away when I could not find one of my back up ones (it was still in the card reader back at home - doh!).


I found if I do not have time to process the photos I did not have time to transfer them off the card and onto a hard drive (not to even mention trying to make backups). This also saved me from bringing my laptop along for the trip/vacation. BTW: I only had one memory card fail once, but it still read 97% of the images on it.

[Jon Ruyle]

Personally, I

[neuroanatomist]

Thanks, everyone!


Rick and Alan, good points about having enough cards so I don't need to transfer images for a few days. Daniel, I agree about the backups - images would be deleted from a CF card only being on both the SSD and the HDD.


Rich, the HDD is FireWire bus-powered - thanks for the packing tip, yes the SSD/CF would be in a pocket while the HDD would be in luggage.


Jimr, good idea to check past habits. On a recent short family vacation, I shot about 250 images over a 2-day period; I expect I'll shoot more in China, though. I hope to be able to transfer images off the cards (I assume I'll need to unless I double or triple my CF card capacity). Editing a few hundred images can take quite a while (days!) but transferring them around is pretty fast with UDMA cards, ExpressCard readers and SSD, and FW800.


Jon, I'm now leaning toward at least one more 16 GB card (I use only Sandisk at this point), perhaps two, over larger/slower cards (and bringing the HDD - it's small and light). Have a great trip to Taiwan!


--John

[Jon Ruyle]

I use only Sandisk at this point

Ah- I beg your pardon. []

[DLS]

The inexpensive 64 gb 400x transcend

Sorry to get off-topic here but, Jon, I've been reading up on all CF choices....No problems with this card?


Damian