I am looking to rent an Epson P-5000 photo storage drive, or something similar. I am going to Europe for 3 weeks in May. I don't want to lug my computer along and I can't really afford the $500 purchase price of a storage drive right now. Does anyone know of anyplace that rents these? Or maybe someone has one who could use some extra cash? Any other ideas? Thanks much - Barrie
I've never considered using one of these. I bought a $15.00 card holder, and now have 6 2gig cards, that I change out every one to two days of a trip. Although, it seems I'm the only one doing this, so I must be missing something. But it works for me, I can hookup my camera to a tv if I want to view photos. And memory keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.
Problem is, I'd still have to take my computer to clear off those cards, wouldn't I? That's what I'm trying to avoid. I'll be gone for 3 weeks and I expect to shoot about 4-6 gigs per day. The Epson is 80gig, so even with that much I'll have to make sure I delete all the duds as I go.
hmmm, I dont know, I've never been on a three week trip... I dont empty the cards until I get home. I actually have two cases. One marked NEW and one OLD. I transfer the cards from new to camera to old. But I also think I could just put them in the case upside down. All my cards are numbered with marker too. 1 2 3 etc. I start on 1 so I dont get confused. I started buying multiple cards because office max always sends me those $10 off cards. Also, I shoot jpeg, 2 gig card is 500-600 pictures on large jpeg normal setting. and 300 +- on fine setting.
I don't know about a three week trip that makes it a little more complicated. You could buy a cheap little laptop. This way you wouldn't have to worry about being careful with it. You also will have more options for photo organization. I've been looking for a solution I think I will just buy more cards but for such a long trip you probably need more storage space and after you get a lot of cards it may get tough to remember if they got filled up, if there's still space left stuff like that.
Weird. I thought I posted a reply to this, but it didn't take. Anyway, what about taking something like the Sony VRD-MC5 multifunction DVD drive ? It's a portable DVD writer that you can unload memory cards or video to, to burn backups on the spot without a computer. It's fairly space efficient, and you can get it for $189 or so at Costco ... so you could buy and try it out to see if it works for you, as long as you have a Costco membership. Blank DVDs are nearly free. It's fairly space efficient from what I've read, and you could use the device for a number of other functions (such as easily backing up old 8mm tapes and such). I haven't used the thing, but the reviews on it seem pretty good.
I also thought I posted a reply but it didn't show up so I posted again. I didn't even think of a portable DVD burner good idea. If you have an ipod you can buy an adaptor that plugs into your ipod and you either plug in your camera or put in your memory card don't remember which. I don't know how reliable that is so you may want to check with people that have used it. Here is a link to the photography section of this travel site. It's Rick Steves' web site he has TV shows and podcast I would highly recommend for travelers going to Europe. http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/graffiti100.html
There are plenty of cheaper options for offloading pictures. I use a reasonably cheap barebones thing that has a fairly minimalistic LCD display that doesn't even mention how much capacity is used up. Just what card is being copied, and if the copy is still in progress, and battery level. No color screens for this level. You should be able to get something like this, but much better than what I currently have, for around $150. I'm kind of in a rush, can't find any good links at the moment, but check out the brand name Wolverine. I'm not endorsing the brand, I don't have any personal experience with it, but it's the name I most commonly see. Otherwise you run into obscure Asian brands like the one I'm using, Vosonic (the quality of it is NOT great, the battery doesn't last and it transfers slowly. But it gets the job done, and it was the cheapest thing I could get at the time).
