Digital Travelers: How do you store your images while on the road?

[kxl]

I've each of these 4 methods at one time or another and each has its pros and cons. I'm just curious about others' experiences. What has worked for you in the past? What hasn't? Why/why not?

1 - Several SD cards
2 - Laptop and external drive (or DVD's)
3 - Multimedia storage device
4 - Upload to online storage
5 - Other - please describe.

I'm especially curious about #3. I haven't used one in a long time and am curious to find out if advances in technology has made this option a more viable one. Example: the Western Digital My Passport Wireless device with 2TB of storage sounds promising.

 

[Godfrey]

I've each of these 4 methods at one time or another and each has its pros and cons. I'm just curious about others' experiences. What has worked for you in the past? What hasn't? Why/why not?

1 - Several SD cards
2 - Laptop and external drive (or DVD's)
3 - Multimedia storage device
4 - Upload to online storage
5 - Other - please describe.

I'm especially curious about #3. I haven't used one in a long time and am curious to find out if advances in technology has made this option a more viable one. Example: the Western Digital My Passport Wireless device with 2TB of storage sounds promising.

When I go on a personal photo holiday (typically a two to three week vacation trip), I tend to make about 1600-2500 exposures total.

Once upon a time I would carry a multimedia storage device, but they were fragile, prone to difficulties, and by comparison to the cost of buying cards to cover the entire trip's worth of photos today, too expensive.

Then I started carrying a laptop ... Talk about an increase in bulk and weight to carry about! Between the computer, the case big enough to fit it AND the camera equipment, cables, power supplies, etc—ugh.

Now I just carry enough cards to store about double the number of photos I expect to make. For my most space-consumptive camera, that's six 32G cards or so. I shoot and do not delete. Once a card is full, I stick it in the carrier and put the next one in. Done.

Instead of laptop, I carry an iPad mini for my communications and other travel needs. I occasionally transfer a few photos to it and do some image processing while on the road so I can post photos while traveling.

But the notion is to travel and take pictures, not to do photo management and image processing. So I tend to only do a couple here and there, mostly use the iPad to read books, and use the camera to take pictures. It's remarkably similar to how I use to travel with a film camera, except I don't have the burden of carrying a couple dozen rolls of film around...

G

 

[kuuan]

voted for 'laptop', I am a long time traveler, needs to have it along. But I don't mean to say that this is the best solution, anyway your question is difficult to answer 'generally', the best answer must depend on the kind of travel one is doing, the specific trip one is on.

not sure about how good the multimedia storage devices are working. Internet cafes abound everywhere, I'd think a normal external HD could be a good solution. However those public internet cafes do tend to infect the drives, many SD cards are the most safe and easy solution, nowadays they are cheap enough.

 

[f16sunshine]

Laptop and small Seagate USB (500GB) drive for me.
I bought a Macbook air 11" in 2011 and it's been esential since.
The MBA 11 is great for all my personal media viewing and email. I can do light editing and uploads.
Tethered to a smartphone or with a USB wifi dongle it's great for getting images out quickly from almost anywhere.
I never got used to Tablets. The iPad and surface are cool but not for me.
In Fact I'm very much looking forward to the rumored 12" Retina MBA. i'll get a larger drive next time for greater image storage while on the road. 🙂

 

[sleepyhead]

Since "going digital" last year I carry on vacations a small thin laptop and an SD card reader with me. Every couple of days I transfer the photos off my SD card onto the Dropbox folder on the computer. From there they get automatically put into "the cloud", and when I get home to my MacBook Pro, they are in my Dropbox folder ready to import into Lightroom.

 

[FrozenInTime]

For 2-3 week trips, I manage with lots of SD cards and backup to iPad.
The ipad also provides a first preview and edit.
I struggled with a 32GB iPad for a couple of years but now with a 128GB there is ample storage.

 

[struene]

Hallo,

i sort out and delete a lot during the trip already, so i normaly get along with one 32gb sd-card for ~2weeks with RAWs only.
No Backups, i never had a SD/CF-Card fail. Maybe just because i dont change them all the time, or even at all. I also import to Lightroom via USB from the camera.

schöne Grüße,

Johann

 

[robert blu]

In the beginning was laptop + external Hd (for immediate backup) .
Now, if not longer than 1or2 weeks I prefer to have with me SD cards and being almost disconnected...editing and post production when back home as in the old film times...but I still shoot a lot of films 🙂
robert

 

[peterm1]

I used to use a laptop but to be honest its usually not worth it these days. SD cards are so cheap that its easy to carry an extra handful of them for back up and offline storage. Plus its less likely that all images will get lost. if staying in a good hotel with free internet I will sometimes still go down the laptop route though as it can be useful to have one to go online. Offline storage on SD cards is an especially great option though for those times when roughing it.

 

[Pherdinand]

we got 3 cards together with wifie. 32gigs, so far more than enough. No stress about it.

 

[taemo]

i don't bring a laptop with me anymore and just carry my ipad, on short vacations (less than a week) I might just bring 2-3 SD cards, 16GB and 32GB

but for longer ones like 7-14 days then I bring my iUSBport HD, it's slow on copying SD cards but 5 minutes and it's done copying 2-5GB of files.
I only use it for reliability purposes, in case my SD cards full of pictures fail, lose my camera or accidentally format it
what I like about it too is that I can stream movies off it to my ipad and view/edit pictures via hotspot as well

since I had lots of extra laptop SATA drives, I bought only the iUSBport HD enclosure for $140 when it was on sale
http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive/iUSBportHD/

 

[Paul Jenkin]

When digital started to become popular, we bought a couple of 40 GB Giga-Vu portable hard drives. This was because, relatively speaking, they were cheaper than buying a load of CF cards and Sony Memory Stocks (which were LUDICROUSLY expensive). We still have them but, sas CF and SD cards are now pretty reasonably priced, we just take a load of 8GB cards. I won't buy biger as, if I'm reliant on one 32GB card and it screws up, I've lost the lot. If one 8GB card goes wonky, I might lose a few days bit not everything.

Aside from that, I still tend to shoot 90% of what I want to keep on film, so the problem doesn't exist as far as that's concerned.

 

[dogbunny]

I like to use the iPad with the SD card reader accessory. I've had 3 SD cards die over the years, so I prefer to transfer the pictures over at the end of the day. Getting the pics on the iPad also makes editing on the fly a bit easier.

 

[raid]

For a trip lasting 2-3 weeks, I keep things simple, and I take with me about 16 memory cards. Why complicate the travel with external drives.

 

[Bingley]

iPad mini and extra cards for me. But I'm still shooting a lot of film when traveling, so that cuts down the amount of digital storage I need while on the road.

 

[Darthfeeble]

I have a 14" inexpensive lap top and a 1TB "My Passport" portable hard drive. I keep those with me when I travel. I keep the files on the port. HD and just plug it in to the home computer when we get back. Been to Mexico three times, Hawaii one time, Alaska one time Africa twice and Madagascar once and recently to Costa Rica. In all that, I have never lost a picture. Got the Laptop stolen in South Africa but not the hard drives, that's where I learned to keep them in the carry on Luggage.

 

[Brian Atherton]

Not foolproof, I know... but this:

https://asingulareye.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/altoids-sd-card-holder/

Works for me. 🙂

 

[Thardy]

Years ago I used a laptop, then I took along a tablet and downloaded files daily. But now I just use sd cards. They're pretty inexpensive these days. Keeping up with them is the only problem

 

[rwintle]

Laptop, always. I've moved from a heavier Sony Vaio to a much lighter and more compact Macbook Pro, which helps. I like editing at the time and occasionally posting, rather than keeping everything and editing after the trip, so that's another reason. It tucks into the laptop pouch in my Tamrac backpack, which is already heavy with gear. If I'm feeling like not hauling it around I just stash it in the safe in the hotel room.

I'd worry about just using cards because they're so small and fiddly, I'd likely lose one.

 

[willie_901]

For short or non-photography intensive trips an ample supply of SDHC cards is sufficient.

For longer trips or for any photography intensive travel I take a 13" MacBook Air and an external HD. I end up with three copies (SDHC, laptop HD and external drive) If I need to reuse the cards and if I have internet access I'll upload files to my Adobe Creative Cloud account. For longer trips I like do initial editing and post-production work with a laptop instead of an iPad.