Managing images while on the road - emails, blog posts

[Jonas]

In a couple of months I will be jetting off for a backpacking tour through SE Asia and then Europe. Along the way, I plan to keep a travel blog as well as regularly emailing family and friends. I want to post/email my digitial images.

Given that I'm backpacking and therefore budget and weight concious, I don't plan on taking a laptop or buying any sort of portable hard drive. I will be using internet cafes for emails/posting and burning memory cards to CD ROMs when in big cities.

My question is, given that the D70s produces file sizes (in JPEG large, fine) between 2-5MB straight out of the camera, how am I going to manage such large files for blogs and emails? Can I expect internet cafes to have rudimentary photo editing software (MS Photo Editor?) on their terminals to downsize images?

I could shoot RAW+JPEG basic and use the low res JPEGs for emails, however this dramatically reduces the amount of photos I can take with my 3GB of memory cards. Are there any other reasonable options I could consider. What did other forum members do when they travelled OS?

[Justin]

What I did - copy the programs you need onto one of your CF cards. I put a couple of NEF readers onto the CF card. Most internet cafes have a usb port - load up your photos and your software straight from the camera.

Also, the best freeware that I have found is Irfanview - great for resizing jpgs etc. download this to your CF card, it's about as big as 1 photo. It will also read NEF with a plugin from the irfanview site.

ps. buy some more CF cards. perhaps another 4Gb at least!

[Jonas]

Thanks for the tip Justin. I didn't realise you could open programs from a USB disk so I'll download Irfan. Great stuff.

[DStrom]

Thanks for the tip Justin. I didn't realise you could open programs from a USB disk so I'll download Irfan. Great stuff.

Just make sure you test it out first, not all programs need to be installed on a system to run, but some do and may not work if it is specifically installed on a usb drive.

Check out http://portableapps.com/ as a starting point ...

You may run in to some problems at some net cafe's if they disable usb ports on their computers.

Otherwise if your images are too large to email / blog etc you can always look for a place that lets you burn cd's / dvd's.

[Glen]

Jonas, I just won a 8GB card, when in the D70 it allows 9,000 images in JPG Large Fine mode, they are available from $300, that may be enough to keep you going in between internet cafes with burning facilities

[Justin]

Um - sorry - I just meant put the install packages on the CF card and then install them on the PC at each internet cafe. It worked at all the ones I tried it at, but not sure if would work everywhere.

Good tip on the portableapps though!

I filled up 12Gb of NEF (2000 photos) in 3.5 weeks through Europe... and because it's travel and you can't easily go back and re-shoot I wanted the most potential to fix up stuff ups...

[DStrom]

Um - sorry - I just meant put the install packages on the CF card and then install them on the PC at each internet cafe. It worked at all the ones I tried it at, but not sure if would work everywhere.

Good tip on the portableapps though!

you still may have some trouble if they have locked the computers down enough.

portable gimp may be a good compromise, but I am not sure how good it is for reviewing images.

The other advantage of most of the portable apps is that they shouldn't leave your details on the system.

I filled up 12Gb of NEF (2000 photos) in 3.5 weeks through Europe... and because it's travel and you can't easily go back and re-shoot I wanted the most potential to fix up stuff ups...

12gig in 3.5 weeks ... WOW, I only managed 13gig in 5.5 months last time I went O/S!

[Justin]

I actually took 24Gb put chimped em down to 12gb as I went...