PBase

I know some go on vacation/holiday and take no pictures and others take hundreds, I'm in the middle of those.
I just wanted to know what is the size memory card that most people have?
I have the one that came with my Canon Powershot S30 (which I don't use) and I bought a 256MB that I use all the time.
I have been taking pictures in the less than 3.2MB that my camera allows so I can get more pictures on my memory card.
I broke down and bought another 256MB so I can take pictures with the 3.2MB quality that my camera allows and be able to take more pictures.

I think I rambled too much there.

Rachel

It's getting to the point where it's not memory that limits you - the batteries tend to poop out before you max out the card.

It's very hard to predict how many photos you might take when you hit the road.

If you fill up your cards when you travel you've got three options:

Get your images burned to CD. Many photo shops and internet cafés are starting to offer this service. Make sure you check the CDs before you erase your cards.

Carry a portable hard drive (PHD). These are laptop hard drives in a stand-alone, battery, grid/mains operated package. Slip in your card, copy the images, erase your card.

Carry a portable CD burner. These are just coming on the market. Burn your images to CD, erase your cards.

I've been traveling with digital for over three years. Battery charging is not a problem almost everywhere.

I wouldn't recommend shooting at less than full resolution. After all, you paid for all those pixels.

framewerkz, I don't worry about batter pooping out, I have a spare one and keep them charged up.

bobtrips, would it not be easier to just buy another CF card, I think that would be smaller than carrying something else around and they are smaller than a portable cd burner and I'm sure cheaper also.
I'm looking into the future of more backpacking for a month or so at a time and just don't want to carry anything heavy/large.

Rachel

It all depends on your shooting patterns and the depth of your pockets.

You can purchase 20 gigs of portable hard drive for less than $200US.

You can purchase a portable CD burner for around $350US (maybe less, I haven't checked prices lately.

I shot about 4 gigs on each of my last two trips. A PHD is much cheaper than 4-5 gigs of cards. I'm probably switching to a 5 meg camera. That would require over 10 gigs of cards. Way over my budget.

My PHD is about the size of a VHS tape, doesn't weigh all that much. (I'm someone who travels for 2-3 months with what is basically a large book bag.)

I would also suggest a portable hard drive. I have several digital cameras, but the one that gets the most use now is my Canon 10D. Shooting in RAW mode puts the shots at close to 10Mb each. That fills up my 512Mb card pretty fast. I bought an Xdrive with a 20Gb drive in it and have been very happy.

I also own an 20 gb xdrive and it works just fine. And it's quite easy to upgrade it with a bigger 2,5 inch hd. The version that I use has an USB 1.1 interface, so it is not very fast when you transfer the photo's to your pc.

If there is a photo that I really like I will keep medium resolution backup on the memorystick.

Yes, It seems that portable hard drives are the way to go...but why don't you just get an Inspiron 300m so you can edit your photos, as well as store them! PC card reader, and all. Of course, that would be outta budget.

I buy them whenever they are on sale with rebates. For not very much money you can have a handful of 64's and 128's, shoot at superfine and take many pictures with two batteries. I have an S30 and thats been my habit: 2 batteries and a bunch of cards. If a card ever fails, which none has, I have plenty more to work with. Although, I would like to have the other goodies mentioned above

I have a 1 gig CF card that I use in my Canon 10D. Shooting at the highest quality jpg (not going with RAW format), I shot over 540 pictures at an air show and still had some space left on the card (not much left though). Since the LCD will only go on momentarily after each shot, the battery life is phenomenal. One fully charged battery lasted me for the entire day (when I shot the 540 pictures over the course of 6 hours). Of course, I did not need to use a flash at all.

Jseah, did you know that is a pic every 40 seconds, that is alot of pictures to be taking, I'm tired just thinking about taking that many pics

When you have fighter jets flying maneuvers at between 200 and 500 mph, and the camera is capable of taking 3 fps up to 9 shots before flushing the buffer, you can rattle off the pictures quite rapidly. I probably spent less than 1/3 of the time with my eye actually looking through the viewfinder. That's the great thing about digital, you don't "waste film". Since you can take many more pictures, you can also get a higher number of good shots.