Storing Pictures While Backpack Travelling?

Amgine007 asks: "A friend of mine will be leaving in January 2004 for a 12-to-18-month 'around the world' trip. He's pretty technically saavy, but not really much of a computer-and-gadgets geek. He has an interesting problem: How do you live out of a backpack for a year (or more) and manage to take and save a lot of digital pictures (say 10,000), if you will have very few connections to the outside world -- few sources of power (at the odd hostel or train station outlet), no internet, and no USB?"

"He hasn't yet purchased a digital camera, so any camera or convergence device to be available in the next 6 months is fair game.

We've thought of a few scenarios. Bringing along a ton of CF cards is neither cheap nor reliable -- suppose the media gets lost or damaged. An ideal solution might involve being able to mail media home, while still having a copy 'on the road' in case that media gets lost in the mail.

And isn't it about time we see consumer devices with support for firewire drives, such as the iPod? I envision a digital camera that can talk (and backup) to an iPod -- this would be more than enough storage in a 15gb model, and small enough to take backpacking painlessly. However, the new models feature a proprietary dock connector, which makes one the iPod's old great advantages -- charge from any firewire port! -- a thing of the past.

A camera that burns images to a CD would be nice, but only if the CD was secondary storage -- ie, save pictures to internal buffer, burn to N CDs, erase internal buffer. This would allow the easy creation of duplicates, but might require a lot of CDs.

How would you plan your gadgets, given 6 more months of advancement of new technology (and price-cuts on old tech)? There's a whole lot of neat camera-ready devices coming about about now, so there could be quite a few creative ideas. Winning solution is the simplest and most portable."

Comments

Don't discount CF cards quite yet

[Exocet]

The problem with stuff that is "just about ready to come out" is that you never know the quality or durability of something that has just come out. Going with an established product, especially when your friend will be away from civilization for considerable stretches of time, is what I recommend.

While buying a lot of CF cards is not a great solution, it doesn't have to be too expensive. 10 256MB Sandisk CF cards will run you approx $650. That would store approximately 3500-4000 images - based on how I use my Canon Powershot A40 camera in "Fine" (medium lossy) format.

10,000 images is, in my opinion, somewhat unlikely to occur. Sure, you can take 10,000 pictures. But 9,000 of them are probably going to suck. Maybe just 8,000. Thus the bane and beauty of a digital camera. You can instantly review a picture or simply review the whole lot later, on your down time. Backpacking should have it's share of down time, unless he's pushing pretty hard.

Additionally, CF cards are very, very hardy. My 64MB Sandisk CF card spent 30 minutes at the bottom of a river when I dropped my camera. The card - and pictures - were perfectly ok after recovery.

Your friend will also want to pick up some hearty rechargable batteries - I suggest the new PowerEX 2000mAh NiMH batteries in conjunction with the Maha C401FS rapid, 100-minute charger. Your friend may also want to consider picking up a flexible solar panel to charge stuff while "on the road".

Lastly, camera-wise, I personally recommend the Canon Powershot A40. It can be had for about $200 now. It is "just" a 2 megapixel camera. However, the output is very nice for consumer level camera.

What resolution?

[Glonoinha]

Actually a lot of it depends on the resolution he wants to capture. At a fairly low resolution (640x480, encoded as average quality .jpg files) he could capture 8,000 pictures on a single 512M CF card. Even 1MP high quality .jpg files from my Kodak DC210+ (fairly older 1MegaPixel camera) run about 200k per picture, so with four 512M CF cards he would still be able to capture 10,000 pictures of with this camera set to max quality.

512M CF cards cost +/- $100 apiece, maybe a little more, so he could hold 10,000 one megapixel pictures on about $500 in media. CF seems pretty indestructable, if he keeps it on his person (in his pocket or whatever) I guarantee it will survive way more than he can. He can also get a cheap $20 adapter to pop the CF card into a PCMCIA slot on a laptop, so with even a little luck he will find someone with a laptop that can burn him CDs for a couple of dollars, somewhere in his travels.

Easy solution

[Feztaa]

There's this amazing new technology that have been called 'optical cameras'. The idea is an interesting one: a lense refracts light onto a piece of photosensitive material known as "film". This film can then be developed into regular pictures, with qualities far surpassing any of their digital counterparts.

In other words, get an optical camera, and mail the film to yourself. Have it developed when you get home.

Re:Meta-advice

[jonadab]

> Depending on just how serious you are about being without power

Exactly. Is your friend going to England and France, Mexico and
China, or Bangledesh and the Cameroun? Urban, or rural? Are we
talking about being without power during the day and sometimes for
2-3 days because not _all_ of the hotels have power, or are we
talking about being sixty miles (on nothing that we would consider
to be roads in any North-American sense of that word) from the
nearest place that has power certain days of the week, except when
doesn't work when it's supposed to?

Regarding sending things back: are we talking about Europe,
where you can always get to a phone line within two days (usually
much more easily than that) and there's fairly reliable postal
service in nearly every country? Or is he going to South America,
where the mail service is abysmal, or Africa where (in large areas)
there are no phone lines? "Around the world" covers a lot of
territory. The difference between Paris and Abong Mbong is
the difference between "make sure the recharger can handle 220/50
current" and "buy solar".

Also bear in mind that outside of North America, what power you get
is unlikely to be 110-120 volts at 60 Hertz. Anything you get MUST
be able to run on 50-Hertz current anywhere from 100-250 volts, and
it may not exactly (ahem) be a smooth sine wave either. Either that
or batteries.

If you're going to the third world, I suggest either solar, or
stuff that runs entirely on flashlight batteries (a common size,
not smaller than AA, not larger than D, and not obscure like B),
since you can go weeks without seeing power in some areas. And
carry a couple spare sets of batteries all the time, because
sometimes you may not be able to buy them on short notice. Bonus
points if it uses rechargeable batteries and you have a solar
recharger. In that case, take three sets of batteries (one that
is in the device, one that is recharged and ready, and one that
is in the recharger).

If you're going to only first and second world nations and the
occasional breif stop in a major metropolis in the third world,
you can probably get away with equipment that charges from either
110 or 220 volts, provided it can handle 50-Hertz current -- which
you must not take for granted; a lot of stuff you buy in the US
will fry on 50-Hertz current, or at least not work properly. And
you don't want to carry around a converter, because it will be
heavy. (To convert the cycle, you actually have to convert to DC
and back, so the equimpent that does it contains an inverter and
therefore has significant mass. Not for backpacking.)

One other thing, should be obvious: get a camera that lets you
preview your pictures and delete some you don't want (to make room
on your current storage whatsit) so that you don't have to wait
to get back to a place where you can use your laptop/whatever
before consolidating. You will want to take at *least* two of
every picture you want and keep the better one. At home you
would keep them all until you get back to your PC at least, but
on the road you may need the space for other pics then and there.