Burning Digital Pictures to CD in Port

[jrask]

I don't think I want to burn my pictures to CD on the ship. I'm less bothered by their price than I am by the fact that they have a 24-hour turn-around time. I have a very small memory card and one 528 MB card. The camera (5-megapixel) is new, so I don't know the storage capacity of the 528 card or if it will suffice for the 1-way Princess cruise.

 

Is there anywhere in port that I can do a quick burn of my pictures to CD? Ketchikan probably doesn't help b/c its the first port. Juneau, my schedule is pretty packed. Skagway would be ideal if anyone has a suggestion.

[Jahla Jahla]

I was going to buy a storage device to take, but decided instead to buy two extra xD cards. At max resolution, I should get 560 pictures with the 4, 128 cards, 1, 32 card, and a 16 card. I may buy another 128 before we leave as a just in case. I do plan to go through the pictures at night and delete what haven't turned out the way I wanted to give me more pictures. It helps that my daughter has an xD also so she can use the cards on her cruises or vacations.

 

 

So I too am interested in if there are easy places to download a card.

 

Jahla

[JohnQ]

Jrask

Your 512mb card should hold about 150-160 pictures with 5 meg camera at highest jpeg setting and super high quality. There should be several places in ports that could burn a card Many drug stores, Walmart, Costco, SAMS, camera stores, Longs, can do it for you. I'm taking a portable cd burner with me this time to burn my own cds. On ship, they probably could do it while you wait or short notice if you talked to them when you get on board. It will cost more on ship.

[OldBaldGuy]

We are taking our first cruise next July, to Alaska on NCL. We have an old dinosaur camcorder now, are thinking of going digital before the cruise. Knowing nothing about digital camcorders, can you get the "films" from them burnt onto a CD onshore also???

[robbinsca]

Don['t know about Skagway specifically, but didn't have any trouble finding a place in any town. I did find a place in Juneau that you can have them download the information from the card, then pick up the CD later. It is located about three blocks up from the dock on the right hand side of the street.

[JohnQ]

OBG

I have had a Canon 8mm camcorder and currently have a Sony TRV 30 digital camcorder and stil camera. Most digital cameras use mini dv tapes that only hold one hour at normal speed. You can shoot at 90 minutes or two hrs on some machines. I don't know about saving to cd or dvd? I know that video takes up mega bunches of memory or space very quickly. The digital tapes for the digicams are only about $3 each at Costco or SAMs. The newer small size camcorders are unbelievable for their size and features. Those made by camera makers such as Canon, Sony, Panasonic and JVC are all good brands. Price and features will make the price $399 or any price up to $2,000.

[OldBaldGuy]

JohnQ, thanks, will have to check Costco. Again showing my ignorance (just gotta join the 20th century. Or is it the 21st???), how do you replay the tapes from a digital??? Plug the camera into a TV, buy a new tape player, get some goodie to allow me to play them in my old one??? I need to get out more I guess...

[JohnQ]

Well, with digital, it is supposed to be easy to transfer your tapes to your pc, then save on vhs tape. I haven't tried to save to dvd or cd but plan on getting to that one day when I have nothing to do! I hook my camcorder up to my vhs machine and and watch on tv. Its amazing how good digital is. You can also transfer your old tapes to digital and archive them. I have several books on all this and then found out that you have to read them to get smart. So, instead, I bought a digital camera to learn something else new!! Costco has a pretty good selection, more on-line. B&H Photo in NYC and CameraWorld (now Ritz) have good knowledgable staff to explain things to you . Or google for digicamcorders for more than you want to know.

[Kathysum]

Hi! As one who who religiously used the photo services on the Diamond Princess - I can tell you that it worked great!

 

They do not keep your memory card!

 

They download it to the photo services laptop - right in front of you and hand your card right back to you. You clear your card and keep snapping pictures. They only wait is for the CD - which I picked up the very next day.

 

I ended up taking the max on my memory card everyday which was 370 pix - headed to photo services - did a quick download - cleared my card and was back taking pictures within a few minutes. I ended up with 5 CD's and 1537 photos.

 

They were very professional and and let me see that everything had downloaded before I cleared my card and then let me check my CD's when I picked them up before paying for them. It sure beats buying tons of film or paying for another memory card!

 

I have posted some from our 7/10/04 Diamond Princess Alaska Cruise online at Webshots:

 

http://community.webshots.com/user/kathysum

[jdecker2000]

Do they give you your card right back there too? Trying to decide whether to buy an additional card or go with this service - however - 5 CD's would pay for the card almost if they are $10 each? Advice appreciated, I am NEW to the whole digital camera world!

[Kathysum]

Jdecker,

 

As I stated above...yes, they give your card back right then. Sorry if I wasn't clear before. It's simple - it takes about 5 mins and works like this:

 

1. You walk up to photo services and tell them you would like your memory card downloaded to a photo CD.

 

2. You hand them your flash card or memory card.

 

3. They pop it into their laptop.

 

4. They download the files on your card while you watch.

 

5. They pop your card out of their laptop and hand it back to you.

 

6. They write up an empty photo envelope with your name and Stateroom # on it.

 

7. They tell you your CD will be ready the next day after 6:00 PM.

 

8. You are now free to pop your memory card back into your camera and delete your old photos and begin taking pictures all over again.

 

9. The next day you return after 6:00 PM and tell them you are picking up a photo CD. They ask for your name and Stateroom #. They pull out your envelope which now contains your photo CD. They load the new photo CD into their laptop and let you view the pictures - making sure the CD was created correctly with YOUR photos on it. If it is ok [and mine all were] they hand you your CD in a jewel case and swipe your cruise card to pay for your CD.

 

That's it!

 

As far as being worth the price of a new memory card - that depends on how expensive a memory card you have; whether you bring your own laptop to download them to; how many pictures you intend to take and the quality of pictures you take. For me - I had a $160.00 512 MB flash memory card that holds 370 photos and/or video for a 5.0 mega pixel digital camera and I didn't carry my laptop with me. For me - it was more economical to purchase the CDs for every 370 pix I took than to purchase another flash memory card.

 

Good luck!

[45014]

My husband has a 5.0 megapixal camera, with a 512 Mb SD card.

It will hold 199 highest res photos of 2.5 Kb size or 343 photos at 1.3 Kb size or 515 photos at .9 Kb size.

He will also carry spare 512 SD card.

[ruvidu]

I am not flaming anyone but I have been reading this thread and others like it for a while. I just want to know why anyone would lay out $300 + for a digital camera and not be willing to pay the additional $$$ for enough memory cards to capture your trip. I own 3 - 256 MB cards and consider them a bargin against the price of film and processing. My camera uses Compact Flash cards and they only cost about $50 for the 256MB. I have friends that use the same type and we loan cards for vacations as well. Vacations are too short to spend time looking for photo stores and trusting your memories to someone you may never see again.

 

OK, somebody fill me in.

[Kathysum]

Hi, in my case we had just purchased a new video camera for my husband and discovered that the stills weren't all that great and decided to purchase the digital the day before we sailed.

[Treven]

As a supporting follow up to Ruvidu's comment, DEFINATELY spend the extra $ and get a large enough memory stick/compact flash/microdrive instead of a half dozen other cards of various volumn.

 

I have the Sony F828 camera and have in it the Hitachi 2gig Microdrive. There's absolutely no way I'm going to take 542 pix in one day; and when getting back to my cabin, it's easy to copy the pix to my laptop and then reformat the memory in the camera, recharge the battery & I'm all set for the next day.

 

They're your memories; don't depend on someone else to copy your pix to a cd that you don't know if it will be viewable on your computer at home or not.

[JohnQ]

Ruvidu

In my opinion only, most people most of the time will only need two or three memory cards for 99% of the time and it is only for that trip of a lifetime that they would ever take enough pictures to need additional cards, or need to burn a cd to empty cards. An many cards, like the xd's that my camera use are much more expensive than Compact Flash. And I don't think most people want to take a laptop with them on vacation, if they even own one.

 

I agree with those of you who question having a cd made and not knowing if you can download it when you get home. I did this earlier this year when we took a lot of pictures on San Diego before our cruise that I didn't anticipate. So rather than buy a 512mb card for $149, I went to a camera store and had a cd burned for $5. And I still didn't erase the pictures until I had used up all the space on my three 256mb cards. It turned out I didn't take that many more pictures. For our 2 week trip later this month, as I said earlier, I am planning to take my son's portable cd burner with me which I took for a trial run already and know it works. But it is bigger than I want to carry in my carry on and may still decide to have cd's made in Anc or in port instead. I wil make sure I can read them before I erase though. Now if the xd 512 cards go on sale for $59 before I leave???? Just one opinion.

[ruvidu]

"An many cards, like the xd's that my camera use are much more expensive than Compact Flash"

 

Ok, now I know. The cost of the memory card was one reason we selected the camera we have.

 

Thanks for accepting my question as graciously as you did.

 

Russ

[JohnQ]

Russ,

Ok, rub it in for buying a camera with xd!!! I really thought about it before buying and would have liked the dual card capability like the Oly 5060, but wanted more optical zoom and small size. Oly c-750 met those needs. Maybe I need another? Good reason to look again. JP is making me think again about the Canon Rebel or Nikon DX 70. The bottom line is that everyone going to Alaska (well most anyway) should take more film, cards, capacity for pictures than they can ever imagine they will need, right?

[jrpower]

Jdecker,

 

As I stated above...yes, they give your card back right then. Sorry if I wasn't clear before. It's simple - it takes about 5 mins and works like this:

 

1. You walk up to photo services and tell them you would like your memory card downloaded to a photo CD.

 

2. You hand them your flash card or memory card.

 

3. They pop it into their laptop.

 

4. They download the files on your card while you watch.

 

5. They pop your card out of their laptop and hand it back to you.

 

6. They write up an empty photo envelope with your name and Stateroom # on it.

 

7. They tell you your CD will be ready the next day after 6:00 PM.

 

8. You are now free to pop your memory card back into your camera and delete your old photos and begin taking pictures all over again.

 

9. The next day you return after 6:00 PM and tell them you are picking up a photo CD. They ask for your name and Stateroom #. They pull out your envelope which now contains your photo CD. They load the new photo CD into their laptop and let you view the pictures - making sure the CD was created correctly with YOUR photos on it. If it is ok [and mine all were] they hand you your CD in a jewel case and swipe your cruise card to pay for your CD.

 

That's it!

 

As far as being worth the price of a new memory card - that depends on how expensive a memory card you have; whether you bring your own laptop to download them to; how many pictures you intend to take and the quality of pictures you take. For me - I had a $160.00 512 MB flash memory card that holds 370 photos and/or video for a 5.0 mega pixel digital camera and I didn't carry my laptop with me. For me - it was more economical to purchase the CDs for every 370 pix I took than to purchase another flash memory card.

 

Good luck!

 

How much was it to burn the CD's on the diamond princess?

 

Thanks,

 

Jill

[ruvidu]

Hey John,

My son and his wife recently bought the Rebel EOS D and love it. Some things you may want to consider when looking at it. You can not preview the pics. You have to use the viewfinder like any SLR. When you make the pic you get a look on the screen and then can trash it if you like.

It provides no video option.

We both already have Canon Rebel EOS 35mms so our lens work on their digital as well.

 

The best part is that it uses Compact Flash cards.

 

They just got back last night from Russia where they have been meeting our new grand kids. We were up at 1 AM this morning looking at the pics. They go back next month to get them but in the mean time we have great digtal pics.

By the way I shoot a Canon G3 and love it.

 

Have a great week,

Russ

[JohnQ]

Russ,

I looked seriously at the G3 and G5 but wanted that longer zoom. Noticed the Powershot S1 advertised and it sounds good but would not buy less than 4meg. Stabilizer sounds good. I have Nikon camera so may lean toward DX for same reason as I have four or five lens for it. Still taking Nikon system with me this trip,even though I have digital. (security blanket?) We have a week for denali and Homer before our Summit cruise back to Vanc. Getting anxious. Need some more pictures to look at.

[ruvidu]

My wife carried the EOS on our trip and she shot around 20 rolls of film. That was on top of the 3 256 MB cards I shot. We have pictures of Alaska from Fairbanks to Ketchikan and the film processing bill to prove it.

Russ

[JohnQ]

Russ

So how come I haven't seen them on the photo board? Probably same reason I haven't done much with them. No time.

[Kathysum]

Hi Jill,

 

They charges $9.99 per CD. Everything downloaded perfectly when I got back home - so I had no problems with the Diamond's photo services.