Memory Cards for pictures in Alaska

[judyf]

How much memory did you need?

 

We're doing 3 1/2 days in Seattle and a 7 day cruise.

 

I want to bring my laptop to be able to download but my other half doesn't like the idea of me bringing it. :rolleyes:

 

I now have 5 gb and another 128 mb cards. I also plan to take video with them.

 

What have others used? PS I like to take pictures. :D

Thanks

[Joy2theWorld]

If I am not mistaken, we used 3 4gb cards. I refuse to just put them on the laptop and rewrite over them until we get home and they are backed up a few places. If you are using it for video, I'd use the 5gb for that and then get a couple of smaller ones for pictures. Of course it will depend on how many mp your camera is and what size of pictures you plan to take as to how quickly a card will fill up. If you are using sd cards, they are so cheap now that personally I'd buy two or four more.

[mountainhouse]

Depends on the type of camera, and how much photo and video shooting you plan to do. You could do some homework now. Figure out by either using the manual, or putting empty cards in the camera, how much capacity you have. Then turn that into shots per day. That should give you a good idea. Video might be a bit harder to estimate. Keep in mind that more memory has never been cheaper. I see $24 for 4 Gb at Costco.

[Lovharvey]

How much memory did you need?

 

We're doing 3 1/2 days in Seattle and a 7 day cruise.

 

I want to bring my laptop to be able to download but my other half doesn't like the idea of me bringing it. :rolleyes:

 

I now have 5 gb and another 128 mb cards. I also plan to take video with them.

 

What have others used? PS I like to take pictures. :D

Thanks

 

I had a 1GB card when we went to Alaska plus we had my DH's camera and a video camera with us. I always take my laptop so I can download my pictures and see if there are some that need to be taken again if possible. I now have a couple of 8GB, several 4GB and a couple if 2GB. I like to take pictures also. I have several digital frames and have to leave the pictures on the card, so that is the reason I have so many cards. On our recent 5 day cruise, between us we took over 400 pictures. I think we had around a 1000 from our Alaska cruise. Also, you might want to consider a spare battery that is kept charged. You don't want to be off the ship and have your battery die. Even if you don't use an extra card, it would be better to have it and not need it or not have one and need it. Have a great cruise.

[NC-17]

Beside memory card, another consideration is BATTERY specially when you are shooting video with your digital camera feature. your battery will run out of power even before the memory card filled up.

 

[Italy52]

When selecting a memory card make sure your camera can accommodate the larger memory - not all cameras can. The larger memory card fit our camera but would not capture images. Thank goodness we still had some 2GBs we could use.

[ErinPhotoBug]

If you are taking JPEG format pictures (almost all point-and-shoot cameras use this), an 8 MP image file will run an average of ~3 MB in size (2.3-3.3, typically). So ... a 2 GB card will hold around 700 pictures.

 

What kind of shooter are you? Do you take one picture of a waterfall and then move along? Or do you take multiple pictures from different angles and distances? If you're the former, then budgeting 100-150 pictures a day is probably fine. If you're the latter (like me!), then you're going to want to figure 2-3x that, maybe more. And if you want to take video ... bring plenty of extra memory!

 

I always bring my laptop to download the pictures from the cards at the end of each day, but I do not clear the cards until I get home at the end of vacation and make sure I have the files backed up to ANOTHER hard drive.

 

Figure it this way - digital memory is SO cheap, isn't it worth overspending a bit and making sure you have enough, rather than having to delete pictures as you go along just to fit it all on the cards you have?

 

And beware of digital memory on ebay ... a lot of what's posted there is counterfeit.

[psyfi]

The moral of the story is to always take a lot more than you need. Buying more memory on the ship will be pricey. I always take my laptop to back up the cards, and I burn them to CD/DVD while on the ship--the DVD's get put in a different carryon than the laptop and camera. Can't bear the thought of losing my pictures!

[judyf]

Beside memory card, another consideration is BATTERY specially when you are shooting video with your digital camera feature. your battery will run out of power even before the memory card filled up.

 

 

Thanks to everyone for the great tips. This list helps thanks for posting.

 

I use XD cards so off to buy a some more cards tomorrow.:D

 

By the way I had an old camera that would not take anything more then a 1 gb, so make sure you check that the camera will take the larger cards as someone posted.

[Podie]

I also encourage you to get a few 1 GB cards rather than one 4 GB. When I was in Italy, my 4 GB suddenly stopped working and I wasn't able to download it at all. I lost all those photos. Now I bring several 1 GB and change them out a couple of times a day.

[nothriver]

Good point, Poodie.

 

I just purchased a 16GB, I'd hate to have it fail. I'll be bringing 3 cards, 2 4GB and my new 16GB. I look for them on sale locally, and/or buy them from Amazon. Memory is so affordable now, I never want to get caught without enough memory.

 

Counterfit memory and batteries are both found on ebay and from the independent sellers on Amazon as well. When you purchase from Amazon, make sure it says "sold and shipped by Amazon" because when you buy from independent sellers through Amazon, there is no recourse. At least when you buy on ebay you can file a claim with ebay/paypal.

[Napi's Mom]

Good point, Poodie.

 

I just purchased a 16GB, I'd hate to have it fail. I'll be bringing 3 cards, 2 4GB and my new 16GB. I look for them on sale locally, and/or buy them from Amazon. Memory is so affordable now, I never want to get caught without enough memory.

 

Counterfit memory and batteries are both found on ebay and from the independent sellers on Amazon as well. When you purchase from Amazon, make sure it says "sold and shipped by Amazon" because when you buy from independent sellers through Amazon, there is no recourse. At least when you buy on ebay you can file a claim with ebay/paypal.

One thing you must check on is if your camera will accept those larger sized cards. Mine will only take the SD cards (So far the largest I've found was 2gb), not the SDHC, which ALL the really large capacity cards are. You might be wise to bring the larger ones, plus a card reader, and download smaller ones INTO this larger one to save, via your own computer or ones on the ship. They are now much cheaper...but unless you're using them for a video, 16 is really way more than necessary. Well last cruise we took only 900 pics or so...at highest quality on 2 7mp cameras...used only 1 2gb each and room left over. Now move up to 10mp you still have LOTS of room for 1000's pics on a 4gb. We don't do much candid stuff, just scenery, only 3 photos of the ship, except our balcony and cabin. We're onboard for the ports & tours!