Website for downloading photos away from home?

[tommysmommy]

I heard something on a news bit somewhere (pretty good recall huh?) about a website where one can download their photos while on vacation and then their SD card is empty and you can keep shooting. Then, when you get home, the photos can be uploaded to your computer and voila, there you go with more photos and fewer SD cards to buy.
So, anybody know anything about this? I need to know by the week's end as I'm going on a 3 week trip to Italy.
Thanks!

[Shooter]

Depends where you're travelling I guess, but web connections are generally slow. 512MB is a lot of storage space for direct access (remember Google is 10MB max) and presumably you wouldn't want to compress your pictures. In Egypt I tried that with Google but found it was too slow.

Instead, just bring your memory card into a photo processing store (which are modern everywhere) and they'll put the pictures on a cd. Then format the memory card.

[Nick]

Well, what I did what I went overseas is set up an always on FTP server at home and uploaded the photos anywhere that I could find an internet connection.

Too slow! My conclusion was that the overall upload took far too long. I had two 256MB cards at the time. Now that I'm locked and loaded with 2x2GB, I couldn't start to imagine how long it would take.

If you're shooting with a card that's under 512MB, taking it t a photo store and have 'em burn a CD, better yet, see to it that they make two copies. If that sounds like a hassle, you can get a portable CD-RW drive which runs off batteries and to use (without a computer) simply insert your card into it, and presto! The photographs will burn onto CD. If the card is larger then 512, the burner supports multi-CD spanning.

Apacer Disc Steno CP-200 is such a device. You can also consider a portable storage device, a portable HDD onto which you can toss your files and it's done.

[fizbin]

If you think the FTP upload will take to long,,, I just start an upload in the morning before I go out shooting, or just set it to upload at night when I go to bed. Most good FTP Clients can support broken link uploading so they can resume the upload later if your connection is broken.

[Nick]

fizbin, that's perfect if you're on an always on connection and it's one that you can use for an extended period of time. I wouldn't sleep overnight in an internet cafe, would you? ;)

[fizbin]

I know what you mean and I thought about that prior to replying but asumed that when he was talking about websites that he had a good connection. The CD burning thing that the others were talking about is a good idea too but the thought of finding and going to some place and wait and talk to them, blah blah blah did not sound appealing while you're on a cool vaction like they are going.

The upload sounds the most unobtrusive to their time, plus the photos won't be in the same bag of luggage or with them incase it all gets stolen or lost. I have clients who upload to my hosting servers just in case of these events. My FTP reports show that most uploads to the photographers storage areas start around 9-11pm CST.

To your point, yes if the hotel has some sort of low bandwidth, dialup or no connectivity than at best this would be a brutal process. The positive about spending all night in coffee/internet cafe', think of all the cool people you'd meet! :)

[Shooter]

Unobtrusive to find a reliable internet connection and wait for several hours for uploading?

Actually photo shops are generally full of competent people. It's either a 10 minute wait while they burn the cd or a 1 minute drop off and a 1 minute pick up.

[Rhys]

Personally, I'd spend moneyand buy memory cards. eCost has 1GB CF cards for $50ish.

They even have an 8gb CF card but it's $1500 now. Next year it'll probably be $250 - lol.

[fizbin]

Shooter, that's just silly waiting around a few hours for your upload to complete. Start the upload and go enjoy yourself. It will run unattended. If I were going to Italy I would not be hanging out in a photolab, plus like I said, all your photo's in the same physical location is a list risky incase of theft, loss or damage.

Anyway, all are pretty good ideas. :)

[tim11]

I heard something on a news bit somewhere (pretty good recall huh?) about a website where one can download their photos while on vacation and then their SD card is empty and you can keep shooting. ....
Just to answer your question directly without getting into the pros & cons (it's been discussed), you just have to sign up with Yahoo.com for 1GB - yes! 1GigaBytes (all for free); and you can sign up with many names. Then when in the evenening you can just download your photos to yourself and leave them there.
Being on vacation overseas, will you be shooting less than 512MB each day? How long will you be spending uploading?

[tim11]

Shooter, that's just silly waiting around a few hours for your upload to complete. Start the upload and go enjoy yourself. It will run unattended.
Shouldn't you be waiting for the camera/card reader/card to finish and retrieve it/them back as your posession?
I guess you meant if you are to upload from the comfort of your motel room... Not all motel/hotel offer decent internet connection.

[Shooter]

Sorry, I have yet to stay in a hotel that offers free high speed internet in my room, and I wouldn't bring a laptop on a trek anyway. My solution worked extremely well in Europe and in the middle East.

[tommysmommy]

Well I hadn't thought of that. I actually have two yahoo email accounts, so that might be the place to download to. But I could swear I heard about a site made especially for this purpose, which no one else has mentioned or seems to have heard about.
So when I download pictures to my yahoo email, I'll have to take my (darn, name of the cable escapes me) cable to attach to the computer on the trip, plug it into the camera and then what? I mean, how do I tell the yahoo account to take my pictures out of my camera?
I have two SD cards, a 512 and a 1GB, and assuming I don't shoot enough pictures in two days to fill up the 512, I could just keep using that and emptying it.
Anyway, if you tell me what the procedure is I can practice before I leave in 7 days! (7 days, how exciting is that?)

[tim11]

Well I hadn't thought of that. I actually have two yahoo email accounts, so that might be the place to download to. But I could swear I heard about a site made especially for this purpose, which no one else has mentioned or seems to have heard about.
People should be innovative in all aspects in life. Internet space is internet space, no one should tell you to put photos here, files there; etc.
But beware! If you send photo to photo posting website it will drastically reduce the quality of your photos that most won't even be suitable for print.
I hope you read all other posts re. to the thread you started here because they are all relevant to the pros and cons of uploading your photos and store on the internet.
Do you know how long it will take to upload hundreds of Megabytes even for fast broadband connection? That is if you can find decent connection to start with. And I don't think anyone who replied this thread took into account that you are not familiar with the process yet.
CDs are cheap nowadays. I will just take the cards to photo labs and tell them to put them on CDs (2 replicas just to be on the safe side). Any country has this service now and everyone understand the universal language of digital camera and CD.
I will just upload some selected files that I think important on the internet.

[tommysmommy]

I'm beginning to think the CD is the way to go myself. It will just be the trick to find the store to do it in the midst of a hectic travel schedule. My hotel people will have to help me with that.
Thanks for all the suggestions.

[emalvick]

How about buying something like one of those portable hard drives that accept camera memory. For instance, if you check Amazon.com out, they have an item by Tanscend call the Transcend PhotoBank...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002XCE4K/qid=1126639721/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/102-4095702-8862569?v=glance&s=photo

It'll take all memory cards and store them on a portable 20GB hard drive. It costs $200, but you might find it cheaper somewhere else and could have it quickly if you use fast shipping methods or find a local camera store.

There are others that are a bit cheeper that will do the same type of thing. Then you don't need a computer, cd drive, internet connection, or a photo lab. You just need some batteries to keep the thing going.

Erik

[jamison55]

I agree with Rhys that a bigger memory card is the way to go. 10 years ago, you might have taken 20 rolls of 24 exp film on such a trip (for a total of 480 shots). Calculate how much memory you need to equal that and buy it. I have a 2GB card for my 20D and at the highest 8mp jpeg resolution I can take 650 or so photos. That would be enough for my average vacation. It will make you shoot smarter if you know that you have a limited amount of clicks, and plan your shots more carefully.

On my week long vacation to Ireland last year, I brought along an Olympus C5050, and 1 gig of memory. We left the laptop at home. It was plenty.

[tim11]

Jamison55, don't you press the shutter more often with a digital camera? Personally, I develop this bad habit and need to change. 10 years ago, I would be happy with 2 rolls of 24 exp. per day but now I find I easily do over 100 exp.!!
Call me crazy, but if I am going overseas now I will either buy more cards and/or portable hard drive, put the photos on CD whenever convenience (just to make sure those photos are safe). And upload some selected few a day and store them on the internet.
Tommysmommy, I hope you enjoy your vacation. Is Tommy going too?

[George Riehm]

Sorry, I have yet to stay in a hotel that offers free high speed internet in my room, and I wouldn't bring a laptop on a trek anyway. My solution worked extremely well in Europe and in the middle East.

Most biz hotel chains have wired or wireless high speed internet, but that is high speed for download only. Upload is 384Kb/s at best. Takes a long time to upload 512MB to 1GB at that rate.

My laptop goes where I go. At 4 pounds it's very convenient.