Camera Memory

I'm taking a vacation to New Zealand in November, and an important consideration for me is my picture saving strategy. This will be the first major trip I've taken since I bought my digital camera - previously I had an APS camera.

In Florida, I just saved my pictures to my notebook. But on this trip, I won't be taking a notebook computer with me, because both notebooks I have are through work, and this isn't a business trip.

Apple sells a media reader that lets you copy pictures to an iPod, but unfortunately it isn't compatible with the iPod mini, which is what I have.

I just decided to my more memory for my camera. I was using a 128 MB compact flash card, and that holds about 70 pictures at highest resolution and lowest compression. That isn't nearly good enough - I'm planning to take far more pictures than that.

So, I bought two 512 MB high speed compact flash cards. At highest resolution (2048 x 1536 for my camera) and lowest compression, that should hold around 280 pictures per card. I'm considering bumping down the resolution one notch to 1600 x 1200, which should result in about 480 pictures per card. That should be plenty, although I might buy one more 512 MB compact flash just to be extra safe, so then I would be able to save around 1400 total pictures!

I splurged a bit for higher speed flash memory, because the 128 MB flash I originally paused noticeably between pictures as it wrote to the card. I tried a few pics yesterday with the new CF card, and I did notice it pausing less after a shot.