Great intel -- thanks guys.

Hi all,

@shawnino - It's likely that where ever you're going to go, you'll have electrical current to charge things, but I would want to pack with a common charger to limit the need for multiple outlets.

When I was younger, we didn't have much worry in our electrical components, the meter batteries were small, and the flash batteries were standards, still heavy, but usually disposable. What was a pain was carrying all the equipment, 6 bodies, at least 6 lenses, at least a hundred rolls of film, a tripod, light meter, flashes, and batteries - and that was a minimal kit. Of course, I also carried a field pack, too, that was about 90 pounds, heavier if we were going to out for more than a couple of days. The point of that is that is this, there is light and then there is light.

The gadgets that Adamz and TTJ mentions are handy to copy your data to hard drive as you go to back up, giving you two copies when you return. Not a bad idea at all. Something you should consider. I'm not going that route because I'm sure I won't be trying to sell my images from this trip - it's pleasure. You might weight the cost and the tool against a small netbook, dollar for dollar and inch for inch and pound for pound. It might come up that a netbook won't be a lot more for what it offers - I will throw that out, some netbooks are inexpensive enough and valuable enough to make that a worthwhile consideration.

I'm taking an Android tablet that used to be a Nook Color. All the SD chips are class 10 microchips in SD adapters. None have failed in my P7100, AW100, or D7000, although I don't use them much in the D7000. The places we stay or will be passing through have Internet access where I can put the chip in an upload the jpegs to my Picasa or Flickr account wirelessly. I will likely take a handful of 8/16gb chips for the two P&S cameras, the Android, and a Kindle Fire. Those are the only things that will have battery chargers. The Android is equipped with Skype.

@Adamz We going to Quito, Cuenca, and Los Baños in Ecuador, and Lima, Cuzco, and Aguas Calientes in Peru. We will be there in June for 3 weeks. I haven't been back to those countries in nearly 15 years. We were in Argentina and Brasil a few years ago. You'll like that part of the world. It's very hospitable. In a former job, I did get to travel to all the hemisphere's capitals and environs and provinces, it was quite an experience.

My best to all,

Mike

shawnino said:
OK, so I'm looking at the digital foci models on B&H. Does anybody have personal experience and a collection of friends' experiences as to how reliable these things are medium term?

Wolverine is another company and there are a handful of others that have solutions. I have looked at them many times but have yet to have a real reason to own one. Considering the file sizes of the new bodies, I glad I haven't as the ones I would have bought would be too small. I have seen a couple DIY kits that I would consider with a SSD drive that would be faster and have less draw on a battery.

The Key thing I learned reading reviews was battery capacity and write speed. Some lower end models may only back up 1 16gb card, and will take almost an hour. Other are much, much faster. If you go that route, (it can be expensive though) focus on write speeds and battery life. In the end, if there is continuous power how you are traveling and can find someone with an old net book to barrow, take a small 500gb-1tb drive - that would be cheaper and not add much room.

On memory cards, Amazon has a price watcher tools you can set up once a price drops. There is no particular good time of year but look for when new cards are introduced as stores will want to drop their stock as low as possible. Big discount sales are popping up a lot recently, some even 40-60% off. This would be a good time to start looking.
*** Just a note, you may not need the fasted cards either or all of them do not need to be fast. Save money by buying a couple of lower capacity Fast cards and a handful of slower 16-32gb cards. Only go with Sandisk or Lexar Pro cards.

There was a thread a while back on the 80-400vr that someone took on a similar trip and they did a follow up when they got back. Might be a good resource.

@AdamZ (and anyone who knows): Looking at Hyperspace Colordive UDMA on B&H. Reviews seem better than the Digital Foci stuff. So that's great. Do Sanho products have a good reputation for reliability? I don't know that company. Aside from a few product tests, I can't find much online about them.

I'm mostly going tourist but I'm going to to cover costs with travel writing. And every travel writer knows that a picture is well worth 1,000 words. For selling, it might be 3,000. One thing I almost certainly won't have access to is free/cheap satellite upload.

As both AdamZ and Mike Gunter point out, what's really going through my mind is weight and bulk. The bag is already looking like main body/back-up body, tripod, Nikon 200-400 zoom, Sigma 8-16mm, and primes inbetween with all the trimmings to make it work. The good news is that I'm not going to have to drag everything everywhere every day. Planning ahead will greatly lighten my daily load. The bad news is the isolation, that it's a long trip down and back, and my inherent cheapness of trying not to get gouged by the airline for extra baggage.

Himalayas, AdamZ? WOW. I undertook my trip thinking this was going to be tricky business, but the Himalayas, now that sounds difficult. Once I get my settings organised in Antarctica for shooting on a blanket of white with lots of sun, the images should come thick and fast if I use common sense. Changing conditions in the Himalayas will be a very stern test of photography craft and technique.

@mike - the cost of sat connection is app $7-20 per 1 MB of transmission depending on the airtime You using:) where and when You going to Peru and Ecuador, I'll be heading that direction in september and really looking for some inputs and tips

Hi all,

@adamz - My remote stays were not on my dime, so I don't know what satellite fees are. I have done full video live conference feeds, but I didn't see a bill. Of course, the same people who wrote my paycheck owned the satellites. McMurdo Bay has plenty of bandwidth (weather permitting) as does some of the other stations. Naturally, I haven't a clue as to whether Shawnino will have that kind of access. Enjoy your stay in the Himalayas!

@shawnino - I had assumed that you were headed to a work assignment to Antarctica. It never occurs to me that one would go there as a tourist. I just checked and saw that you are from Canada, and I don't recall a Canadian presence there. Have a great time with the penguins!

I, too, will be travelling in Ecuador and Peru with my BW for three weeks and travelling light, and with SD cards. I don't really intend to take an SLR, but a P7100 and a AW100. We are in different accommodations every couple of days and in trains and such, I just don't want to haul much around.

Where I might differ is that I'm getting smaller size media cards and more of them. My reasoning is that if there is a malfunction, only one card will be affected. I plan to use one card to 65-70% of capacity and go to the next. I'll shoot both RAW and jpeg, and upload jpeg via my Android, so there should be a back up of the jpgs. That's one opinion.

My best,

Mike

@shawnino - as I wrote some time ago, if You need data bank get colorspace udma as it's the best You can get right now. but... I have the same situation as You, going into himalayas next month - no internet, limited electricity - and what I did was to get me some additional sandisk extreme 45MB/s sd cards for d800 - total of 64gb, I might be getting another 64gb too (still undecided). why this option instead of grabbing a laptop with me - weight, if You gonna carry it on Your back than every ounce counts.

@mike - uploading images to cloud based services is nice when You shoot jpg's, for me it's not an option - 75mb files over satellite connection gonna be pretty expensive

I would learn from the story of the thesis and not keep the only copies of your photos on memory cards. This is likely a once in a lifetime trip so losing even 1 card would be devastating. I am going on a safari with my family in May and plan on taking a laptop as well as an external hard drive to keep 2 copies of all photos at all times. I will keep the two seperate at all times as well in case of theft/fire, etc. May be overly cautious, but I would not forgive myself if any photos were lost.

Depending on your file sizes, an iPad may work to backup your images. If weight is a big concern, look into a cheap netbook (or Macbook Air if you have a bigger budget) and an external drive or two. I use the WD Passport because it does not require external power.

OK, so I'm looking at the digital foci models on B&H. Does anybody have personal experience and a collection of friends' experiences as to how reliable these things are medium term? If you look at the reviews, there aer an inordinate number of dis-satisfied customers. There are some happy ones for sure, but where the reviews of Nikon lenses generally run 4-5 stars, and third party-filters run around 4 stars, these products kick in around 3.5.

The reviews that scare me aren't the ones that say "I had to send it back to B&H to get a new one". I know B&H gives good customer service and if something does not work out of the box they'll replace it. The ones that scare me are the ones that say "after a few months, it died" or "at the end of a long project, it died and I couldn't access any files" or "company's customer service does not pick up the phone".

I'm likely only getting one shot at Antarctica (or maybe only one shot in the next five years if you know what I mean). I understand no method is foolproof for coming home with images, but how do I improve my odds? (I am taking along back-up body, battery etc.)

I'm reminded of a grad school colleague who stored her thesis on a floppy disk (yeah, this was the 90s; no she could not afford her own computer) and the disk died and she lost a great deal of time and an extra semester's supervisory fees banging all her work back in. She came to cry on my shoulder late one night, vulnerable and afraid. Casanova that I was, I expressed surprise that she would allow two years of her work to be stored on a device constructed to be sold for fifty cents.

What's my best move here? Multiple cards? One of these storage things? Bite the bullet and drag around a laptop? Something else I haven't thought of?

Hi,

To include a USB drive you could hook up to one of the computers at the location there. They will have them - while it is remote, it isn't without electricity or Internet. :-)

I would also suggest you upload them to a remote site, to something like Flickr or Picasa, ask you employer if that will be possible - I pretty sure it will be.

My best,

Mike

Thanks for the suggestions--I had not thought about portable storage devices

Flash pretty much continues to drop in cost/GB year over year. A 10% off for buying 3 is nothing compared to this effect. Typically the higher end (Fastest and Highest Capacity Cards) tend to have a price premium until larger and faster cards come out.

Check multiple brands (Sandisk, Lexar) and multiple stores and just see where the value seems to be. I just bought a 16GB Class 10, 45MB/s Sandisk card for $24. I paid about that 1.5 year ago for a Sandisk 16GB Class 6, 20MB/s card. I think the Class 10 was double that price at that time...

You might want to look into a portable data storage device (basically a hard drive with a battery and built in card reader). The Digital Foci Photo Safe II looks like the best bargain for the money, but I have no personal experience with it. B&H has a whole "portable data storage" category on their site you can peruse.

As for cards, there are many deal aggregators out there like LogicBuy and Dealnews.

tcole1983...

got your PM. Tried to reply and thank you for it, but I fear I may have sent the reply to myself (it showed up in my inbox). Anyway, it's useful info and I want to thank you very much for sharing it with me.

I see memory cards on sale all the time. I would just find something for a good price. I got my wife two 8 GB cards a little while ago that cost me over $30 for one and I got her two for $15.

I will PM you so I am not posting links.

I searched for "memory sale" and couldn't find an answer.

As mentioned in other threads, I'm going to Antarctica this autumn. I anticipate taking a ton of pictures. Instead of buying a laptop and transferring from memory cards daily, in an effort to travel light I'm going to buy a bunch of memory cards (and likely sell them after to recoup some costs). I understand that memory gets cheaper over time. I'm about six months away so for now I can wait for "the next sale". But is there a time of year when cards are cheapest? I've seen the info for bodies, but not for memory.

Just as an example, B&H has a 24-hour sale on currently where they're doing about 10% off on three 16 GB Sandisk cards (one SDHC; two CF). I'm wondering if I should pull the trigger or wait.

Opinions? Thanks.