Digital Photography

[SHINEMAN]

Any suggestions? For example, easy to charge batteries on board? Safe for memory cards to go thru security machines? Any facilities for printing pictures on ships? Any place to get technical help on board? Need a battery charger?

[orcatek]

You may want to bring a power strip for your charger as outlets are limited, but otherwise it should be no problem.

 

Security xray have no effect on the memory cards.

 

Printing and other services vary by ship. A lot will copy your card to CD.

 

Technical help is probably not going to happen on board. You may find one of the photographers who is willing to try, but don't count on it.

 

If you don't have a charger, you may have to get one in port. This is why when I got my camera I made sure it could use standard batteries too. In my case AA which I can buy anywhere in an emergency.

 

I suggest brigning a spare memory card. I've known people to have one "freak out" and be stuck buying one in port for 2 to 3 times the price.

 

Best advice is know your camera you go. And if worse comes to worse, you can always get some cheap disposable cameras on board in an emergency.

[SHINEMAN]

What do you mean by "freak out"?

I bought a charger but hate to take it with me because of weight. Also worried since charger and batteries that came with it were "made in China".

Good to know safe to go thru XRay machines.

[Traveler39]

Traveling with and cruising with a digital camera is easier than a film camera... You will have no problems... Made in China, etc... is OK... No problems.... Must have more than one memory card (256 MB)..... keep batteries charged and click away... shoot everything and sort out later... Work with your camera before you go and take your instructions and all necessary wiring and charger...

 

Have fun....ORCATEK is correct... Pratice and relax

[richtersl]

Maybe there's a different charger you can get for you camera that won't be as bulky.

 

Also, some camera makes come with a power cord (as oppoed to a dock) that let you charge the batteries while they're still in the camera.

 

At any rate, check out Thomas Distributing to see if they have anything for your camera.

[orcatek]

What I meant by freakout is I have seen cards fail - get write errors, get unable to read errors. Sometimes a reformat can fix, but of course then the pics are lost. Sometimes, a reader and read them but them camera will not until reformat by the camera.

 

Two known reasons that can mess cards up. Some carmeras will continue to take pictures too far into the battery discharge, and end up not having enough power to finish writing a picture, and that corrupts the card. Reformat fixes.

 

Cards are still electronic, and have exposed contacts. A very strong static discharge across the contacts can do funny things to the card - even ruin it forever.

 

Now, both these things are insanely rare, but they do happen. I've shot probably over 30,000 digital photos with my camera. I had a card give me a read error once. Turned camera off, removed card, replaced batteries. Card worked. I still didn't use it until I had saved off the pics and reformatted to be safe.

[relaxin3344]

I have a older sony digital camera that does not have a photo strip,, it uses 3 1/2 floppy's get 30-40 pictures on each disk. fill a disk reload and keep going battery lasts for 4-500 pictures. wife wants to get new camera with strip i'm not so sure about it.. on our last cruise rccl mariner out of port canaveral fl (7 day) with extra battery and charger it was non-stop clicking the whole cruise, used battery would recharge fully before it was needed. took about 1700 pictures and sorted them out when we got home..got about 300 good ones put them on cd show.. re-formatted disks and ready to go to alaska.... sometimes newer isn't always better.. THE WORST DAY CRUISING IS BETTER THAN THE BEST DAY AT WORK.... see you all in a couple of weeks....

[SHINEMAN]

Thanks everybody. Don't know what one would do without these boards.