Questions from Newbie

[Vautrin]

Hi All,

I've just taken the plunge and bought the Olympus E510. My fiancee and I are getting married and going to Greece for our honeymoon next month (for 2 and a half weeks), and I want to be able to capture it on film.

I'm really concerned about storage and I've got four questions:

How many GB in storage will I need to shoot in the raw format? Would two 16GB CF cards do?

How can I make sure the photos I take come back safely? I saw in a photography book I was browsing in barnes and noble there are portable hard drives you can store pictures on?

What is the best way to manage all those photos when I come back? I was looking at Adobe Lightroom?

Any tips?

Thanks in advance!

Dan

 

[davebmck]

The 510 is a 10mp camera. I shoot raw with a 10mp camera and I can get about 195 shots on a 2gb cf card, so you should be able to get 1570 to 1600 pictures on a 16gb card. Keep in mind you will have to process every picture in Camera Raw or a similar program, so you better have some spare time on your hands when you get back if you shoot that many pictures.

 

[Bryant]

Hey and welcome to the forum. Yes 2X16GB should be plenty, thats about 2,000 pictures if my math is correct. Do you have a laptop that would be readily available, as that would be the best option. I personally back them up to my Macbook Pro whenever I get the chance and then back up to my 300GB external hard drive. I've heard of some that don't require a computer, but I can't quite recall what they're called. Yes that program is fine for you now, but if you'd like to progress in the realm of photography, I'd suggest investing in Adobe CS3. Don't do that now as it takes quite a large amount of time and practice to gain competence. Work with your program for a while before going out and spending it on CS3.
Hope this is what you were looking for.

 

[Vautrin]

Hey and welcome to the forum. Yes 2X16GB should be plenty, thats about 2,000 pictures if my math is correct. Do you have a laptop that would be readily available, as that would be the best option. I personally back them up to my Macbook Pro whenever I get the chance and then back up to my 300GB external hard drive. I've heard of some that don't require a computer, but I can't quite recall what they're called. Yes that program is fine for you now, but if you'd like to progress in the realm of photography, I'd suggest investing in Adobe CS3. Don't do that now as it takes quite a large amount of time and practice to gain competence. Work with your program for a while before going out and spending it on CS3.
Hope this is what you were looking for.

Thank you for your help! I don't want to take a laptop with me as it will make travel harder. Plus I've heard so many horror stories of laptops confiscated at the border.... I just want to make sure if I don't take one I get my pictures back....

 

[Bryant]

Thank you for your help! I don't want to take a laptop with me as it will make travel harder. Plus I've heard so many horror stories of laptops confiscated at the border.... I just want to make sure if I don't take one I get my pictures back....

Yeah don't worry about losing your shots. It's a very rare occurence that your memory card will go south, it's never happened to me. Just make sure you have the amount of space you need. You may end up having to go back later and delete a couple pictures if you need room.

 

[timbearden]

Just a suggestion, but sometimes CF cards can fail. Buying 16 gb card may not be economical. You might consider buying smaller cards, like more 8 gb for the price of the 16 gb. That way if one failed, you would only loose half the information.

For me, on my D300 I use an 8 gb, to shoot around 300 photos in raw. If you are shooting just for a day and download it at night on to your computer, even one would suffice let alone a 16 gb. For weddings I use an 8gb twice in a day. However that is shooting a lot of images. Just for the casual shoot, there is no way you would take that many pictures.

 

[prodigy2k7]

Generally speaking, if your going to shoot many many hundreds or thousands of pictures, shoot in JPG because thats a lot of raw images to process. Its just time consuming, but whatever floats your boat.

 

[Dao]

Another thought. Don't put all the eggs in one basket.

Instead of 2x16 gigs, how about 4x8gigs. Even if one of them go bad or disappear, you still have 3 to work with.

 

[caspertodd]

How can I make sure the photos I take come back safely? I saw in a photography book I was browsing in barnes and noble there are portable hard drives you can store pictures on?

You can use a portable photo storage device that both adorama and B&H have (use the links at the top of this page). I would only recommend using it as a backup, and not delete the images off of your cards. I also think, as others have said, that the more cards the better, rather than going with the biggest cards you can find. Congratulations by the way, and don't forget to have fun!

 

[lockwood81]

I have an Olympus e-510 and I use an 8gig, couple of 4gig and a few 2gig. I think its better than having some much on one card. This way I know "so-and-so" card is for this event and this card is for that event. Till I have a chance to download them.

Have fun, it's a great camera.

 

[lockwood81]

Forgot to add that since its an Olympus...you can have an 8gig CF card in and a 4gig xd card at the same time. When one is full save to the other....thats what I do.