So you're traveling on vacation with your digital camera and you've taken hundreds of shots, but how do you make sure they are safeguarded until you get home. There are many ways to accomplish this. Many will tell you that using several memory cards is safer than one big one. While this concept is sound, I don't want to risk loosing ANY photos. So what if only one card goes bad out of four! You still potentially lost the shots on that one card! Murphy's law says that that will be the one card with your best shots on it.

On to the tip(s):

1) If you take your notebook computer with you, download your pictures from the card(s) each night.
2) Burn them onto CDs/DVDs.
3) Put the disc in a mailer and mail it back home. This way if something happens to your camera, memory card, computer, etc. a backup copy of the pictures themselves are on their way back to you safe and sound. When I traveled to South Africa, I not only emptied my card each night onto my PowerBook, but I also copied them to my iPod's hard drive as a back up.

OK, you don't feel like lugging your notebook computer with you. After all it is supposed to be a vacation!

Bring something smaller and lighter to download your pictures onto. Apple makes an Apple iPod Camera Connector that allows you to plug in your camera via USB and download your pictures directly to your iPod's hard drive. It's slow, but it works. Do it in the evening while you're having dinner.



Another option would be to go with something like the Epson P-4000. It's pricy at $699.99 list! However, it does have a nice large display for viewing your shots and you put your memory card right inside the device to download the images, so it's MUCH FASTER than the iPod for this task. It has a nice large 80GB drive which means you can shoot thousands of shots and not run out of room. Once you get home, you just plug in the USB 2 cable and download the images to your computer. The P-2000 is $200 cheaper and only has a 40GB drive. Again, that should be plenty for the average person.



Happy shooting!