Taking a poll ~ how many Gigs of memory for a 10 day trip?

[kirbinster]

A apologize in advance as I did not have time to read all the earlier responses, so some of this may have already been said. With that out of the way, I would shoot everything in raw as you may capture many once in a life-time shots and you want them to be perfect. Further, memory is dirt cheap so take everything you have with you. If you run out you can temporarily dump them to the notebook computer. Further, you are not going into the wilderness, there are plenty of stores in the area where you very quickly buy more memory if you run low.

Have a great time and be sure to post some of the winners for us to see.

[WenRob]

The EHD is a great idea but I personally would not use that as my only place to store the photos. If you drop it, it's toast and you could lose ALL of your pics. My rule is to always have two sets. Me personally I absolutely would put them on the EHD but I'd bring spare memory and not delete my cards. Call me paranoid but I read stories of people losing everything all the time, almost daily between photo sites and digi scrap sites.

[Farkled]

I shoot strictly RAW and will burn about 4 - 8 GBs per day on an outing to the zoo with the grandkids. YMMV

[praline3001]

Originally Posted by Farkled

I shoot strictly RAW and will burn about 4 - 8 GBs per day on an outing to the zoo with the grandkids. YMMV

It sounds like me! I will shoot tons and tons of photos of what seems to be silly crap ... but I get some of the best photos from these

For some reason the harder I try to set up a shot, the worse the shot comes out. The shots where I am not even thinking about it ~ those are the ones that come out really good

[Trevinla]

I would take 4 x 8gb or 8 x 4bg cards - and Buy more when I need them...

I just used 6BG on friends playing volleyball for 4 hrs...

ALWAYS shoot RAW! you will be so upset if that almost perfect pic cannot be made perfect because it was JPG... and I never use a card bigger than 4GB because if one gets lost or fails I have lost fewer files - that said, every night you should copy your card onto the laptop and keep the camera, laptop and used cards in different bags - nothing worse than going out for a day of shooting with full, not dbl backed up cards... or having luggage "lost" with all your electronics in it

[praline3001]

Our new external hard drive came in today

My hubby did the math and he says in RAW I can get 25,000 photos which would be 1 photo per minute 24 hours a day for our entire 10 day trip. If I go with Jpeg I can get 3 photos per minute 24 hours a day for the full 10 days...

ya guys think that's good enough? I am just not sure ... I might need TWO of these hard drives

[RichardT]

I was just at Disney world 2 months ago, only stayed for 5 days though, but I took around 3000 photos all raw. It was really light shooting. I would have taken more but I was having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures. Parades and certain rides will eat up more photos, animal kingdom is were a majority of my pictures were taken. A tip though, bring a couple smaller sized memory cards instead larger ones, my 16gb card ended up failing on the last day and lost half a days worth of pictures.

I think your external had drive is more than enough, also RAW file sizes vary by iso sensitivity, so lower ISO you'll be able to get more pictures than higher sensitivities.

[praline3001]

Originally Posted by RichardT

I was just at Disney world 2 months ago, only stayed for 5 days though, but I took around 3000 photos all raw. It was really light shooting. I would have taken more but I was having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures. Parades and certain rides will eat up more photos, animal kingdom is were a majority of my pictures were taken. A tip though, bring a couple smaller sized memory cards instead larger ones, my 16gb card ended up failing on the last day and lost half a days worth of pictures.

I think your external had drive is more than enough, also RAW file sizes vary by iso sensitivity, so lower ISO you'll be able to get more pictures than higher sensitivities.

I didn't know that about RAW, thanks for the heads up! We are a Disney loving family! We really enjoy going and not just for the rides LOL We also know enough to know how to avoid the crowds so we always have tons of fun!

Some of the special things we have booked this time is their new Fireworks cruise with Capt Hook and peter pan. Its called the pirates and pal Fireworks cruise. Its a party of sorts and not just a fireworks cruise. I am not even going to bother with taking photos of fireworks from a boat LOL I would like to try and snap a few pics of my kids having fun with the pirates. As it will be night (even though the pontoon has ligting) RAW is going to be my best bet for these photos so I can try and change the lighting and WB PP.

We have a lot of really fun dining booked. I didn't book anything dressy or formal this trip (AKA signature) we are only doing family fun type places which the kids LOVE. My Daughter is dressing up like one of the step sisters for our 1900 park fare dinner. I had a ball gown custom made for the event ~ you bet I am going to want photos of the steps when they see my daughter dressed up like them among a sea of little cinderella's We also have chef Mickey's, the castle breakfast, Biergarten, LEs Ceillers, Liberty Tree, 50's prime, mama melrose, Tusker House, Ohana. Most of those have TERRIBLE lighting and I have lots of under exposed Jpegs from past trips to prove it LOL
I am hoping with RAW I can get the lighting right in PP if I mess up taking the shots...

My daughter is doing the wonderland tea party and dressing up like Alice for it. This should offer a few fun photos before I have to leave (kid only event) My son is also celebrating his birthday and we have a few surprises in store for him as well.

We are staying in the main building of the Grand Floridian and have had this booked for a year!!! Everywhere you look at the Grand there is something beautiful to photograph!!! We will also have a theme park view so I am hoping to set up my camera on a tripod on our balcony most nights and practice fireworks shooting! I won't have to bring my tripod into the parks and worry about crowds and all... I can really take my time and try and get it right! I do have a telephoto lens but I might need a wide angle lens?!?! Not really sure on this but I do have a remote shutter release!

Another thing I am looking forward to photographing is my kids on the rapids! I have a water proof case and am hoping to shoot off a dozen or so photos of them riding in the hopes one or 2 come out really good (AKA one of those where the water is in mid air 1 second from drenching their butts LOL)

We have been to Disney more times than I can count over the years. With my old camera I would take about 2-3K worth of photos but never the night or dining ones would come out without too much grain! So this will be a photographic journey with kids ... I will be taking tons of pics as I love photographing Disney and my kids will be having fun doing what they do best.. I have started a game plan on in the park photos. I think my best bet is going to be to throw my camera on *P* and shoot in RAW. On the G10 the *P* (not sure about all cameras) is basically an auto but you have the option of shooting in RAW while *auto* is only Jpeg I think this will help me with thos fun family candid shots! I don't want to take 20 minutes to get all of the settings just right when we are all having fun ~ my family might hurt me LOL so the *P* on outdoor park stuff should work best for me.

The plan is to be out of the parks everyday between 1-5... this is the hot part of the day and the most crowded. Those 4 hours will be for napping/resting/swimming/resort fun. I have already talked to my loving sweet hubby and he has happily agreed to watch the kids for those 4 hours so I can practice some REAL photography! So for 4 hours a day it will be just me and my camera!!!!! I am on the monorail so I can visit all 3 monorail resorts (all of them stunning in their own way) and can hop down to magic kingdom for some photos as well without watching the kids or having them complain about my taking up too much time photographing everything LOL

I do have 3 8gb cards (one is an extreme 3) so I am covered if one of the cards fails. I am planning on using the extreme 3 for all kid/ride candid shots.... that way the read write speed will be better. The other two are kingston class 6's which aren't bad but not AS fast as the extreme3.

I also bought me a travel tripod at Wal-Mart. It sucks though so not sure if I will use it. It folds up really small but the legs don't click in right and the level is off =/ so much for my $12 tripod lol

Sorry this has gotten way too long but as you can see I am really excited about getting some great shots and tons of practice in while there this trip!!!!

[Kn1nJa]

I am almost as excited thinking about this trip as you are! I can't wait to see some of the awesome shots you get of some of the fun!

Also, I recommend testing out the hard drive now to see if it works properly, so that if you have to return it you will have ample time (newegg is awesome with returns .... very fast).

But yeah, I hope you have an awesome time and take lots of awesome shots!

[jdepould]

Originally Posted by Gonzo13

One thing that I do on trips is delete the pictures that aren't good at the end of the day. You might be able to find a cable that can connect the camera to a TV so that you can view the images on a big screen. I'm not familiar with the G10 personally but it should be able to do that. Then look them over show them off to the family and all that. I looked up the camera review on DPReview and it said that you can store about 47 raw images per gig. So 16 GB would be 752. I would say if you are thinking you will shoot more than 700 "keepers" to get a few 2 GB cards or an additional 16 GB card.

This is a very bad idea. Deleting images in camera, especially in the middle of your file sequence, can cause truncated files and missing data. The best thing to do is download to a drive, and do your edit on a computer. Reformat the card in the camera.