BootsnAll Travel Community

I am travelling to Europe at the end of this month for a 6-12 month working holiday, and I plan to buy a camera. I am thinking about buying a digital camera but want to know how hard/easy it will be to upload photos to the net at a cybercafe and email them home.

Can I just walk into any cybercafe with my camera and connection cords and plug in and start uploading? Do I need to bring my own connection cords? Do I need to worry about software? Will most cybercafes allow me to do it or do I have to find specific places?

The problem of internet cafes and flexibility is an interesting one.

My experience with internet cafes over the past two years throughout Australia and Europe has been mixed to say the least.

It varies from which place you go to from a single computer in the corner of a shop with a modem where you have fairly free range to use floppy disks etc to the large franchise places in larger European cities that offer a keyboard, mouse and screen with a code to access your account.

Some negotiation is required at these places, but I have offered a floppy disk over the counter that was uploaded to their server. From there I could browse to my info and upload or attach as emails.

While I haven't tried, I expect that plugging camera adapters into machines at these places would verge on the impossible...

What you can do is get CDs burnt of your digital images at some photo developing places, take the CD in and hand that over, but the cost is obviously going to be higher.

Hope this helps a little.

--
Rob
http://www.robstravels.com

Internet cafes (at least in Europe) rarely have the necessary widgets to download your digicam or burn CDs from them. The shops that CAN do this usually charge about half what the memory card itself cost. And the digicam files are so large they cannot be e-mailed en masse.

The good news is that memory cards have become downright cheap lately. These days you can buy a 256 MB memory card for less than $100. With a 2 MegaPixel digicam (less than $250), you will get superb 5x7" prints, and (with proper adjustments) you can store nearly one thousand pictures on this card. And the best part: most people discard (delete) half the pics they take. Since you can do this (erase) on the fly, that means you will be able to shoot two thousand pics with that $95 memory card!

My problem is that even a 256mb card isn't enough. My cam is 4mp and with all the sacrifices I'm willing to make on resolution and compression (does depend on the shot though), I only get about 400 pics on a 256 mb card.
I'll be going on a 3 1/2 month trip and I'll want to take atleast 3 times as many pictures. Some pics can be deleted right away. But I prefer to download pics first, and look at them before I delete them.
Fortunately, I'll be visiting relatives and friends along the way who do have computers at home and I'm planning on taking teh camera software with me to be able to download pictures. The question is, how do I store the pictures? I've thought about taking along a CD burner or zip drive but would prefer not to b/c of the extra weight and space and ahving to be careful with it. Are there any sites that provide free or cheap space? I've tried Yahoo - they only give 30Mb and uploading is a slow process.
I guess my backup plan is to buy 2 more 256mb cards.

Veena

Hi Veena,

More and more film development outlets provide for digital these days. You can take in your data card and get a CD of your pics. I'm sure that they can also delete your card for you to save on camera battery life as well.

I'd suggest getting two CDs done and posting one back home. Then, if you want to show someone your pics you can, but you have a backup copy in case of loss.

Of course, I have no idea of the cost and this would only be available in large cities.

Hope this helps.

--
Rob
http://www.robstravels.com

Another option is to get a digital wallet. Its basically a hard drive with a slot for you to plug your memory card. The only downside is that you are looking at around 300 bucks. But thats still cheaper per megabyte than compact flash cards.


Kyle

Hi,
I think what sarebare wants is more, than just storing the pics, it's about publishing them (either direct per email or generally on a website). For this purpose, external HDs and larger Memory Cards are useless.

I did this the first time in the Philippines this year. I brought the Driver CD and the USB cord. If the PC did have a USB plug, it was usually no problem to do what I wanted to do. But then I think, you'd have a harder time to do this in Europe, as the owners of Cyber Cafés might be more aware of the danger, that lies in letting users install software on the PCs.
The next time, I'd probalby also bring Photoshop or another image editing tool, as it was hard sometime so downsize the pictures with the installed Windows software. But then, I guess I'll travel/work with a mobile pc next time anyways...

Now, should you go digital. Well, as you've seen above, you propably won't be able to send your pictrues from every Cyber Café you go. But, if you have a traditional camera, you won't be able to to this at all. Therefore I'd say buy a Digital Camera.

Hope this helps.
Adrian
Adrians Travel Website

I too have been wondering about posting digital pics on websites while on the road(per elAdi's post). So, it's my understanding that there is really no way to get digital pics from your camera to a computer without somesuch software? Unless of course, you use Sony's camera with a floppy in it (any reviews on this one?)

I know that Sony offers this special little "floppy disk" adapter that works with their compact camera and allows you to download your digital pics through the "A" drive, but even still, you need to install some software AND it takes quite a while longer to download the pics then with a USB connection AND the little adapter needs a battery. Has anyone used this system? Is is effective?

Any other tips about downloading digital pics on computers in cybercafes would be much appreciated. Any tips on which cameras work well (for an amateur--I don't need to be no Leibowitz). simple being the operative word here

Thanks! And thanks elAdi about the Photoshop advice.

cs

in summation of what most people wrote and from personal experience i'd have to say the following..

uploading pictures from the road is fully dependant on where you are. by that i mean, if you go to a organized cybercafe like easyinternet, you're going to have difficulties installing drivers and whatnot if neccessary because of the intense security programs kiosk programs they have installed. though in paris and london i did notice that they had usb plugs available to plug in a peripheral.

in other countries such as india and morocco etc, it was fairly easy as the cybercafe's are dummy installs of windows 98 usually. as such, travelling with a cdrom or floppy of your drivers and a usb cable lets you plug in and upload in no time.

my recommendation is to hit up cybercafe's which are individual and not chains (ie: easyinternet). in paris, there's a greta one around the corner from easyinternet called cafe orbital. its pretty damn hip. if you so happen to end up there, tell them ken says hi!

cheers.
ken

I've been on the road for some time now and I've noticed that internet cafes in many backpacker destinations advertize CD burning for digital pictures. Some of these places are rajasthan in india, bangkok, bali, cairns etc. I don't remember teh prices, but ehy were affordable.
I didn't see this in E. Africa though.

I'm carrying 2 256mb cards and a compact flash card reader with USB cable to hook up to teh computer. And ofcourse blank CDs to burn the uploaded pictures.
The card reader worked fine when teh OS was Windows ME or XP but I couldn't get it to work with Windows 98 even though I had the CD with the necessary drivers. FOrtunately, I had the option to switch to a computer that did have ME or XP. So carrying the camera software CD might be useful as a backup.

I've taken 2500+ pictures and will be taking more before I get home. This would be very expensive with film despite the initial investment for teh camera/memory cards/extra rechargeable batteries/printer.

I got the full meal deal when I travelled - I used a laptop, and a combined digital video and digital still camera.

This allowed me to download photos from the camera to the laptop, write my own CD's whenever I wanted to, edit the photos using my own image editing software, and publish my own web site while travelling. Plus the kids got to watch the occasional bootleg DVD (VCD) in Thailand and Malaysia.

You pay a space and weight penalty carrying all this stuff ... and also have the worry about losing the camera & laptop in every hotel room. However we had no problems and I'd do it again the next time we travel.

I travelled for 7 months in Europe and N Africa. I started out with a 35mm. Most photo shops will develop film and burn a cd for you. I paid 10 Euro in Germany for 24exp. Not cheap, but I only took one roll of film for the first 5 months. I only took pictures of people, since the landscapes are usually the same ones that are in guide books.

While at Oktoberfest, after many many steinen, a japanese fellow handed me and olympus c-2020(year or two old model). After a call for Prost! I turned around and the dude was gone. So, a free digi, but no cables or directions.

After 10 sets of 4 AA batteries I finally figured the thing out... I kid you not... I had one brand new pair show up empty in the camera, but work fine in my flashlight. The AA batteries in small shops are poor quality (not US brands, and even if it says Alkaline, you can tell if they are good or not by the weight). The rechargeable NiCad or NiHM batteries were a lifesaver. Only $30 US for 4 AA and charger(US sockets).

Anyways, I took 300 pics in one month on 32mb card. I found one of the photo shops that will burn a cd straight from the memory card for $4 Euro. Thats for 32mb or 512mb, one cd is one cd. However, back in the states, I tried the same thing, Walmart, and they wanted 25cents per image. 75 bucks for a cd... I think not.

I later bought a usb card reader. Needs no software for XP, so if the cafe's have xp, I assume it should work. Hope the info helps...