Image Size and emailing from abroad

My eldest daughter is about to embark on an extensive overseas trip taking in Africa, Europe, Central and South America. She'll be taking a Canon Ixus 850 IS (or 800, depending where you live). As a pro photographer, I'm encouraging her to shoot as large a Jpeg as possible (no more raw, of course), but her main concern is to be able to email images home, as email will be her main form of communication with us.

With connection speed being an unknown in many of the areas to which she'll be travelling, she is probably correct in trying to keep image size down. However, ending up with her trip library being filled with barely printable images I think is a concern.

Anyone know of a way around this? I imagine, too, that she should be taking a small SD card reader to plug into whatever computer she uses for her emails?

Thanks,
John.

I'd shoot with the largest JPG of course.

Now does she have a lap top to take with? If it's a Mac simply load the images into iphoto and email selected images from that page. One would select the side to be say 600 pixels wide and then be able to send these small jpgs , up to ten-30 a time depending on the compression and your ISP provider's email attachment allowance.

If not a Mac, then you can do the same from iViewNedia Pro, which she should have on her laptop anyway. Then she can continually dscard duds and mark the keepers. Otherwise, at the end, one has 4,000-20,000 images to sort through!

Asher

Thanks Asher,
Unfortunately, there's no room for a laptop, I should have mentioned that. They'll be doing lots of trails, including the Inca in South America.
John.

O.K., John,

Retool brain! I'd be give her some kind of digital wallet to store the images. Can't be going without the backup. The chip should be 8GB and several might cover her needs. Find out what her shooting rate would be.

One could occasionally go to an internet cafe and transfer pictures to a set of DVD's. This may not be always convenient.

Mailing stuff home is not as critical, I'd think to not losing anything if the camera is lost or stolen.

Asher

Hi John,

If she wants to send e-mails then she must have Internet access, possibly by means of internet cafes. In that case, consider getting her a smugmug subscription (or maybe a pbase one). She can then upload the original jpg files without having to resize them first directly to her smugmug galleries (must take a usb card reader along as Asher has already suggested). You can then download/view the photos from your end. And all is backed up instantly when uploaded. Data vaults, DVDs or memory cards can be stolen, lost, broken, etc., and they even weigh some.

Cheers,

Beware of the Internet Cafes

I know too many people who have relied on dumping photos to CD/DVD at an internet cafe and found that the software didn't make the disk readable so they lost all their photos. Not recommended at all.

Internet cafe's might not be a viable option. The likelihood of finding a cafe with a high speed link is doubtful in many of the remote areas you've mentioned.The SD cards are so small and easy to transport that may be the best option. For the price of a portable file system you could most likely purchase quite a few SD cards.

Thanks everyone for very sound advice, covering different options. The unknown factor of a particular cafe's speed and reliability appears to be the greatest hazard to what she would like to do. Backup to a digital wallet makes a lot of sense, as does carrying plenty of cards and only downloading images and posting them when the situation is safe... all very logical to a working photographer really!

Very grateful to have feedback from those with experience, or friends with the same.
John.

Hi John,

Although not part of your question, don't forget plenty of spare batteries and battery chargers. You can always charge batteries if you have a 12V car type charger, if mains supply unavailable.

Would it not be easier to take a film camera?

Best wishes,

Ray

Thanks Ray,
Spare batteries & charger are in hand.
Suggest a film camera? I (emphasis here on the "I") can see your logic, but it's almost the equivalent of telling a 23 year old to send home hand-written aerogrammes! Besides, the Ixus is an amazing tool, and tiny. 35mm film, on a shot by shot basis, is volumetrically vast compared to an SD card.
Cheers,
John.