Variety of solutions can help boost digital camera storage

By Jefferson Graham
USA Today

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On-the-go storage Running out of space on your digital camera? These solutions can help. PORTABLE HARD DRIVE: The MindStor from Minds@Work allows digital camera fans to transfer photos from various types of memory cards to the unit's hard drive on the fly. MEMORY CARDS: Their prices have dropped by more than 50 percent in the last year, so buying a larger-capacity card can solve your storage problems. This SanDisk CompactFlash card can store several hundred pictures, for example. TINY PRINTERS: Canon sells a $249 portable printer that can crank out 4-by-6-inch prints wherever you happen to be.

Springdale, Utah, business owner Scott Pincus had a hunch travelers wouldn't have extra memory for their digicams and came up with a solution: "I download the images onto a CD, clear off their card and let them go out and shoot more," he said. "Every day, more people are coming in and doing it — about 10 a day, which is almost as many as are getting their film developed." He charges $15 for the service.

Look around this summer and you'll probably see a lot more people vacationing with digital cameras, among the hottest of today's tech toys. Consumers love seeing their pictures immediately after they've been taken, as well as not having to pay for film developing.

But solutions such as Pincus' spotlight the problems of traveling with digital cameras. Most of the cameras store images on memory cards of various sizes and formats; they're much more expensive than film, though they can be used over and over. But when the cards are full — introductory 8-megabyte and 16-megabyte cards that come with cameras hold only 15 to 35 images — pictures either have to be transferred or deleted. That's why many serious shooters tote laptops on vacation.

What to do if you want to leave your laptop at home? The list of options is growing:

• Carry a "digital wallet." Minds @Work (www.mindsatwork.net) makes a digital wallet — essentially a hard drive without a computer — called Mindstor. The $300 handheld unit holds 10 gigabytes and includes slots into which you can insert memory cards to transfer images. When you get home, you can transfer them from the wallet into your computer. The only snag is that the Mindstor doesn't include a preview monitor to see the images and confirm the transfer. (They are referenced by file name.)
• The just-released Archos Jukebox (www.archos.com) solves that problem but is pricier at $400, plus $50 for a photo adapter. It's similar to the Mindstor but has a 20GB hard drive and can be used as a digital music player. Also new, the Nixvue Vista ($449 for 5GB, $649 for 30GB, www.nixvue.com) works like the Mindstor but has a built-in, color liquid crystal display screen.
• Bring in your memory cards to get "developed." The photo industry is working hard to persuade digital photographers to drop memory cards off at labs, as with film, and have prints made. Retail chains such as Wal-Mart and Ritz Camera offer the service, although the printless "download" that Pincus provides is still rare. Some stores, if you have prints made, will offer to save the files to CD for an additional $5 to $10.
• Take a tiny printer. Canon's $249 CP-100 (www.usa.canon.com) plugs directly into Canon cameras and makes 4-by-6-inch prints without going through a computer. Best of all, it's only 18 ounces, about the size of a portable CD player, and can fit in a camera bag. Hewlett-Packard's $179 Photosmart 100 (www.hp.com) — smaller than a shoebox and compatible with any camera — makes 4-by-6 prints directly from memory cards, again without a PC. Print out your work in your hotel room or campground and have it scanned to share with friends and family via the Web at a local cybercafe or when you get home.
• Carry more memory cards. This is a cost-effective option because memory cards have fallen in price by 50 percent or more during the last year. A 64-megabyte card, which now costs $30 to $40, stores about 150 images on a 2-megapixel camera. A 128-megabyte card holds about 300, and it can be found for as little as $70. Either card probably can store as many images as most vacationers take in a single trip.