For my 9 week trip to the UK and Paris I bought 2 x 2gb CF cards and a PD70X with an 80GB drive. I also had a sub-notebook (old Toshiba Libretto 100) with a 20GB drive. Another friend traveling with us had a laptop with a CD burner in it.
I was shooting with my *ist-D in Raw mode while my girlfriend had an Optio WR shooting large jpegs. We shot close to the same amount of frames (around 1100 for her, 1300 for me). I was copying off the cards to the PD70X, then from the PD70X to the Libretto (until I ran out of space). When I had the chance I copied to our friends laptop and burnt CDs. Our friend was with us for about five weeks and I ended up burning three CDs for my girlfriend and fourteen for me, which were then posted home. Although the files were in the PD70x and the laptop at some points both devices were in the same place, so it wasn't much of a disaster proof situation. The other thing that I found is that although there are many places that would burn CDs there was nowhere that I ran into that could burn to DVD. With around 17GB of raw files at the end of the trip DVD is almost a necessity. As much as I would like to avoid it, I think the next overseas trip will involve a laptop with integrated DVD burner. Anywhere in Australia is likely to be a shorter trip, so the CF cards and PD70x will be more than enough, but when you spend $10,000 on a trip you really want to make sure that your photographs make it home too. The only problem I had with the PD70x was that it wouldn't charge my Sony 2100ah Ni-MH batteries even although it was happy with the no-brand 2200 and 2500 types. They still charge in the SONY charger so I have no idea what is going on. FWIW I also traveled with a home made MF panoramic camera. I took along some out of date Velvia 50 and despite x-rays at Melbourne and Heathrow it looked fine. I had it developed at Metro films (near Sloane Square in London) who still offer a 2 hour turn around for E6 roll film, so it's not quite dead yet. Regards, Paul Ewins Melbourne, Australia
