|
Transferring your photos online
The initial question has to be transferring your photos to where? On the assumption that the pictures are initially on a digital camera, you have a couple of options.
- By Memory Card - using a card reader attached to your PC.
- By USB cable - plugging into your PC directly
- By Bluetooth - short range wireless to your PC or other device
- By Wireless - to your wireless network or device
- Firewire cable
Memory Card
Most digital cameras have a removeable memory card. As far as I know, only teh very old or very budget cameras do not. The most popular types of memory card are: SD, XD, miniSD, Sony Stick, Compact flash. Most card readers will read all the types with the exception perhaps of miniSD which often requires an adaptor. (it normally comes with one). There are no good or bad types of memory card, the only differences seem to be teh physical size and to an extent teh cost per MB. (mega byte). Cards come in varying sizes up to about 2Gb currently. Quite simply the bigger the GB (Giga Byte) the more pictures you can store.
USB Cable.
The USB cable is the most common cable type to connect cameras to PCs. Note that there are 2 types. USB 1 and USB 2. USB 2 is quicker and so you can transfer information faster. Dont worry too much though as a USB 2 camera will commincate using a USB1 port on your PC. Some cameras come with a USB cradle, which is essentially somewhere to plug your camera into to charge whilst giving you the option to download pictures.
BlueTooth
Getting more popular, bluetooth is quite good for getting pictures from camera to camera, or in my case phone to printer. I wouldnt tend to use it for transferring loads of pictures.
Wireless
Another growing method of transfer, but this does require a wireless enabled camera (not that many around yet) and a wireless network.
Firewire
Firewire is a bit like USB, it uses a single cable, but it is much faster. Firewire is often used for downloading video from digital camcorders to your PC. The most popular and reliable method to get your photos from yoru camera to your PC is using the memory card .
|