as an eternal part-time photographer : I always carry a second back-up camera body on photo-shoots aside from several lens and extra flash . ofcourse you would have enough batteries and even a charger just-in-case . but the memory card is catchy, for you regularly take it out to insert into your computer to move picture files . so what do you do if you find your memory card slot empty when you arrive on a shoot location in South Korea ?
- if you’re out of the city in a park : drive or take a taxi to the nearest super-mart, because they will have an array of choices at their electronics department – for after the Third Millennium enormous super-marts have sprung-up around most concentrated rural areas, as these are too large to stick-up in the middle of large city such as the Capital of SEOUL .
- if you are in a populated district in SEOUL where many photography studios are spread-out, many on lease to take pictures for numerous independent shopping malls : walk-around in the course where you can come across as many convenience stores as possible – for availability differ from branch to branch .
[ CONVENIENCE STORE BRANDS ]
although SanDisk has announce December 2010 they will sell their flash memory at Korean Family Mart and GS 25, one in a small alley only had a single USB memory . and although 7-11 don’t list memory cards on their sale list, one in a small alley didn’t have any, while one in a shopping street had a MicroSD card with SD adapter which will fit into a DSLR camera . so you should verify each branch if they have one, instead of a specific brand because they seem to differ from branch to branch .
telecommunication carrier branches and fancy shops which sell cute cell phone cases would have memory but ONLY in the smaller MicroSD format for Android phones, and they won’t have an SD Card Adaptor so this won’t be any use for a full-scale camera nor even compacts .
[ MAP APPS ]
in all cases above : you will need a popular map app so that you can lay out a quick plan on which direct you should head-out in search of as many convenient stores as possible – futile to mention one specific app for their workings differ upon operating system version, so search for a popular app and install regulary . downloading apps will take band-width so do it at your office or home on Wi-Fi, or else you will have to use your limited and precious cellular date on 3G or even LTE networks .
in the end, you will only find a very basic model with low capacity but that is what you need now : cheap and for future back-up . plus another alternative if you use an Android phone instead of iPhone : is to carry a MicroSD-to-SD Card adaptor, so that you can use that MicroSD Card inside your SamSung Galaxy or LG Optimus G Series .
– Korea Tech BLog –
