We tried something new on our recent trip - using Amazon's Cloud Drive (free with Prime membership, or $11.99/year - I don't know what the options are for people outside the US) as a backup for our pictures while we were traveling. Our primary goal here was that if one of our cameras was stolen or lost, or a memory card died, we wouldn't lose the pictures we took, or at least limit the damage. It worked very well, so I thought I'd share our observations from using it, in no particular order. (Note, we have iDevices, and I assume the Android apps are similar but haven't used them.)
1. First, you have unlimited storage for photo on Cloud Drive, and raw files from Nikon count. (My wife's Olympus' camera's raw files didn't, though. We usually shoot JPG with that camera anyway.) So, no worries about fees or running out of space. This also means there's no rush to get them off for fear of being charged more. Videos count against your 5 GB space allocation.
2. We used an adapter to read our SD cards with our iPads, imported the pictures to the iPad, then uploaded them using the Amazon Photo app. This required us to have Wifi, but most places we stayed at did. No need for a laptop, which was a nice weight and hassle savings.
2a. In some cases I didn't upload every picture I took, especially if the Wifi seemed to be slow. For example, when I'm taking a picture of a car, locomotive, airplane, etc., in a museum, I'll also take a picture of the sign that shows what it is, for later data entry. Sometimes I didn't upload the pictures of the signs.
2b. The upload can take some time, even on a fast connection. It wanted to keep our iPads awake, which meant you'd want to plug it in if you're uploading more than a few photos. (I think if it still uploads if the tablet is asleep, but slower.) We would often start it then go to bed. It will let the tablet turn off when the upload is finished.
2c. On a related note, for several reasons, it's best to upload your new pictures as soon as possible, lest you run into Slow Wifi Inn and it takes 12 hours to upload. Or, the internet isn't working at one hotel (incidentally, this happened only at the MOST EXPENSIVE HOTEL WE STAYED AT on our trip). Plus, by waiting longer than necessary, you increase your losses if something does happen to your camera or memory card.
3. My wife accidentally deleted the pictures off her SD card after importing them the first time. So, be careful about doing that. This has nothing to do with Amazon; she accidentally hit "remove" instead of "keep" after the import. Fatigue definitely played a role - it was only our second or third day there and we were on the go a lot, and still adjusting to a 6 hour time change. We put that SD card aside and didn't use it again during the trip, and I was able to recover all of the pictures after we returned. Consider switching the SD card to read-only when you plug them into the tablet.
4. It does require space on your tablet; if you have limited storage you might be frustrated. Try it and see how it goes. Worst case, you'd import some, upload them, remove them from the tablet, then repeat until you're done. If you're short on space, save yourself some headaches and import only those pictures that are most important. If you have an Android tablet that has a slot for Micro SD cards, theoretically you could use that with an adapter in your camera, then plug it in to the tablet and upload away, skipping the need for import. I don't know if it really would be that simple, but it seems like it could be. (It's been a while since I've used Android, and my Android tablet didn't have a card slot.)
5. The Amazon Photo app isn't bad but could use some improvement - I found it annoying that there was no way to see which pictures weren't in an album already. (My wife uploaded pictures that had nothing to do with our trip, so I had to wade through those.) It also didn't seem to have a "select all" ability, but you can tap and drag to select photos, so it wasn't too bad to select a full screen of pictures for upload, then scroll up and select the next screen.
5a. However, it does have a way to look at pictures only from a given device, which was very handy - for example, I knew all of the pictures from my iPad would be from the trip, so I could easily add them to the correct album in Amazon Photo.
6. The Amazon Photo app didn't interpret the NEF files; it only displayed the embedded JPG preview, so they look like a blocky mess in the app. We didn't mind considering the goal was backup only, but if you're planning to use them for showing off keep that in mind (might be a good time to use the RAW+JPG option).
7. It was an easy way to get pictures and videos we took with our phones on to a real computer after the trip. It's easy enough to download the pictures using a browser on the computer.
8. It has also been convenient to be able to pull up random pictures on my phone to show people. However, if you're going to do this, do yourself a favor and put things in multiple albums in the Amazon Photo app. As it is, I find myself scrolling through ~1700 pictures to get to the one I want. At least they are sorted by time...
9. When importing on the iPad, it was easiest to do the import, then go to the "Last Import" album, and put all of those pictures in a new album each time. (I was doing "Germany 2016-1", then "-2", and so on, but you could also use dates or whatever works.) Then, in the Amazon Photo app, you can easily select the album then select all of the pictures in there to upload, rather than having to remember which ones you already uploaded. (This is another spot where the Amazon Photo app could be improved.)
Anyway, I thought I'd just share our experience with it. Fortunately, we didn't need our backups, but if we had we would've been very glad we did this, and I'm sure we'll do it again for major vacations in the future.
We also looked at using Google Drive for this, but the free storage for photos with Amazon pushed us that way.
1. First, you have unlimited storage for photo on Cloud Drive, and raw files from Nikon count. (My wife's Olympus' camera's raw files didn't, though. We usually shoot JPG with that camera anyway.) So, no worries about fees or running out of space. This also means there's no rush to get them off for fear of being charged more. Videos count against your 5 GB space allocation.
2. We used an adapter to read our SD cards with our iPads, imported the pictures to the iPad, then uploaded them using the Amazon Photo app. This required us to have Wifi, but most places we stayed at did. No need for a laptop, which was a nice weight and hassle savings.
2a. In some cases I didn't upload every picture I took, especially if the Wifi seemed to be slow. For example, when I'm taking a picture of a car, locomotive, airplane, etc., in a museum, I'll also take a picture of the sign that shows what it is, for later data entry. Sometimes I didn't upload the pictures of the signs.
2b. The upload can take some time, even on a fast connection. It wanted to keep our iPads awake, which meant you'd want to plug it in if you're uploading more than a few photos. (I think if it still uploads if the tablet is asleep, but slower.) We would often start it then go to bed. It will let the tablet turn off when the upload is finished.
2c. On a related note, for several reasons, it's best to upload your new pictures as soon as possible, lest you run into Slow Wifi Inn and it takes 12 hours to upload. Or, the internet isn't working at one hotel (incidentally, this happened only at the MOST EXPENSIVE HOTEL WE STAYED AT on our trip). Plus, by waiting longer than necessary, you increase your losses if something does happen to your camera or memory card.
3. My wife accidentally deleted the pictures off her SD card after importing them the first time. So, be careful about doing that. This has nothing to do with Amazon; she accidentally hit "remove" instead of "keep" after the import. Fatigue definitely played a role - it was only our second or third day there and we were on the go a lot, and still adjusting to a 6 hour time change. We put that SD card aside and didn't use it again during the trip, and I was able to recover all of the pictures after we returned. Consider switching the SD card to read-only when you plug them into the tablet.
4. It does require space on your tablet; if you have limited storage you might be frustrated. Try it and see how it goes. Worst case, you'd import some, upload them, remove them from the tablet, then repeat until you're done. If you're short on space, save yourself some headaches and import only those pictures that are most important. If you have an Android tablet that has a slot for Micro SD cards, theoretically you could use that with an adapter in your camera, then plug it in to the tablet and upload away, skipping the need for import. I don't know if it really would be that simple, but it seems like it could be. (It's been a while since I've used Android, and my Android tablet didn't have a card slot.)
5. The Amazon Photo app isn't bad but could use some improvement - I found it annoying that there was no way to see which pictures weren't in an album already. (My wife uploaded pictures that had nothing to do with our trip, so I had to wade through those.) It also didn't seem to have a "select all" ability, but you can tap and drag to select photos, so it wasn't too bad to select a full screen of pictures for upload, then scroll up and select the next screen.
5a. However, it does have a way to look at pictures only from a given device, which was very handy - for example, I knew all of the pictures from my iPad would be from the trip, so I could easily add them to the correct album in Amazon Photo.
6. The Amazon Photo app didn't interpret the NEF files; it only displayed the embedded JPG preview, so they look like a blocky mess in the app. We didn't mind considering the goal was backup only, but if you're planning to use them for showing off keep that in mind (might be a good time to use the RAW+JPG option).
7. It was an easy way to get pictures and videos we took with our phones on to a real computer after the trip. It's easy enough to download the pictures using a browser on the computer.
8. It has also been convenient to be able to pull up random pictures on my phone to show people. However, if you're going to do this, do yourself a favor and put things in multiple albums in the Amazon Photo app. As it is, I find myself scrolling through ~1700 pictures to get to the one I want. At least they are sorted by time...
9. When importing on the iPad, it was easiest to do the import, then go to the "Last Import" album, and put all of those pictures in a new album each time. (I was doing "Germany 2016-1", then "-2", and so on, but you could also use dates or whatever works.) Then, in the Amazon Photo app, you can easily select the album then select all of the pictures in there to upload, rather than having to remember which ones you already uploaded. (This is another spot where the Amazon Photo app could be improved.)
Anyway, I thought I'd just share our experience with it. Fortunately, we didn't need our backups, but if we had we would've been very glad we did this, and I'm sure we'll do it again for major vacations in the future.
We also looked at using Google Drive for this, but the free storage for photos with Amazon pushed us that way.