HELP with Lost Camera and Memories!

This happened to my mom and me as well. The camera fell out of her carry on bag on the plane in Amsterdam, but we didn't realize it at the time. It was only when we got home that we noticed. The best thing to do is to call each place that you stopped and talk to someone in the lost and found department. It is possible that a good person turned it in, but you need to be very thorough and contact every place that you stopped, even if you don't think you lost it there. This helped us recover the camera and all of the photos. Good luck.

Leslie,

If you're going to be in Siena for a few days, is there any possibility that one of you could pop back to Firenze. You may have better luck dealing with the "Lost Property" office in person rather than over the phone.

Unfortunately, it's doubtful that anyone would have turned this in (I hope I'm wrong). Was your name and address enclosed with the Camera anywhere?

Good luck!

Oh no! I really hope that you can get it back.

I tried calling the Lost and Found desk. (Numbers I found: "Lost and Found Via Circondaria, 17/b phone 055 328 3942 or 055 328 3943") but no one is answering :(

Leslie, I feel so sad about your loss--and yes, it's the photo memories, not the camera. I'd be devastated if that happened to me. Do pick up another camera right away if you've not done so already. It will be worth the money spent. Then you'll at least be able to capture memories from the rest of your trip. Don't wait for the camera you lost to show up so you can take more pictures. Even an inexpensive camera will be better than none.

For others--I advise using a relatively small-capacity card in your camera (1 gig or even smaller for JPEGs) and taking multiple cards. And don't think you have to fill each card--multiple cards half-full are better than a full one or two. That way you will not have all your photos on one card in case you lose a card/camera. Just be sure to put cards with pix on them elsewhere than in your camera case. It's tempting to use a large-capacity card so you can get all your photos of a trip on it. But, should you lose that one card... bye, bye to all your photo memories.

I was just thinking something along the lines of what George wrote. My 1st picture (digital camera) is going to be of a piece of paper saying "To the finder of my lost camera -- please keep the camera as my gift to you. All I ask is you mail the flash card with the pictures to me at XXX" and give my work (not home!) address. I dunno, maybe the finder/taker will have pity...

To Ben, the frame of mind you want to have is "single point of failure". So while you're plan sounds pretty good, there are still some possible failure points. For example: you've done everything you said, then on your flight back everything (drives, cameras, etc) is in your checked luggage and the luggage is lost. So carry-on at least one of the drives in your hand luggage. As a quick digression, even in industry coming up with good solutions is hard. One story is a business that installed a backup generator for some labs, and (rarer still) even tested it by disconnecting the city power. All was great, until the day the power really failed. Generator turned on, ran 5 minutes, then died. Turns out the fuel pump for the generator was on city power ...

Leslie,, over 23 yrs ago when I travelled around Europe with my best friend for three months,, I lost a ton of photos too. Its heart breaking

Back in the dark ages we used film.. and had to take it in to be developed. We decided to keep all our film and have it developed in Paris where we were spending our last week with my grandmother. She took all our film in.. and guess what ,, they lost about 10 rolls( with 24 photos on each roll) all together. They did produce some of the photos from some rolls they hadn' lost.. but, every time I look at my photo album from that time I am so sad.. so many missing pictures.. knowing that I have no pictures from an entire country sometimes... and, to make it worse , my friend died 3 years later..

The point is,, yes, I am so sad those pictures were lost,, but I concentrate on memories,, no one can take those from you, and you don't lose the good ones anyways..

Hope someone turned it in though.. good luck.

Please excuse me while I go jump off a bridge...

All of these stories are awfully depressing, especially yours Pat. So sorry, all of you. Hope you find your camera Leslie.

I'm probably next, and I know I'll be absolutely crushed if that happens to me. My honeymoon is in October in Italy, Spain, France, etc., and I'm planning on capturing a ton of video memories (my wife will be doing the still shots). My camcorder's internal memory can record 3 hours at the highest quality, and I have a back up SDHC card that holds another 3. Every night at the hotel I'm going to transfer the files from the camcorder memory and SDHC card to TWO 500GB "Passport" hard drives (yes, I'm paranoid about one of them going bad).

Hopefully this plan works well. At least if I do lose my camcorder or if it gets stolen, I will have every day up until that one backed up on my hard drive. Here's hoping...

My sympathies, not just for the lost photos, but also for the new ones you won't get (unless you buy another camera). The suggestion to use multiple smaller cards is a good one, especially if you do not keep them with your camera.

Some folks carry around a folded, 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper that has their name, address, cell phone number, etc., or some variation of that information in a large font. After formatting a memory card they make sure their first photo is of this sheet of paper. Supposedly if they lose their camera or the memory card and later it is found the finder has a way to contact them to return it. I don't know anyone who has actually been in your situation to see if this really works . . .

Good luck!

Mike, that is a fabulous idea!! I'm going to do that on every trip I go on for the rest of my life!! Good luck Leslie, i hope you find it!

Thanks for all the replies.

We are certain it was dropped in Firenze. We actually realized when we boarded the train heading to Siena, but by that time the train had already started moving. We got off at the first stop and made our way back to S.M.N station, but 15 minutes had already passed. Since the station is so busy we were sure that it was probably picked up by someone. We talked to both the police office and the customer service office at the station hoping that someone had returned it to lost and found. We were disheartened to find out that the Firenze station does not have a lost and found and there are no services or forms that we could fill out for lost materials. Knowing this I posted the question on this helpline with the slim hope that it may have been picked up.

We did purchase another camera in Siena so we will have lasting pictures of the second half of our trip. We've also started to write a journal for each day of our travels in Italy, going back to day 1 (something I've always meant to do on my travels). This will help preserve our memories.

Thank you for the comments and good advice. I will definitely be buying smaller memory cards from now on. Chances are that the photos are lost, but I will still maintain hope. Thanks all

Leslie,

One other suggestion for future travels.

I always travel with a "backup" Camera and try to take at least a few photos with it in each of the locations I visit. That way if my primary Camera is lost, I'll at least have a few images.

Digital Cameras are fairly inexpensive these days, as are Memory Cards. I tend to use larger memory cards with my dSLR as I need the capacity, but for a P&S I find 2GB is a fairly reasonable size (I like to have enough capacity for a few short videos as well).

Cheers!

One other suggestion for avoiding complete loss of your photos is to have prints and a CD made as you are traveling. I have done this in Arles, Avignon, Paris and London. This way you have something in the
case of camera loss. I also thought the idea of using smaller memory chips was a good one.