on site printing help

I was asked to take photos and sell on site for a bike show. Just wondering how hard would it be to hook the camera straight to the printer to print pics? Also what would be the best cheapest printer for 8x10's that is fast without loosing quality? I dont want to buy a wiFi for my D200 and dont want to set up my computer and run cards back and forth.

How quickly do you need to get them printed and how many do you think you will be printing? One thing you could do is have an assistant download a card while you are shooting with a different one and download the photos to the printer. I did something sortof like that, and it worked ok

You could always see if you can rent the WT-3 (WiFi). If not then the easiest thing is to buy a printer with a CF slot and let your printer print whatever's on your card. You could always tether your camera to your laptop (in your backpack) and have the laptop save the photos on a computer connected to a printer (via WiFi) on a shared folder and have an assistant print whatever shows up on the shared folder. I used that method before I got the WiFi grip.

I plan to get a longer usb cord and hook it straight into the printer bypassing the computer for faster time . is this a good idea? do I have to shoot Jpeg or will the computer recognize RAW files?

I'm not sure if the printer would recognize the camera.

What I would do is hook the camera up to the computer via usb cord, and have the photos downloaded to "folder A". Have PS or another program running in the background that will scan that folder, automatically run an action (resize/crop to 8x10) and puts it into "folder B". Then with a

different program, you or an assistant can select it & hit print and you're all ready to go. If you're shooting with strobes/flash or something that you can shoot full manual with the same lighting, you could do a couple test shots, create an action of image adjustments (levels, contrast, saturation) that PS runs as well as resizing. The more you can automate, the faster it will be.

Oh, also make a backup plan. Last time I did this, I ran out of time for printing!

well I bought a HP photosmart C7280 for 175 bucks. It has built in wireless so I am thinking about useing my buddies laptop and connect the camera to that then wireless the pictures over. but I'll prob just do a card swap since I cant hook the camera straight to the printer . I have to take the pic then hook up USB cord then print, disconnect take pics hook usb. yeah to much work. I will prob take 5 pics at a time.

If you could get camera connected to the computer so it would automatically download & get the photos ready for you to just go over & hit print, it'd save you a lot of time. Otherwise sounds like a good setup.

It will be easy to forget when you do that much swapping of cards but I HIGHLY recommend turning your camera off when inserting or removing cards from your camera. You also need to get out of the program that reads your card before removing or inserting a card into your laptop, Jeff