iPod for storing images

Guzzler · July 13, 2005

Has anyone tried to used the following products to store their digital images while on the road with your digital camera?

Belkin Digital Camera Link for iPod w/ Dock Connector

Belkin Media Reader for iPod w/ Dock Connector

Apple iPod Camera Connector (Not sure if this one works with the Cannon D-Rebel)

I'm starting to look for a new MP3 player, and was avoiding the iPod (don't ask), until I saw these addons.

ian408 · July 13, 2005

Have you looked at this?

Ian

digismile · July 13, 2005

I use the Belkin Media Reader with my 40Gb Ipod and have used it for both CF cards and memory stick. It is extremely easy to use - stick in your CF card, a little menu pops up and you start your download.

My only gripe is that is that the iPod uses a lot of battery power to save one 1GB CF card. You will run down the iPod before your run down the batteries in the Belkin device. I have 15 minute quick charge AAA batteries for the Belkin. I just wish the iPod charged that fast.

For me, this was a good solution because I was already a happy iPod owner. I just made sure that I was fully charged before dumping a bunch of photos. It worked flawlessly for about 8Gb of photos on my last trip.

Regards,
Brad

Guzzler wrote:

Has anyone tried to used the following products to store their digital images while on the road with your digital camera?

Belkin Digital Camera Link for iPod w/ Dock Connector

Belkin Media Reader for iPod w/ Dock Connector

Apple iPod Camera Connector (Not sure if this one works with the Cannon D-Rebel)

I'm starting to look for a new MP3 player, and was avoiding the iPod (don't ask), until I saw these addons.

gluwater · July 14, 2005

I was looking into the same thing and found a lot of comments like digismiles comment. Mostly that it consumes the batteries of the iPod very quickly and it is also a very slow process. I don't have one my self so I can't vouch for the accuracy of that comment, and I don't know exactly how long "a very slow process" is. That didn't help very much did it.

ian408: That looks really cool. I like that it has a built in CF reader and support for RAW. Do you know which RAW files it is compatable with, I couldn't find anything specific.

erich6 · July 14, 2005

The Epson P-2000 is compatible with the most popular RAW formats from Canon, Nikon, and Minolta. Look at their product documentation page and download the User's Manual for more info.

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&infoType=Doc&oid=48001&prodoid=49164278

Also, excellent review from Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape:

http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/P-2000.shtml

This puppy holds its charge for quite some time (11-13 1GB transfers) and displays great photos and plays MP3's/MPEG's.

Erich

ian408 · July 14, 2005

I've been thinking about the P2000 ever since I saw one a few months back.
I think it also gives you histograms.

I have an iPod but truthfully, I'd rather listen to music. I think any other
use might be too much for the battery (heck, it barely lasts the day to
begin with). My understanding of how iPod's work is that to conserve
battery, they spin the disk up, read data then let it spin down. Repeat
as required (lots of buffer memory I guess?).

Ian

JohnR · July 14, 2005

I had that Belkin one too and while it worked, it did suck the life out of the iPod.

I say go for the Apple connector. hooks directly up to your camera.

I like using my iPod for this as I can still listen to music and download photos. Make sure you take your home charger and get a car charger, that way you can recharge while sleeping or driving.

BBones · July 14, 2005

I have a P-2000 and I gotta say, I love it. Drop in your card and dump it, while it is dumping (a bit slow but still good) you pop in your next card and start shooting while it chugs away.

I will say, it does get a bit hot during that time so don't tuck it in your waistband. Put it in your bag or if you have loose thigh pockets put it in there.

Great battery time though and even though it says that it has to be hooked up to power while connected to your laptop I have never had a problem.

Another cool thing with it, for each card you put in to dump your images it makes another folder. So with me shooting 3 groups of racers it is really easy to put the pictures into their proper folders in post, just skip two and grab the folder then skip two more. Also cool if you have a card/day that you are using on vacation. No question on which day is which files.

Guzzler · July 15, 2005

The P-2000 looks great, but a bit more than what I need. So I went out today and bought an iPod (20g color).

Have to say that I'm not starting out very well... the damn thing died on me within 3 hours of purchase (hard drive crashed)

!! Exchanged it, and had a hell of a time getting my PC to recognize it. Just finished formatting and rebuilding my PC, and it's working, kinda. Copies some music, then fails. Reboot, copy some more, fail. I'm on my third attempt to copy 10 gigs of music.

The question I have for those who use the apple connector... is it compitable with the Cannon D300 Rebel? I couldn't find it on the supported list.

JohnR · July 15, 2005

Congrats on the iPod. Sorry to hear the problems...never heard of anyone having that type. Of course everyone I know has a mac.

As far as compatibility, I don't know.

photocat · July 15, 2005

Be careful if you use the belkin card reader and the ipod...
What I miss in the comments about the iPod getting drained from battery life is that if you are in the middle of transferring, and batteries go dead, you can loose all your pictures and and up with a corrupt card...
I won a belkin card reader and the ipod last year, but I never use it for pictures anymore after the first and last try...
Nothing is worth loosing my pics.
I would go for the P2000 (read nothing but good about that one) or take my laptop (which is what I do personally)

mercphoto · July 15, 2005

Guzzler wrote:

The P-2000 looks great, but a bit more than what I need. So I went out today and bought an iPod (20g color).

Have to say that I'm not starting out very well... the damn thing died on me within 3 hours of purchase (hard drive crashed)!! Exchanged it, and had a hell of a time getting my PC to recognize it. Just finished formatting and rebuilding my PC, and it's working, kinda. Copies some music, then fails. Reboot, copy some more, fail. I'm on my third attempt to copy 10 gigs of music.

The question I have for those who use the apple connector... is it compitable with the Cannon D300 Rebel? I couldn't find it on the supported list.

That's a very unusual iPod experience, for sure. When you say your PC would not recognize it, what exactly do you mean? iPods, by default, do not mount as disks. You need to fire up iTunes and configure the iPod to allow its use as a disk drive first.

ian408 · July 15, 2005

Wow Guzz. Try going to ipodlounge.com. Re-installing windows is way too
much work

I had a problem with the pc detecting the docked state of the ipod. A quick
tour through the lounge and I was good to go.

Ian

Guzzler · July 15, 2005

Oh, it gets even better!!!

I killed the second iPod!!

Transfered all my songs, played a couple of them, all was well. Until I noticed that somehow iTunes duplicated 90% of my songs and transfered the duplicates to the iPod. Example "Who Are you" and "Who Are you - The Who". Nice huh?

Well, thought about going through the iPod and deleting the duplicate songs, and though "That's going to take to much work". So I decided to "restore" the iPod back to factory using the updater software. It detected the iPod, and started to do it's thing then had 'Drive failed' error. And now it comes up with the folder with an exclamation mark. I've tried everything Apple says to do, and I can't get it back.

I'm going to mess around a bit more with it, then try taking it to the Apple Store to see if they can do some voodoo on it. But I bought the unit from Fry's Electronics.

Sorry to make this an iPod thread, btw. But I have had the worst luck with Apple products through my computer technician carrer (yes, I used to be an Apple tech. Many, many, many moons ago.)

ian408 · July 15, 2005

Guzzler wrote:

But I bought the unit from Fry's Electronics.

You can't buy the stuff with the Fry's sticker on it. Hopefully, you didn't do that

Round here, half the stuff on the shelf has been returned and bears the funky
return sticker (and is often missing parts)...

Ian

Phil U. · July 15, 2005

I bought the Apple photo connector to go with my 60gig iPod "Photo". It works well but sucks the hell out of the iPod's battery and has a slow transfer rate (not sure why so slow). The nice thing though is that it takes care of the iPod's photo database so you can view the photos after downloading them. If you have the cables to hook the iPod to the tv, you can use that. It's nice because the software is integrated so you control the whole thing through the iPod's interface. As soon as you plug in the little adapter, it puts you into photo import mode. Also, it doesn't delete any images from your card until after the download and you have to tell it to delete.

It's not going to be as ideal as a dedicated photo wallet device but I figured, what the hell, I've already got the storage space availabe, might as well use it.

mercphoto · July 15, 2005

Phil U. wrote:

I bought the Apple photo connector to go with my 60gig iPod "Photo". It works well but sucks the hell out of the iPod's battery and has a slow transfer rate (not sure why so slow).

Not sure either, but it does explain why the Belkin device is also slow and drains batteries. The problem apparantly isn't Belkin, its the iPod itself.

Does anyone publish a database comparing the transfer times of the various digital photo wallets?

Richard · July 15, 2005

mercphoto wrote:

Does anyone publish a database comparing the transfer times of the various digital photo wallets?

Check out this site compiled and maintained by Frederic Houde. It also has links to several other sites, some of which are translated from Japanese and just a tad difficult to follow.

I just recently bought a CompactDrive PD70X. It is a relatively cheap, no-frills drive/media reader with a built-in battery charger. No-frills means no LCD for viewing pics. The 60 GB model cost me about 230 Euros including delivery. It downloads a full SanDisk Ultra II 1GB card in a bit over 2 minutes, which is a lot faster than I can upload from my camera to my Dell laptop. This a second generation model that supposedly corrects some design problems in power management that the first one (PD7X) had. I have only done basic tests so far, but it seems to live up to its specs. I will be taking it on the road for a week of shooting in northern Spain and will report back on how it performs in the real world towards the end of July.

Phil U. · July 15, 2005

Oh, I forgot another drawback to the Apple photo connector - It seems that it only supports downloading from cameras not from card readers. This means that your camera is out of action while downloading. I don't know if the Belkin or others support card readers or not...

As for the power problems, there are vendors that claim to have batteries with significantly higher capacities that the original. One example: http://www.fastmac.com/index6.php

gsgary · July 16, 2005

I've just bought a Smartdisk Flashtax 20gb it stores photos, music,programs use as a hard drive has 3.5" coulor lcd shows historgram weight 12 oz it also comes in 40gb and 80gb the 20gb cost £169

Guzzler · July 19, 2005

Well I got the damn thing to work, finally. Had to connect it to my ancient IBM laptop that only has USB 1.1 on it. The Updater/restore finally worked. And now I can use it on my main system with USB 2.0.

I have a feeling that crApple has a serious bug in it's Updater software, or that they have not gotten true Fast USB certified. Maybe USB 2.0 compliancy, but not certified. Which is a huge difference in geek speek!!

I've found out that I am not alone with the issues with an iPod on a PC, the discussion forums on crApple, and iPodlounge are full of people on PC's with issues. crApples answer is to either get a new USB card or firewire that they certify will work. Which I think is crap! It's always been "their way or the highway!" (fyi, I was an apple tech many years ago).

I've been playing around with the iPod for couple of days now. To be honest, I am not that impressed with it, except for it's size and shape. It does feel good in the hand.

Phil U. wrote:

Oh, I forgot another drawback to the Apple photo connector - It seems that it only supports downloading from cameras not from card readers. This means that your camera is out of action while downloading. I don't know if the Belkin or others support card readers or not...

As for the power problems, there are vendors that claim to have batteries with significantly higher capacities that the original. One example: http://www.fastmac.com/index6.php

I kinda wished i read this sooner. Even though buried in crApples web site it says that you can use a media reader with it (but they won't specify brands or models).

I did get the camera connector and for what its worth, it does work with Canon 300D (Digital Rebel). And that if you put the camera in PTP transfer mode it does transfer the images faster. But it does suck the living life out of the iPod's and camera's batteries!!! And I wasn't even trying to transfer a full 512 Mb card.

I couldn't get the camera connector to work with just the CF card and my reader. Just says "No card inserted". There are rumors floating around that it might work with older USB 1.1 media readers, but it isn't worth the effort for me to find one.

So, I'm going to take back the camera connector. Hang onto the iPod, until my sister finally gets the crApple laptop she's been dying for, then give her the iPod as a present.

So, I guess I'm back to looking for a small MP3 player that can also read my pics off my CF cards for long trips. I will look at what everyone has suggested.

mercphoto · July 19, 2005

Guzzler wrote:

I have a feeling that crApple has a serious bug in it's Updater software, or that they have not gotten true Fast USB certified. Maybe USB 2.0 compliancy, but not certified. Which is a huge difference in geek speek!!

I've found out that I am not alone with the issues with an iPod on a PC, the discussion forums on crApple, and iPodlounge are full of people on PC's with issues. crApples answer is to either get a new USB card or firewire that they certify will work. Which I think is crap! It's always been "their way or the highway!" (fyi, I was an apple tech many years ago).

Sorry you're having so many issues on your PC with your iPod. In defense of Apple, there are very good reasons to have it "their way or the highway". You might have been an Apple tech years ago, but I was an Applications Engineer with Texas Instruments years ago. The crap we had to go through in our Compatibility Lab for our chip set designs was unreal. Once I saw Hewlett Packards lab for their network servers, which was very impressive indeed. And its all because the PC industry is a freakin' mess when it comes to standards. It still is.

I use Apple stuff, and I never have problems. When I was on a Windows platform it drove me up the wall. I'll takes Steve's highway anyday.

USAIR · July 19, 2005

Richard

rsinmadrid wrote:

Check out this site compiled and maintained by Frederic Houde. It also has links to several other sites, some of which are translated from Japanese and just a tad difficult to follow.

I just recently bought a CompactDrive PD70X. It is a relatively cheap, no-frills drive/media reader with a built-in battery charger. No-frills means no LCD for viewing pics. The 60 GB model cost me about 230 Euros including delivery. It downloads a full SanDisk Ultra II 1GB card in a bit over 2 minutes, which is a lot faster than I can upload from my camera to my Dell laptop. This a second generation model that supposedly corrects some design problems in power management that the first one (PD7X) had. I have only done basic tests so far, but it seems to live up to its specs. I will be taking it on the road for a week of shooting in northern Spain and will report back on how it performs in the real world towards the end of July.

Thanks for the great link good stuff here

Fred

Phil U. · July 19, 2005

Guzzler wrote:

And that if you put the camera in PTP transfer mode it does transfer the images faster.

Hmmm... I didn't think of that. I'll have to try it and see if it's any faster.

Sorry you're having issues. I LOVE my iPod and have not had a single issue with it connecting to my VAIO at home or my Powerbook at work (both using USB).

Guzzler · July 19, 2005

mercphoto wrote:

Sorry you're having so many issues on your PC with your iPod. In defense of Apple, there are very good reasons to have it "their way or the highway". You might have been an Apple tech years ago, but I was an Applications Engineer with Texas Instruments years ago. The crap we had to go through in our Compatibility Lab for our chip set designs was unreal. Once I saw Hewlett Packards lab for their network servers, which was very impressive indeed. And its all because the PC industry is a freakin' mess when it comes to standards. It still is.

I use Apple stuff, and I never have problems. When I was on a Windows platform it drove me up the wall. I'll takes Steve's highway anyday.

Yes, I know that "Compatiblility Labs" can be horrendious! And I know that PC world can be a nightmare for compatiblity. Been there, done that.

But I guess my point is, is if Apple wishes to enter the PC market (as advertising the iPod as PC compliant), they need stepup and make a better attempt to make sure that their products work as advertised. And yes, that means jumping head first into the muck and guck of all the weird and ugly.

mercphoto · July 19, 2005

Guzzler wrote:

But I guess my point is, is if Apple wishes to enter the PC market (as advertising the iPod as PC compliant), they need stepup and make a better attempt to make sure that their products work as advertised. And yes, that means jumping head first into the muck and guck of all the weird and ugly.

Hmmm.... hard for me to argue against that.

colourbox · July 19, 2005

Guzzler wrote:

I've found out that I am not alone with the issues with an iPod on a PC, the discussion forums on crApple, and iPodlounge are full of people on PC's with issues. crApples answer is to either get a new USB card or firewire that they certify will work. Which I think is crap! It's always been "their way or the highway!" (fyi, I was an apple tech many years ago)....So, I guess I'm back to looking for a small MP3 player that can also read my pics off my CF cards for long trips. I will look at what everyone has suggested.

I'm sure there are real problems, but I would have thought that if Apple hadn't already made an effort to test with a bunch of PC configurations, the iPod should have been buried under its well-funded competitors by now due to sheer negative word of mouth alone. Yet PC users keep snapping them up month after month even after seeing how their friend's iPod works with Windows. Also, forums are always full of problem posts, not a series of posts saying "works fine" "Works fine" "works fine". Yes, Apple should do better, but given the market response, either Apple's doing an OK job right now, or all the other music player manufacturers are doing that much worse.

Aaron Bernard · July 19, 2005

mine "works fine"

iPod for storing images

Comments