Ipod photo storage

Hi I am planning on going to Europe for 20 days and I plan on taking as many pictures as I

can. I will be bringing my 20d and my 1gb card and my 512 card and will be shooting in RAW

98% of the time. I will be backpacking and will be staying in hostiles, so I think I will have

access to outlets almost every night. I think I want to get an Ipod to store my photos, but I

hear the 20d compatabilty is poor, and 1gb of photos, can take an hour and a full battery.

Does anyone have experience with an Ipod or any other kind of photo storage. Anything else

I need to bring for photos. Thanks, Tim.

I would look into something made for the purpose. I've been looking at Epson p-2000 lately, but there are other, similar gadgets out there.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=WishList.jsp&A=details&Q=&sku=304035&is=REG

Tim

I used my 40gb ipod photo as my storage device last summer in Italy and it

worked perfectly. True, you will have to charge batteries, but while you're

sleeping, that takes care of itself. I took 1500 RAW images with my 20d and it

used up 11gb of the ipod. You will need a connector (buy at the apple store)

to plug your camera into the ipod. It took 15-20 minutes to upload 180-200

photos per night. I also bought a 5 outlet European surge protector on line

before I left - this really helped because I could charge everything from one

outlet (which is often all you may find in your room). You might want to get a

2gb card, they are pretty cheap and you can get 230 or so RAW images on

one card. Good luck and good shooting.

Marlowe

I never got my ipod to work for this reliably, lots of "ipod full" errors when it wasn't, lots of dead batteries during the transfer (do it early and often), general all-around hassle.

 

have a look at the compactdrive/hyperdrive if the budget's tight

I think a better solution is a dedicated device. I have a Wolverine 60GB that I use with my 20D cards. It cost $169 online at Costo. This device is made for the saving of images. It has seven different card readers built in and can copy a lot of cards on one charge. I have a 2GB card, a 1 GB card and a bunch of 256K's and I'm able to offload them all on a single charge easily (battery still shows full). Each RAW image takes 4 seconds to download so a 1 GB card with about 100 or so RAW images should be about 6 to 7 minutes. It has an international charger for 120V/240V. It comes with a very nice case. It has a USB 2.0 port to hook up to your computer and just looks like a hard drive. From Wolverine to hard drive is crazy fast, less than 1 sec per RAW image. The Wolverine also acts as a 7 card reader for the computer when plugged into the USB port. A few things that are a little crude is that the display is very basic, it does not show any image previews, just a very simple status -- like a CF card is plugged in or "56 files transferred", you can't browse the file folders although it places each different card contents in it's own folder. It is a little bigger than an iPod video, about the size of my palm pilot. The power adapter is not big but if the terminals folded (like my 20D) it would be better for transport expecially overseas. I find it works very well, it is very simple and has only one button "copy" other than on/off. You can easily offload images to it during the day in just minutes. Hope this helps.

 

Have a great trip!

Tim,

 

Although (as you saw from your responses) there are mixed reviews on using the iPod, this is one of those situations where it probably isn't worth the risk of depending on a really good music player to double as a photo storage device. Products like the Epson mentioned are meant for high speed photo storage plus have a nice-sized display for viewing the images. In your shoes, I'd spend a few hundred dollars for an Epson and not risk the iPod. I am an iPod owner and find it very slow for an sort of file transfer.

Sorry, forgot to mention, the other thing you can do is bring an inexpensive USB card reader with you and go to any photo shop and have tghem burn the images to a CD/ROM or DVD for very little money.

The main reason to get an iPod is to use it as an audio player. For that purpose it's excellent.

In fact, I use mine almost everyday for audio. However, if you only need it for one or two trips

per year it's pretty hard to budget the money for a dedicated "digital purse" you'll hardly use.

I use my iPod for one or two trips per year and found it worked fine, albeit a slow upload.

I didn't get any errors.

 

However, if you travel a lot, a dedicated storage device is faster for uploads and doesn't need

an adapter. If you buy one without a LCD you can save a couple hundred.

Have a look at the PD70X. Excellent well built unit, can download 50 gigs before recharging the batterys. I download a 1G CF card in less than 2 mins with mine.

The PD70X is the same as the HyperDrive, very well recommended. Mine will download my 80x 1gig Lexars in under a min, about 3min's if I verify. It costs a bit more, but it's a very good unit. It also runs on AA's, and include 4 AA nimh's and has a builtin charger.

 

Checkout www.hyperdrive.com

I use my 60Gb iPod with video, the Apple iPod camera adapter and the Belkin USB card

reader.

 

It isn't a field solution but a night at hotel one. Every night I connect the iPod to the card

reader through the camera adapter to copy the files from the cards. That solution it's

faster than "Belkin media reader", about 1 300D RAW every 2 seconds, if I remember

correctly. In about 5 minutes my 1Gb cards get copied. So far no problem.

 

Having enough cards for a day of photos, and having an iPod, I think it's a good and cheap

solution.

Tim,

 

Don't forget that if you are recharging an Ipod or other device that Europe works on 220/240 Volts and that there are at least two types of plugs in common use: 2 pin round plugs in much of Continental Europe and 3 pin rectangular plugs in the UK (and Ireland?).

 

Bill S

You shouldn't assume that you'll have access to an electrical outlet that is secure or in a convenient place. Do you really want to hang out in the bathroom for an hour or two while charging/downloading? Assuming that you'll shoot no more than 1.5 GB in a day might also be a mistake. On a recent trip to Japan, I sometimes shot up to 6 - 7 GB/day with a 5D.

 

I use a 60GB HyperDrive when I travel. It works pretty-much as advertised.

Bill's right.

 

Us Irish use the well designed and very safe three pin rectangular electrical plug that the UK uses. Too bad no one else does!

I have just bought an 80Gb Archos just for the very reason you mention. I will use it with a card reader and it will store both jpgs and raw. The advantage this device has it that it can show the jpgs on a 6 inch csreen so I can assess the days shots.

Get the right tools for the job!

<p>

Listen to music on an iPod. For your <i>valuable</i> images use something made for that purpose which will work faster and more reliably, like the <a href=http://www.compactdrive.com/>PD70X</a.

<p>

I just came back from a 5 week trip to India where I shot about 8gig worth of photos. I got the Archos AV500 and used that to download my solitary 1g card via a card reader, and it just worked fine. Not only is the Archos a great mp3 player, but the large screen and 30g storage makes it very suitable for video and photo viewing as well. The video was especially helpful for keeping my 2 year old toddler entertained at crucial times..Only thing is that I shoot jpegs, and I am not sure whether this device allows RAW viewing.

The Photo iPod is PAINFULLY slow.

 

For under $300 one can get a great image tank, like the HyperDrive HD80 which is the worlds fastest PSD (portable storage device) in regards to transferring speed.

 

The Epson's are TOO SLOW.

 

The Wolverine are TOO SLOW.

 

A tank does not require image preview capabilities. It's primary purpose is to back off your cards so that you can shoot another day.

 

View the images on your PC at home....on the road or on a trip, back them off, and shoos some more...

If you click on Giampi's link (thanks Giampi), you see that there's new MD80 available in May that's physically smaller, with the same high speed download, and plays MP3's and still runs off AA's.

 

The CompactDrive PD70X is exactly the same as the Hyperdrive HD80.

ok anyone know where i can get one of these hyperdrives or compactdrives in the UK? all the sites i find are for the US and basically i Don't want to end up thinking that's a great price then getting charge a fortune on import duty... up until now i'd been looking at the jobo drives but they seem quite slow

Have you checked: eastgear.com ?