Card readers.....

<p>Quick Question for you, I just got a nice 30d and was wondering if you all down load stright from the camera or do you use a "reader" to load from the card?<br>

Thanks<br>

Tim</p>

<p>Is this a poll? Or are you actually trying to figure out what might work better?</p>

<p>What works better!</p>

<p>I have used a card reader almost since the day I got my first digital. I find the camera cables to be annoying.</p>

<p>Card readers work better, at least if you want speed, unless you happen to have a camera with a firewire 800 connection. Even then, I'm not sure if that is faster. </p>

<p>Card readers are the proper way -- best practices, and all that. Since day one, like was said.</p>

<p>Card reader.</p>

<p>Card Reader, all the way.</p>

<p>If you have a computer/laptop with an ExpressCard slot, there are a number of companies that sell CF to ExpressCard adapters. I don't have a traditional USB card reader for comparison, but I can empty my near-full 8-gig CF card in under 2 minutes.</p>

<p>Since I usually don't have <em>that</em> many pictures and can take my time, I use the USB cable with my 5D. Less worrying about dirtying the CF contacts or breaking one of them pins.</p>

<p>+1 with Bueh. I transfer via cable when I only have a few images on the card. Having been buying CF cards for years I have a variety of smaller ones along with larger 4 and 8GB ones. If I know I'm just out to try a technique or an idea I'll take a smaller card and use that. I carry a bigger one in case I get into something unforseen. If I'm doing "special" I use a bigger card and transfer using a reader.<br>

Thinking about it, cards are pretty robust and the "risks" seem to be around bending pins in the camera so card size is probably irrelevant. On the other hand, I suppose there's always a chance that repeated plugging of cables into the USB port will weaken internal joints (as has happened with several laptops I'm aware of).</p>

<p>There are a lot of card readers on the market some are WAY faster than others - make sure you check out:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/reader_report_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9392">http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/reader_report_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9392</a></p>

<p>He's not been keeping it up to date lately - but it will give you some decent guidance</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Adding to the dogpile: Card reader...</p>

<p>That's helpful William. I'm surprised you feel the need to comment if you're not interested.<br>

Speaking personally, I've found one or two interesting ideas in this thread but perhaps that's just me.</p>

<p>Nowadays the only time I cable-up is when I'm doing remote shooting with live view, for specimen micrographs at work. Then I record both to the camera's card and the computer's hard dive simultaneously. Otherwise USB is just way too slow. The home image storing computer also has built in card readers, which adds even more convenience to the non-cable route.</p>

<p>Most computers/laptops have SD card reader nowadays, so I use an SD/CF adapter and use SD card. Granted, the writing speed of the SD cards are not as fast as CF cards, but I'm not shooting sports and I never use high frame rate mode, so this works for me. And I get to use the SD cards on my pocket camera. :D</p>

<p>If you buy SD card for this purpose, pay attention to the class. The higher the class, the faster the SD card. </p>

<p>I use a card reader for my CF and SD cards.</p>

<p>I did have one case where a CF card refused to be read by the card reader, but seemed OK in camera and I was able to download the images to my computer via USB cable to the camera (Canon 5D).</p>