Photography while travelling, RAW files, and blogging with an iPad

This may be old hat to some of you, but it's new to me. I'm experimenting with travelling with just an iPad and using it to process RAW

images on the hoof and post them on a more or less daily basis on my blog over the course of ten days while I travel in the Crimea,

Ukraine. I'm using a first generation iPad, so it's slow and creaky and crashes a lot, but it seems to work, just about, at least for four or

five images a day. Any more than that and I'd go mad, but any more than that and probably anyone reading my blog would go mad too.

 

I'm actually travelling with medium format film cameras, but thought I'd take along a Fuji X100 as an extra Obviously I can't blog whatever

may be on the medium format - but it's nice to have a surprise (hopefully a nice one) waiting when I get home and develop the films.

 

I've blogged the first couple of days here: www.simoncroftsphoto.com/blog (sorry, I can't work out how to make this an active link on the iPad Safari interface). Hopefully I'll be able to find internet connections to keep it up over the next week. Let me know what you think!

 

For those who are interested, I've been downloading the RAW files via camera connection kit, converting them to jpegs in PiRAWnha,

giving a tweak in Snapseed, then posting them using WordPress app.

 

If anyone has a better way of doing it, I'm all ears! One side benefit is that it gives me a running back up of a selection of the RAW files.

 

Simon

<p>You're the first person I've encountered who has used PiRAWnha. I got a review copy of it a while back, and didn't think it was productive because it was too slow on the iPad and you didn't see the effect of the sliders in real time.</p>

<p>I have traveled many times with my iPad and posted JPEGs on Facebook that the iPad extracts from the raw files I imported with the Camera Connection Kit. The JPEGs were good enough to post. I assume they are more-or-less equivalent to what the camera would show on its LCD.</p>

<p>This also gives me an in-the-field backup, although space on the iPad is very limited. It's enough for me, but wouldn't be enough for a heavy shooter.</p>

<p>I doubt that many people would want to put up with what you put up with. (PiRAWnha may be better on the newest iPad, but, like you, mine is the original.)</p>

<p>Incidentally, the new Chromebook won't work for this at all, as it can't show the JPEGs from raws. On the other hand, it's a better backup device than the iPad because you can attach USB drives (even USB 3). A solution for traveling with a Chromebook is to shoot raw+JPEG.</p>

<p>The real answer is a MacBook Air or equivalently-small Windows laptop. An Air is 4X the cost of a Chromebook, and maybe 2X the cost of an iPad. Much more useful than either, of course. It runs Lightroom, Aperture, etc., etc.</p>

That's interesting Marc, thanks for your input. The PiRAWnha certainly slows things down on the iPad1 and I wouldn't

want to process a lot of pictures on it. There is a limited real time preview facility on it for certain changes, that may not

have been in earlier versions, though the preview is in a smaller window than the main one.

 

On the iPad versus MacBook Air issue, I prefer the iPad for a number of reasons. One of them is weight - I can slip the

iPad into my camera bag without suffering too much. The Macbook Air would have to be left at the hotel. Which would

introduce security issues and would mean I couldn't work during pitstops during the day. Ultimately, the iPad is worth less,

so less risk when travelling. But also a lot of the uses that I require when travelling need drawing abilities (making

sketches and diagrame, marking up documents for clients etc.) which I couldn't do on the Air. There are other

conveniences, like using expense tracking apps on the iPhone which synchronise automatically to the iPad and so on. I

also type a lot, and so carry an Apple bluetooth keyboard which works beautifully with the iPad - I can leave the keyboard

behind during the day without risking too much. And I don't like the Air's tiny horizontal screen. So all in all, the iPad suits

my workflow better, and allows me to do more, than the Air. The main downside of the iPad is of course processing speed and not

being able to back up photos outside the iPad.

 

Sorry for the slightly long explanation, but I thought it worth sketching out why I'm not sold on the Air.

<p>Wow, I can't imagine doing this every day! And then going home and processing film, and I assume scanning it so you can process it in Photoshop? Man, you must have nothing to do! Then again, you're traveling in the Ukraine, and I'm just motoring around the South in the US.</p>

Photography takes time, like most things that are worth doing. If we don't have any spare time at all, then we're probably

not going to be doing any photography.

 

So far, the iPad processing hasn't taken long, about 30 or 40 mins a day which I do while having lunch or a coffee, so not

really extra time.

 

Scanning the films when I get home is a very big job, yes. But worth doing. Then again, the typical wedding might involve

80 - 100 hours or so of work including post processing, so scanning the films from a trip isn't so bad by comparison.

 

Marc, I've been trying skipping the PiRAWnha stage like you do and that's working well - except of course for files that

need a colour balance or exposure adjustment, so that's going to save me fiddling, thanks!

Simon,

 

If the photos just need a little touch up, there are some great iPad apps that can do light editing on a JPEG. Just yet

another thought.

I've been using Snapseed and Filterstorm, which seemed pretty good within their limits. Filterstorm in particular seems

quite powerful, but not as fast to use as Snapseed. Have you come across anything else/better?

<p>I used my iPad and a Canon G10 to blog a recent sports tour of Italy. In the end, all I did was download the images I was interested in using a generic camera adapter that had an SD slot, write the blog on blogger and upload on whatever hotel wifi was available.<br>

I could have taken compact flash card reader to download photos from my 5D2, but I kept is relatively simple and shot RAW+jpg. I also didn't do much with the photos. It's astonishing how quickly you can fill even a 32G iPad with photos.</p>

 

<p>this thread may have gone a bit cold.. but I have some info to add that you all may find useful.<br>

I am headed to SE Asia for 5 weeks of backpack travel... and tons of photos. <br>

I am trying to travel as light as possible... so the 5Dmk2, and all it's nice expensive glass have been set aside. Same goes for the 15" laptop.<br>

In their places I am taking a new Olympus E-LP5, with it's crappy kit lens and 2 nice pieces of glass.<br>

The laptop will be replace by my iPad 4.<br>

But the little box of magic that makes this a workable solution is the Seagate Wireless Plus portable external 1TB HDD. The drive runs for 8-10 hours on batteries, and has a wifi radio built in...<br>

So, out of the box, I can shoot all day, transfer photos from SD to iPad, and then from iPad to External drive... then erase from iPad to free up space. Pretty nice, huh?<br>

But even better is that some smart young people have hacked the drive's firmware, so that I will be able to use my EyeFi card to transmit photos directly from the EyeFi to the Seagate HDD...<br>

Once they are on the Seagate, I can open them, adjust them and save them back to the Seagate...<br>

And if that's not enough... 3 people can stream HD content to their iPads at the same time... or 8-10 can browse photos (different photos) on their iPads/phone at the same time...<br>

enjoy!<br>

Now, if I could just find a good RAW solution for the workflow I would be all set... any suggestions?</p><div></div>

<p>I have a similar issue. I'm going to Europe for several weeks. I am not taking a laptop, but I am taking my iPad 3. I want to be able to back up my RAW images while I'm on vacation. The Seagate Wireless Plus does not accept RAW files. I'm looking for a solution. What I'd like to do is to copy my RAW files from my compact flash card onto my iPad 3 and then either from there to an external hard drive or to a Cloud server. I don't want the RAW files to get modified during any of the steps. Anyone have any suggestions?</p>

<p>Guess I'll throw in a "me too". I'm about to do a 3 week trip to America and I'd like to only take my iPad so need to figure out how to download and at least back up to a hard drive and hopefully be able to at least post some images to the blog. Although, perhaps for the blog - in the time I have, I'll also do iPhone shots, use diptych or Photoshop touch for easy edits.</p>