bill_keane2 Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 I have a D200, and will be travelling to a fairly isolated area for a month. Checking out CF cards, Sandisk has a Firewire reader bundled with a 4GB Extreme IV... Is there an advantage, or even advisability to using a card reader, instead of going straight from the camera? Also, I am going to need an external portable HD. There's a Seagate 160GB that looks great, any thoughts, or preferences in another direction? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Laur Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 Using a reader is, in my opinion, always a good idea. We had a discussion on this <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00L7TQ"><b>right here</b></a> just the other day. <br><br> As for your external drive... are you talking about something you'll be bolting onto a laptop, or something that would have a built-in card reader and act as a stand-alone unit? Things to think about with external drives and laptops: does the drive get its power from the laptop (over USB, for example), or does it have to have its own power supply? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 I assume you have a laptop with you on this trip and have some way to charge it. In that case, a small external hard drive or two should work. At home, I have several external Seagate hard drives and they have been working fine. For the mini external drives, I have been using Western Digital "Passport" drives that is powered through the USB connection such that it does not require yet another power supply. I have had two 80G Western Digital drives for 2 years and they have been working fine. In fact, last week in Brazil, I accidentally dropped on onto a hard floor and it continues to work fine. This year I added a 160G one; it is smaller (and of course cheaper) than the 80G ones I bought 2 years ago. I bought all of mine from Costco. The 160G is about $130 and of course those prices are dropping: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136060 Keep in mind that your images are not really "safe" until you have them on two separate hard drives, one of which could be in your laptop. Or you need to burn some DVDs. Given memory cards are so inexpensive now, simply buying sufficient cards to last the entire trip will soon be a valid option. If you don't mind spending $500 on fast depreciating CF or SD cards, I would say it is already an option now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_in_PA Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 If the hard drive is to connect to a computer, get the biggest stinkin' thing you can afford! I used to say "Always use a card reader" but a good friend of mine who has a Digital Rebel with a CF slot just recently bent a pin on the slot (Canon was gracious enough to fix it under warranty, btw) so I'm not so sure anymore. btw, that's what I LOVE about SD cards. Small, light, and NO pins to bend. But it's really hard to bend a pin, I was amazed that she had done it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 It is not that hard to bend a compact flash connecter pin. I haven't done that on a camera but have done it a few times on a cheap card reader. If you buy some cheap CF card that is slightly off spec or if you have some dirt that clogs one of the CF holes, you can easily bend a pin. As soon as you do that, your camera is totally disabled. That is why we need backups on trips and also why I prefer SD cards. For spare CF cards, I would always keep them in their plastic case to prevent any junk from getting into those tiny holes. It is not likely to happen but once it does, the result is a total disaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph_smith3 Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 I recommend that you have two places to store your images. You should always have a backup. I use a laptop pc and a Hyperdrive portable hard drive. Many of my friends use two hard drives. I also recommend you download the images from the cards to the pc or to the hard drive. The current model of the Hyperdrive is the Space. Here is a link to it: http://www.hypershop.com/shop/index.php Joe Smith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph_smith3 Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 I use a card reader to download the images from the cards to the pc. Joe Smith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_keane2 Posted May 23, 2007 Author Share Posted May 23, 2007 I will have a laptop. So my thought was using its HD as well as a portable (powered off the USB). My bias was to go with a Western Digital or Seagate. The newest Seagate uses 1 USB for power and another USB for data transfer. I may just download images via the D200 to save space on gear I really don't need... Thanks for the help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 Bill, I can highly recommend Western Digital Passport portable drives. They only use one USB connection for both data tranfer and power. That was one of the reasons I didn't get the Seagate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_keane2 Posted May 23, 2007 Author Share Posted May 23, 2007 Thanks Shun. The WD has a cache of 2mb, while the Seagate/Maxtors have an 8mb cache. A salesman told me the duo USB was better to ensure full power to the drive... Was I being snowed? Obvously the main thing for me is use-ability and reliability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 Bill, the purpose for these drives is to store your images and bring them safely home. They are not intended for any high-performance, demanding applications. Back in 2005, I bought two 80G ones before my trip to Madagascar. Earlier this year, I added a 160G a couple of months before going to Brazil. Those 3 drives have been working flawlessly. In Brazil, I made 3 copies of each one of my images and stored them in the 3 drives. To keep a copy with my all the time, I put one of the 80G drives in my jacket pocket, but I accidentally dropped it from the pocket. It landed on a hard floor but doesn't even have a scratch. My wife shoots high-definision video and since we had the disk space with us, she dumped a lot of her video onto the 160G drive and she has been editing her video on that drive. It seems to be working just fine for her. For video editing, performance is a lot more demanding than storing still images. The Seagate drives could be good as well. As I said, at home I use a lot of Seagate drives. But I know the Western Digital Passport drives are good, so I recommend them. But there are probably other alternatives that are also as good or perhaps even better. By all means you are welcome to give Seagate a try. My laptop has only 2 USB ports. While I can add an extension to have more, I would rather not use them both up for the hard drive alone, as I need 1 port for the memory card reader and another 1 for the external mouse. And if I want to copy from 1 external hard drive to another, I sure don't want to use up 4 USB ports. Whatever you use, I would have at least 2 copies of each image file on separate physical devices. Next time I drop a hard drive, I might not be as lucky as this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_keane2 Posted May 23, 2007 Author Share Posted May 23, 2007 Thanks Shun. I value your opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 Again, I would like to emphasis that I am merely offering one suggestion because I have some experience with it. By no means that is THE only solution, as there could easily be better ones. And the field of digital photography is changing rapidly. I am quite sure that by the time I have my next international photo trip, which will likely be a year or two from now, memory cards will be so cheap that I'll simply bring enough 8G or 16G cards such that I'll never need to format and reuse the same card in the entire trip. Therefore, backing up onto a hard drive will no longer be that critical. You'll probably still want to do that just in case you might misplace a memory card or two, but that will be optional. In other words, I wouldn't necessarily buy a lot of portable hard drives as you may only need 1 or 2 in the long run. P.S. In my recent trip I had a discussion with Canadian wildlife photographer Wayne Lynch. He has an up-coming trip camping in the Arctic where powering his laptop can be an issue. When I mentioned that CF cards are quite cheap now, he felt that it would be completely feasible just to buy 50G of space now. He told me that as recently as a couple of years ago, he was spending like $10K on film and processing per year. He has now switched completely to digital and therefore spending $500 on memory cards is cheap in comparison. Once you have sufficient memory card space, any laptop and hard drive become optional equipment. The only remaining issue is to power up the DSLR itself, which can probably be solved by having a few EN-EL3/4 batteries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_keane2 Posted May 23, 2007 Author Share Posted May 23, 2007 Well, it's like treating CF cards like film, which isn't a bad idea, considering it's a static medium. Maybe that's what I'll do. Just off hand then, what is the advantage of using the more expensive Ultras or Extremes, as opposed to the standard SanDisks? I ask because the garden variety Sandisks are VERY cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spearhead Posted May 23, 2007 Share Posted May 23, 2007 If you're shooting sports professionally or doing news-related photojournalism, or your finger is superglued to the shutter release, the faster cards have some value. Otherwise, there is zero value to the faster cards when shooting. Music and Portraits Blog: Life in Portugal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 There is now a 250G version of that Western Digital Passport hard drive. I just picked one up at my local Costco for $140, and I am sure that price will drop over time. It is small and what I really like is that it is powered through the same USB connection for data transfer. Therefore, when you travel, it only uses up one USB port on your laptop and requires no other power supply. http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=317 I put that 250 label on mine since it looks completely identical to my other 160G one.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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