The Digital Photography Show #6 – Cheap Portable Storage Solutions
The Digital Photography Show #6 – Cheap Portable Storage Solutions (MP3-12.6MB-36mins)
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
May 1, 2006: Thanks for joining us for the sensational sixth episode of the Digital Photography Show!
Today, Michael and I make shameless pleas for you to leave positive reviews of the show on iTunes or Yahoo Podcasts. Do you like what you’re hearing? Let the world know! We’d really appreciate your support.
Next, I whine about the remote control for my camera. It costs $400! Do you think that’s reasonable? We don’t. Neither do we understand why, during a time of declining film sales, Kodak is increasing the prices of their films. Counterintuitive? Michael makes a case for why this makes sense, but I don’t get it.
Does your camera’s digital media card get filled up too quickly, leaving you with no room for more images when you’re not by your computer? After the break, Michael and I talk about some portable storage devices for your digital cameras. Especially interesting is his discussion of some cheap solutions that let you use the hard drive from an old laptop as a portable storage device. I didn’t even know that was possible!
The devices he discusses are:
- Epson P-4000
- Macally PHR 250OTG USB 2.0 On-The-Go Enclosure
- Digimate II-Plus USB2.0 Smart Portable Storage
- Nikon MSV-01 Coolwalker 30GB
Check them out on your favorite retailers.
As always, thanks for listening. Please let us know what you think of the show by leaving a comment below.
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May 2nd, 2006 at 12:01 pm
My Internation iRiver h320 allows for uploading from my Sony memory card. It definitely is a great feature.
Keep up the good work.
Molly
May 2nd, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Very interesting discussion on portable storage
May 2nd, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Molly - Thanks for letting us know about another storage option, the h320 MP3 Player. I just looked it up - it seems to have been phased out. Too bad. All hard=drive based MP3 players should come with this option, huh?
Thanks for the comment, Stewart!
May 4th, 2006 at 5:27 am
just to correct the podcast, the ipod connector from apple allows you to transfer pictures to the ipod and view them on your ipod. the reason the transfer is slow is because the photos that are transfered are also converted to thumbnails for viewing on ipod.
May 5th, 2006 at 1:33 am
Ashish,
I own an iPod Photo, but do not own the Camera Connector. From what I have read, thumbnails (images resized for the ipod display) are created by iTunes prior to downloading to which means one would need to download the images to the computer before the thumbnails could be made and downloaded to the iPod for viewing.
If in fact the iPod creates the thumbnails as you suggested, this is a good thing if you want to view the images immediately. It is my understanding that RAW images cannot be viewed.
Ultimately viewing images on the iPod is not so important to me since I cannot zoom in on those thumbnails for critical viewing. It would be nice to confirm that your photos made it over in tact though.
The part that concerns me the most is that the transfer supposedly consumes a lot of power. I would caution users to make sure their iPod is well charged before going on the field.
All in all, the iPod Camera Connector is a very attractive solution if you have a color iPod. For a minimal expense you can save yourself from bringing your computer with you and/or purchasing extra memory cards.
If you have one, I’d be interested in hearing more about how it works for you.
Thanks for the comment.
May 5th, 2006 at 2:43 am
Love the podcast! I found it by searching around after finding the Health/Fitness podcast here on TPN.
I just wanted to put this out there… did anyone else notice the echo on this podcast? Don’t know if that was done on purpose but I had to remove one of my earbuds because it was getting to me after a while.
Love the information from the show and I’m looking forward to many more!
May 6th, 2006 at 3:22 am
lol btw the way the accent of the person in the promo in the middle of the show was scottish not australian.
cheers
May 6th, 2006 at 5:00 am
Aaron - You want me to tell the difference between a Scottish and Austalian accent when I can’t even hear the terrible echo that’s killing Steve? Sheesh!
Seriously, Steve, I am aware of the echo problem - although not it was so severe. It occurs because I am taping the show in a tunnel. Naw, it just sounds like that. I can’t figure out how to fix it, but when I move sometime this summer I’m going to try to set up a more podcast-friendly recording space.
May 13th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
One of the things that deters me from getting the iPod accessory is the lengthy transfer time to dump my CF card to the iPod… what’s the transfer time like for a 2GB CF card to the Digimate?
May 23rd, 2006 at 6:33 pm
I would like to recommend the CompactDrive PD70X
http://www.eastgear.com/shop/index.php?cPath=17_66
it’s blazing fast and you can download around 80Gb on one charge. A 1-2 Gb card takes 2-3 minutes to download.
See also:
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CkG0
The ipod downloader sometimes can’t even download one card on a charge and it can take hours to download…
I would stay away from that particular gadget.
May 24th, 2006 at 10:07 am
Thanks for the recommendation, Jonas!
May 24th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Rohn,
I timed the transfer a full 2gb Lexar 80x CF card to the Digimate. It took around 13.5 minutes to transfer. I find that speed pretty acceptable.
Michael
May 26th, 2006 at 4:46 am
I have a question reguarding the portable storage devices. Does it show the preview image for the RAW files or just JPG format?
I shoot Olympus and photoshop doesn’t support its ORF file without a plug-in, I was wondering if the screen is going to be an issue with ORF. Thank you
May 27th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Tlemetry,
The hard drive enclosures do not display any image files.
Unless there is a new firmware upgrade for the Epson P-4000, it does not seem that it supports ORF files.
The good news is that the new to be released Epson P-4500 clearly states that it supports a wide variety of RAW files *including* ORF. I suggest visiting the Epson site and read the specifications for the P-4500.
Michael GW Stein
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:57 pm
I am considering putting together a portable storage device like Michael mentioned and was wondering if one could use the Digimate III with this item from Western Digital:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=216&language=en
If not the Scorpio http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=102&language=en
looks to be a good choice. Do you have any specific suggestions for enclosures?
Vielen Dank! Merci!
All the Best,
hl
June 23rd, 2006 at 6:09 pm
I realised after doing a little more digging that the DigiMate III is not just a driver but an actual enclosure for the HD as well. Sorry for the confusion…
All the Best,
hl
August 1st, 2006 at 11:56 am
just a question for michael/scott or anyone else…for the digimate II device (or an ipod which i’m also considering), do they only transfer from memory card to hard disk or can they trasnfer files back to the SD card? i’m wondering if i can use this as a storage device for which i can transfer stuff back & forth onto an SD card that i use for my pda. this way i can put multiple video files, mp3, business info, etc on the HD then whatever i like to view/listen i can put on the SD then open on the pda…
thaks byt
August 9th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
I can’t believe Scott was so vehemant about the iPod adapter not showing the images on the iPod after transfer. I have one of these devices and a 30GB iPod Photo and it works great and I can do all the things that I can do with iPhoto-synced photos, such as playing them as a slide show and viewing them on the iPod. Please get your facts right before making such definitive statements!
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=M9861G/A
December 9th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Hi Guys,
Catching up on some old podcasts (I was up to date after I started listening, but hadn’t caught the older episodes…
Scott — on this episode (I think it was this one) you complained about the price of the remote from Canon (I agree, that’s ridiculous! I was frustrated (but spent it anyway) when I got the MC-36 cable remote for my D200 at $140 because that’s all the camera shop had, even though I would have preferred the simpler, less-whiz-bang MC-30 at $55 or so…)
Anyway, in case you don’t have a remote for your 30D yet, you may want to check out the Zigview IR remote:
http://www.zigview.co.uk/lst92.htm
Peter+
December 9th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Regarding film prices — Michael had *part* of it right, lower production = declining supply, if demand declines slower than the supply then the supply/demand ratio justifies a higher price…
But! I think the more relevant factor here is cost of scale — as you ramp UP production on something, stuff tends to get cheaper because you can buy in higher quantities and the fixed costs of production (same cost regardless of # of units produced) get amortized across a larger quantity produced. The reverse happens as you reduce production — quantity discounts drop and fixed costs amortize across fewer units. You have to charge more to keep the operation profitable.
Peter+
February 20th, 2007 at 5:36 am
Regarding the Origami class machines I’ve had a Samsung for a couple of months and I find it excellent to use for Digital photo storage. The fact that it is a Windows machine rather than something custom lets me use foldershare to move files from it to my main editing box. It is slow but it does do the trick.
Keep up the show guys, heard about you on PSTV.
JPO
August 1st, 2007 at 5:57 am
Eric…
Some of the more advanced digital cameras will also let you save files in either TIFF or RAW image file format. TIFF records every pixel in the exact shade of the 16 million possible colors that the image sensor could capture…see my blog….