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Author Topic: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral  (Read 8402 times)

Kit-V

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iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« on: February 27, 2011, 11:20:24 am »

With the release of the iPad 2 in about a month, I am considering taking the plunge. One of the attractions of the iPad for me is its use as a CF/SD card backup while traveling, as well as a communication link to various resources online.

For those of you who have been using the iPad as a photography travel aid, I am interested in your thoughts on how you have used it in your work.

Thank you!
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John.Murray

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2011, 09:41:57 pm »

As a backup - terrible.  The storage capacity is inadequate, plus no provision for removeable media.  I would be really suprised if the iPad 2 had removeable media caps - as that would be a *big* can of worms in terms of device support..... 

As a Presentation / Image capture device - fantastic!  I use DSLRemote with my iPhone in tethered situations all the time now.
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francois

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2011, 05:22:17 am »

I don't know if the HyperDrive for iPad works or not but if it works as advertised it might be interesting...

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-iPad-Hard-Drive-s/183.htm

I have yet to read a real review.


« Last Edit: February 28, 2011, 05:25:35 am by francois »
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Francois

Kit-V

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2011, 10:02:59 am »

I have heard of this as well. Wondering if anyone has any additional information?
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David Watson

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2011, 04:54:29 pm »

Cannot see the point IMO as you can use the Hyperdrive as a perfectly adequate backup device on its own.  Now if Lightroom/Phocus/Aperture were available on the iPad you would be talking a neat solution with the Hyperdrive.
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David Watson ARPS

Kit-V

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2011, 05:50:04 pm »

I agree. It will likely shake out as follows: For shorter trips, the 64Gb iPad might work OK for image back-up. It's small, light & can serve me in different ways. But for longer trips, the greater capacity of a 2.5" external drive would make the most sense.

My original post was driven by the fact that I am generally a minimalist when I travel.
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francois

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2011, 03:35:14 am »

Cannot see the point IMO as you can use the Hyperdrive as a perfectly adequate backup device on its own.  Now if Lightroom/Phocus/Aperture were available on the iPad you would be talking a neat shttp://macandphoto.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c048f53ef0148c820d00a970c-800wiolution with the Hyperdrive.
Dave,
You're quite right for the HyperDrive for iPad. The only thing going for the Hyperdrive is that you can move photos from and to the iPad (via the camera connection kit) and see them on the large iPad display.

I wonder if Photosmith (http://blog.photosmithapp.com/) would be helpful along with the HyperDrive. Let's see when both are released!
« Last Edit: March 01, 2011, 03:45:24 am by francois »
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Francois

langier

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2011, 01:47:51 am »

Got an iPad 64gb and a Hyperdrive. Waiting for the connection kit... The Hyperdrive is fast to download CF cards along with SD cards. Same for uploading frm the Hyperdrive to my MacPro. Hope to have it all connected and tested in a few days...

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Larry Angier
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francois

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2011, 03:58:59 am »

Got an iPad 64gb and a Hyperdrive. Waiting for the connection kit... The Hyperdrive is fast to download CF cards along with SD cards. Same for uploading frm the Hyperdrive to my MacPro. Hope to have it all connected and tested in a few days...


Let us know how it works. I'd be very interesting in your comments.
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Francois

langier

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2011, 09:31:15 am »

Delighted!

I'm on the road and teaching at Shooting the West XXIII in Winnemucca nest week and will try give it a try. I'll be running in parallel with my card readers and MacBook Pro, so i'll have backup and a good comparison.
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Larry Angier
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soboyle

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2011, 08:56:01 am »

This is something many photographers are waiting for I think, a tablet sized device with excellent screen, that has sufficient storage capacity for an extended photo shoot, plus the ability to make backups to external drives. I was mighty disappointed to not see a usb port, or thunderbolt included on the iPad2.

soboyle

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #11 on: March 12, 2011, 03:03:41 pm »

Langier
Interested in your feedback on how the iPad worked as a backup and review device.

henk

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #12 on: March 12, 2011, 05:20:54 pm »

I am considering an iPad as well.
Please keep us informed.

Henk
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langier

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2011, 01:04:03 am »

Just a couple of notes from a week on the road with an iPad 64 and Hyperdrive.

The iPad became my default portfolio during Shooting the West XXIII in Winnemucca, Nev., this past week.

Before leaving for my workshops and the presentations, I uploaded several PDF portfolios and several albums of photos from my MacPro. Initially, this saved several hours of printing at the last minute for the show and pared down taking several hand-made books and portfolios of prints. My normal print/book size is about 11x8.5 inches and the iPad is about the same.

The screen is larger than my iPhone so there is more impact to the viewer. Much like a 5x7 print is a "personal size" image that is large enough to view but small enough to fit on a lap, it's about right in size. Since this is a "glowing" display and not paper, the images glow and pop compared to paper.

I first started downloading images onto my Hyperdrive and then plugging into the iPad. The iPad knows when a "camera" or "camera-like device" is attached and launches the photo viewer. After a couple of minutes, the images appear in a grid as very small icons, about 2cm x 2cm or even a little smaller. One simply touches the image to check-mark it and once the images are chosen, you can download them. Downloading goes pretty quickly.

Since I only shot raw, the files displayed are the embeded files within the raw wrapper. Once the images are downloaded, you can view the files. Quite nifty for the field and during the workshop.

Since I still have workflow issues to work out with incremental downloading from the CF card to the Hyperdrive, I ended up in the last couple of days simply connecting a USB cable from camera to iPad. Same ease of choosing and downloading. At the end of the downloading, it will ask if you wish to delete your chosen files from the camera.

I attempted to download and view my files from my Panasonic camera onto the iPad, however, the combo of iPad and Hyperdrive with the Panasonic raw files did not work. Since my camera doesn't seem to have a USB connection, I ended up simply popping the card from the camera and using the SD card adaptor directly into the iPad. I'll check my Hyperdrive later to see if the files downloaded properly in the next couple of days.

There were issues with the wifi at the convention center which was our center of operations, so I used my iPhone to respond to email comments and messages during the past week. I was hoping the wifi in the iPad would have worked a bit better. Another issue was my Panasonic file compatibility from the Hyperdrive into the i

Overall as a teaching tool, both my students and colleagues were impressed. For me, this was much easier to grab images and show them than it would have been had I used my MacBook to download and them display.

Altogether, there were three of us out of nearly 200 participants and staff at Shooting the West, one was set with 3G and the other was my payment to a co-instructor for helping me with my classes.

I had many people drool over this new tool and to encourage the help of another volunteer, I seeded a fund to help her with the cost of her own since I know she'll put it to good use and help her move up another level with her photo business.

If I had the money, I would have bought other people iPads simply knowing that we'd all benefit in using this tool to show and promote our work. With Apple clearing out the old stock and especially "refurbs" at a pretty good discount (I have little need for the camera in the second iteration), now's a good time to consider buying one to start learning and using this new tool.

Probably my next thing I'll try is to see how it works with raw/jpeg captures and also to see if I can run an Eye-Fi card to the iPad using a portable hot-spot so I can bypass the cabling all together.

I still have lots of putting the iPad to use, downloading and other tests to perform, but so far so good.
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Larry Angier
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Thomas Krüger

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #14 on: March 15, 2011, 05:33:59 am »

Hmm, and what about the MacBook Air 11"? It has only 400g more weight but you get a full functional computer with USB ports, hopefully also USB3 once Apple pushes out the update to SandyBridge.
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francois

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #15 on: March 15, 2011, 06:12:41 am »

Larry,
Thank you for your very interesting report.
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Francois

henk

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #16 on: March 15, 2011, 10:03:23 am »

Thanks Larry for your review of the iPad.
In Europe the launch is on March 25. I think I will put my fingerprint on one!
Henk


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soboyle

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #17 on: March 16, 2011, 01:36:28 pm »

langier
Thanks for the report.
Will be interesting to see if the iPad2 shows improvements to download and preview speeds.
Sounds like there were some issues with the hyperdrive not working well with the iPad?
Can you give an idea how long it takes to download a full 4 or 8 gig card to the iPad?
What about backups from the iPad to the hyperdrive? Does this work?
I've heard that I/O (and processor horsepower) are the weak points when trying to make the iPad do heavy lifting, like huge downloads and raw processing, that it wasn't designed for. The Air seems like it may be a better (more expensive) portable solution.

langier

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #18 on: March 16, 2011, 08:14:36 pm »

So far, it takes a few minutes to display the thumbnails on an iPad first generation. From there, I pick and choose since I'm not using it for storage of my images, simply as a device to show people what I've shot since the camera display is too small and having a MacBook takes time to fire up and takes time to run the software, etc.

There are still advantages to downloading to a MacBook and using the better display, but for size, convenience, battery frugality, etc., the iPad is a pretty interesting device. It will display the embeded previews from my raw files, but I didn't get this to process images out in the field. Maybe one approach is to run a small jpeg file along with the raw file to more quickly download and use the photo editing software.

Now that I've got many years of digital under my belt, my plan is to see how much less stuff I really need to drag along to support shooting on the road. My overall goal is to see if I can leave the MacBook at home and use the iPad/iPhone for web/communications and image viewing, cards for primary storage, Hyperdrive for back-up and dispense with nightlight downloading and metadata, simply relying on field notes and using the desktop at my leisure back in the studio so I can shoot more, enjoy the travel more and still have time for sleep at night.

I think this is the first step and as I get more hands-on and figure out the idiosyncrasies, I'll have it all worked out. Already using an iPad over the MacBook saves in bulk, wight, chargers, and cables. I can use the same cable and charger as my iPhone and iPod, and with a USB power cable, it takes little power to keep going compared to the MacBook. Power wise, the iPad runs about 2.5 times or longer than a charge on the laptop. However, I have all the tools I need on the MBP and run my operation totally on the road. Always a trade off, but not necessarily a bad one!

As to the Hyperdrive, it downloads the images quite quickly and even though there was a glitch with trying to view/transfer my Panasonic LX-5 images to the iPad from it, the images are still downloaded and if needed, I can use the SD card reader on the iPad to grab and display.

In any case, I still have play with the new stuff and come up with a doable workflow and that will take some time.

Yes, I've considered a MB Air and the display is spectacular, as is performance and storage space for a trip, but still the issues of size/weight/battery power compared to the iPod and even a fully-decked out iPad with a Hyperdrive is still smaller, cheaper and more convenient than packing all the stuff needed for the Air.

Stay tuned for more!

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Larry Angier
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Thomas Krüger

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Re: iPad As A Photog's Peripheral
« Reply #19 on: March 17, 2011, 07:38:02 am »

Larry, do you use the plain Hyperdrive without the color display?
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