DSLR to Portable hard drive interface.

Marcus Geezer

Marcus Geezer

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Marcus
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I'm due to go away to be part of a team covering a week long event and looking for an optimum solution for downloading files from camera to hard drive as the week goes on. I don't think I'll have any need to process any during the week as all the images will also be downloaded, stored and processed in the workstations being setup for press releases etc, it's just really so that I can store my images to clear my cards ready for the next day/session.

I'm trying to minimise kit to bring so trying to avoid bringing my heavy and less than slim laptop. I've looked at netbooks to use but just wondered if anyone knows of any other way that I can acheive this goal?
 
Marcus Geezer said:
I'm due to go away to be part of a team covering a week long event and looking for an optimum solution for downloading files from camera to hard drive as the week goes on. I don't think I'll have any need to process any during the week as all the images will also be downloaded, stored and processed in the workstations being setup for press releases etc, it's just really so that I can store my images to clear my cards ready for the next day/session.

I'm trying to minimise kit to bring so trying to avoid bringing my heavy and less than slim laptop. I've looked at netbooks to use but just wondered if anyone knows of any other way that I can acheive this goal?
Click to expand...

Tablet?
 
A small, cheap tablet and USB powered hard drive?
 
On my wish list I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, but have struggled to understand how I would complete the transfer.

I guess you won't be able to complete it like you would with a laptop, with both camera and hard drive connected and do a direct transfer. Would it be transfer from camera to tablet then tablet to hard drive? How fast would this be?
 
Actually I'm sure you can go straight from camera to the drive but its faster to go from the camera to tablet to drive than it is to drop direct - plus if you don't have much time you can drop it onto the tablet and put it into the hard drive later?
 
Well - if you get one running a windows OS you can. Not sure about android and you can't at all on the iPad.
 
I have a Galaxy Note (using it now) so if android have a way of downloading images from camera then allowing them to be loaded on to a drive, can I use this rather than buying the 10.1?

Rather than just dumping the images from camera to drive, I need to check that they have succesfully been transferred. Using an interface to at least check this is therefore a requirement.
 
Sounds to me like you described a netbook :)

Must admit I like the idea of a travel tablet and portable hard drive. I'm waiting to see what this Microsoft tablet is all about as I'm still not a fan of the ipad despite what everyone else seems to think of it.
 
RobertP said:
Sounds to me like you described a netbook :)

Must admit I like the idea of a travel tablet and portable hard drive. I'm waiting to see what this Microsoft tablet is all about as I'm still not a fan of the ipad despite what everyone else seems to think of it.
Click to expand...

My first thought was a netbook and for the price of a used one (£100?) it seemed like the best solution, however I thought I would see if any of the members of TP could offer a better solution, especially as this would be the only use I would have for the netbook.

I've used our friend Google to search around and found an android app called CR2-Thumbnail which according to the description allows you to download your images (raw and/or jpg) to a folder on the memory card in your android device. Going to test that and check to see if it does what it says on the tin. Need to interface mini-usb from camera to micro-usb on Galaxy note so need to order one of those.

The next test would be connecting my android device to a portable hard drive and seeing if I can then download them to that.

I think if this works then for backing up on the go at weddings and so forth, you just plug your android phone in to your camera, download, then move on. Saves sitting down and setting up a small workstation with a laptop to do this during the day.
 
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RobertP said:
Sounds to me like you described a netbook :)

Must admit I like the idea of a travel tablet and portable hard drive. I'm waiting to see what this Microsoft tablet is all about as I'm still not a fan of the ipad despite what everyone else seems to think of it.
Click to expand...

I know Toshiba have a tablet that runs w7 portable or something that's been released out here..?
 
I think that there are a few file management apps for Android, if you could connect both your camera and the harddrive to your tablet then you should be able to just copy and paste them. I'd have to use a memory card reader rather than connecting my camera directly as mine is too old to show up as an external memory device.
(p.s. I've never tried the above!)
 
TopBanana said:
I think that there are a few file management apps for Android, if you could connect both your camera and the harddrive to your tablet then you should be able to just copy and paste them. I'd have to use a memory card reader rather than connecting my camera directly as mine is too old to show up as an external memory device.
(p.s. I've never tried the above!)
Click to expand...

How would you connect both to the tablet which has only one connector?
 
If you are going to be wanting to transfer a large amount of pictures you will be better off going with the netbook option.

I have not seen any tabs with two usb ports, so you will need a large sd card or memory in the tab to transfer the data to before you backup the data to your external drive.
 
sep9001 said:
If you are going to be wanting to transfer a large amount of pictures you will be better off going with the netbook option.

I have not seen any tabs with two usb ports, so you will need a large sd card or memory in the tab to transfer the data to before you backup the data to your external drive.
Click to expand...

I've got in mind a 64GB card in the tablet (biggest allowable) which should be enough for a good days shoot. I'm interested to find out what the transfer speed is between camera to tablet, then tablet to hard drive. I haven't got high hopes that it will be fast enough to make it worthwhile to be honest.
 
Enough cards to last the entire time? I'm lazy. That would be my solution :)
 
Have you though about how you would power this hard drive?
 
srichards said:
Enough cards to last the entire time? I'm lazy. That would be my solution :)
Click to expand...

4 days of shooting... probably about 30gb+ a day... hmm... sounds like an option to be honest. Will think about that one.

Keith W said:
Have you though about how you would power this hard drive?
Click to expand...

Plug them in to the mains in my room at the end of day to copy images from tablet?
 
Canon users can transfer files direct from the camera to a portable hard drive via the usb port on the wirless file transmitter.
 
Have a look at USB OTG adaptor if you are going for the Note 10.1.
 
admirable said:
Canon users can transfer files direct from the camera to a portable hard drive via the usb port on the wirless file transmitter.
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate on this please? A link on how to do it?
 
Not much to elaborate really. You put one end of the USB cable into the wireless file transmitter and the other end into the portable hard drive. You can then transfer files via the in camera menu, can't remember the settings.....I think it's 'image copy'.

The hard drive shows up in the camera beside the storage cards.
 
Cool, thanks :-) I'm going to go try :-)

Never heard of it before :-D
 
Maybe not :lol:
 
Er, am I the only one who thinks that downloading the photos from a memory card to a tablet and using the tablet to store the images on a memory card seems to have a middle step that is totally pointless. Why not just buy extra cards and use them, no need for the tablet step?

Or, get a cheap second-hand netbook.

Or, if you want something that is the top dog for size, speed and battery life - get a Hyperdrive Colorspace. Smaller and faster than a netbook with several hundred GB capacity,
 
hollis_f said:
Er, am I the only one who thinks that downloading the photos from a memory card to a tablet and using the tablet to store the images on a memory card seems to have a middle step that is totally pointless. Why not just buy extra cards and use them, no need for the tablet step?
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean about memory card to memory card. More like solution to move from memory card to portable hard drive. Investigated buying additional memory cards to have a weeks worth might as well buy a used netbook.


hollis_f said:
Or, get a cheap second-hand netbook.
Click to expand...

Errrmm....

hollis_f said:
Or, if you want something that is the top dog for size, speed and battery life - get a Hyperdrive Colorspace. Smaller and faster than a netbook with several hundred GB capacity,
Click to expand...

At £300 would rather buy a used netbook or three.
 
Just found out that to connect any form of storage device to an android device it has to be FAT32. I think the native system used by most storage devices is NTFS, so would have to use a 'dedicated' hard drive for storing images from the tablet, rather than just adding to existing hard drives I already use.

Camera direct to tablet maybe great for storing a days worth of images for temporary storage or intermediary back-up, but I think for ongoing needs some form of netbook, laptop, pc, is needed to then dump data on to hard drives. For my purposes of storing images for 4 days of shooting might as well just dump them on the netbook hard drive.

Think I'm gonna get a netbook with a 320GB drive in it. Seems the sensible solution.

EDIT: Maybe this is a bit negative, but everyone raves about tablets and I'm sure they have a place, but frankly you ask them to do anything a bit 'meaty', then no, they fail. Yes they are showy and can act as a brilliant front end for diary, internet, taking notes, portfolio showcase, that kind of thing where reasonably a netbook or laptop at a similar price would do a better job but possibly doesn't act as well from a marketing or convenience perspective in front of customers. But even after that statement would I own a full size 10 inch tablet if I had the disposable cash to buy one? Hell yes!
 
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