iPod for photo download - reviews or experience?

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Mike - 12 Jun 2006 03:44 GMT

Has anyone any experience using an ipod with the 'camera connector' accessory for the Canon 350D? Pros, cons etc. I am
not so interested in using the ipod to review the photos, but it appears at first glance to be an ideal storage mode
for 20 Gb of .jpg's and .raw's while on an extended holiday. The website claims you need iPod photo software v1.1 - is
this necessary to eventually download the photos to a PC?

Mike

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wayne - 12 Jun 2006 05:31 GMT

Yes. I'm using a video iPod with the Belkin Digital Camera Link and a
350D and it works fine for me. Very happy.

Cheers,

Wayne

Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, http://www.dimagemaker.com/
Blog and Podcast http://www.digitalimagemakerworld.com/
Personal art site http://www.artinyourface.com/

> Has anyone any experience using an ipod with the 'camera connector' accessory for the Canon 350D? Pros, cons etc. I am
> not so interested in using the ipod to review the photos, but it appears at first glance to be an ideal storage mode
> for 20 Gb of .jpg's and .raw's while on an extended holiday. The website claims you need iPod photo software v1.1 - is
> this necessary to eventually download the photos to a PC?
>
> Mike

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Jim Redelfs - 20 Jun 2006 23:38 GMT

> Yes. I'm using a video iPod with the Belkin Digital Camera Link and a
> 350D and it works fine for me. Very happy.

Using a 3rd generation 40gb iPod and the Belkin Digital Camera Link, I have
transferred data from my memory cards and those of others onto my iPod.

The performance is SLOW and the iPod's battery runs down due to the CONSTANT
disk accessing. The iPod never ran out of power, though.

It works OK. If you already have the iPod, you ought to give it a try.

Signature

:)
JR

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cjcampbell - 12 Jun 2006 11:46 GMT

There is one guy here who found that battery life is insufficient to
download more than 512Mb before the iPod dies, so if you have cards
bigger than that you should use an AC adaptor.

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wayne - 13 Jun 2006 08:56 GMT

This depends on the device you use to connect to the camera. The Belkin
has its own batteries, so I have found no issue with battery life.

Cheers,

Wayne

Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, http://www.dimagemaker.com/
Blog and Podcast http://www.digitalimagemakerworld.com/
Assistant Director, International Digital Art Award
Coordindinator of Studies, Multimedia and Photomedia, Australian
Academy of Design
Personal art site http://www.artinyourface.com/

> There is one guy here who found that battery life is insufficient to
> download more than 512Mb before the iPod dies, so if you have cards
> bigger than that you should use an AC adaptor.

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cjcampbell - 14 Jun 2006 03:42 GMT

> This depends on the device you use to connect to the camera. The Belkin
> has its own batteries, so I have found no issue with battery life.

Well, yeah. But this guy is talking about an iPod. iPods are too tiny
to have much of a battery. So they have a short battery life.

Personally, I think almost all these photo storage devices are more
trouble than they are worth. Anything that is really usable starts to
look an awful lot like a little laptop computer in terms of weight and
size, so why not just use a laptop computer? You could get a dedicated
laptop with a 12" screen -- used, if necessary, for no more than what a
60Gbyte iPod costs. You are not looking for speed on the laptop if you
are never going to use if for anything else; all it needs is a card
reader slot.

> > There is one guy here who found that battery life is insufficient to
> > download more than 512Mb before the iPod dies, so if you have cards
> > bigger than that you should use an AC adaptor.

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wayne - 14 Jun 2006 11:51 GMT

Well, no. I was talking about whether the device that connects the iPod
to the camera has its own batteries or not. The Aplle, I believe, does
not, so all power comes from the iPod and the batteries drain fast. The
Belkin I use has its own batteries, so the iPod is not supplying any
power to anything but itself. That is the difference.

Cheers,

Wayne

Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, http://www.dimagemaker.com/
Blog and Podcast http://www.digitalimagemakerworld.com/
Assistant Director, International Digital Art Award
Coordindinator of Studies, Multimedia and Photomedia, Australian
Academy of Design
Personal art site http://www.artinyourface.com/

> > This depends on the device you use to connect to the camera. The Belkin
> > has its own batteries, so I have found no issue with battery life.
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> > > download more than 512Mb before the iPod dies, so if you have cards
> > > bigger than that you should use an AC adaptor.

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cjcampbell - 14 Jun 2006 14:04 GMT

> Well, no. I was talking about whether the device that connects the iPod
> to the camera has its own batteries or not. The Aplle, I believe, does
> not, so all power comes from the iPod and the batteries drain fast. The
> Belkin I use has its own batteries, so the iPod is not supplying any
> power to anything but itself. That is the difference.

Oh, well, that makes it a little more clear.

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Steve - 12 Jun 2006 12:03 GMT

I have used this with my 20D and my iPod Photo, in my experience it is
painfully slow and sucks the power out of the iPod big time (plus you
cant run the iPod on AC power while transferring files as the dock
connector is taken by the camera connector)

However, if you can put up with the slowness and got plenty of time to
charge your iPod up each time you use it then it works and is a good way
of backing up your photos while on the move.

To get the photos off you can browse your iPod as a hard drive and they
are there in their original format.

Steve

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Pete D - 12 Jun 2006 12:46 GMT

> Has anyone any experience using an ipod with the 'camera connector'
> accessory for the Canon 350D? Pros, cons etc. I am
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Mike

Better off getting a dedicated file transfer device, I have a Vosonic
X'Drive 3310 that has the card reader built in, transfers a 1Gig card in 7-8
minutes. The new ones have a large screen and play and display just about
any format you can think of and are very reasonably priced.

http://www.vosonic.com/

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Robert Haar - 13 Jun 2006 03:09 GMT

> Has anyone any experience using an ipod with the 'camera connector' accessory
> for the Canon 350D? Pros, cons etc. I am
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> claims you need iPod photo software v1.1 - is
> this necessary to eventually download the photos to a PC?

I use a 60 GB iPod with the Apple camera connector in conjunction with our
Nikon D200 and Canon SD400 cameras. The way this works is the the camera
connector attaches to the dock connector of the iPod and allows the sue of a
USB cable to the camera.

It is slow, significantly slower than USB transfer to a computer. I have not
experienced the battery rundown that others reported, even transferring
nearly 2 GB. However, it does tie up the camera for a long period.

I use this as a backup and try to take enough memory cards to last me. For a
log trip, I might take a laptop.

My recommendation is to try it if you want an iPod for its other functions,
but don't buy one just for off loading pictures from you memory cards.

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King Sardon - 13 Jun 2006 03:46 GMT

>Has anyone any experience using an ipod with the 'camera connector' accessory for the Canon 350D? Pros, cons etc. I am
>not so interested in using the ipod to review the photos, but it appears at first glance to be an ideal storage mode
>for 20 Gb of .jpg's and .raw's while on an extended holiday. The website claims you need iPod photo software v1.1 - is
>this necessary to eventually download the photos to a PC?
>
>Mike

This is called the iPod Camera Connector. I noticed this feature while
shopping online for an iPod and investigated a bit. Reviews on the Web
are mixed. The big problem (as mentioned by another poster) is battery
life. If you transfer half a gig or 1 gig or more there is a chance
the battery will die before the transfer is done and then you lose the
transfer.

Check out the good and bitter reviews at http://tinyurl.com/6hsd7.

If you want to back up a 350D, then most likely it will be useless for
you.

Windows Explorer can read an iPod, as far as I know, so I don't think
you need additional software for transferring from iPod to PC.

KS

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