photo transfer

[Poider]

G'day, just wondering about transfering photos to PC, I have been using the USB cable supplied with the camera but somebody suggested I use a card reader.
What does everybody else use?
I have always been a beleiver in you get what you pay for, so I notice that there are several card readers around, the salesperson showed me a $10 one and a $40 one, she said that the $10 one was fine?
Peter

[dubaiphil]

I always used my SD card reader on my laptop, until I needed CF. Then I just got a cheap multi card reader.

[Shadowman]

At home I use the card reader on my laptop, at work I use the USB cable. You might want to look at a card reader/CD burner that doesn't need a computer to write the images, or so I have been told.

[rpcrowe]

I never transfer directly from the camera to the computer. I always use a card reader. Since I only shoot with CF cards (thankfully, my 7D did not switch over to the SD memory card format) I use a CF UDMA capable card reader.

My wife shoots with a little Canon P&S which uses SD cards. She has a multi card reader with doesn't support UDMA capability. I made a very informal (and possibly not totally accurate) comparison transferring the same group of images (shot with my 7D) from my CF card to my computer using my UDMA capable reader. I used her multi card reader to transfer the same images from the CF card to her computer.

The UDMA card reader was noticeably faster than the non-UDMA multi card reader. However, I believe that my computer is also a bit faster than my wife's machine which may account for the disparity,

[jcuknz]

Originally I couldn't see the point of spending on a card reader ...finally I got one ... now I'm not sure where my cables are
Last week I bought* an SD to USB reader for about US$15, maybe $17, to solve a problem ... my wife's card was full of holiday snaps and her lap-top doesn't have an SD reader like my notebook which was back at base. So why not have both reader and cable if you cannot make up your mind
* I was lucky because it was the last one Radio Shack had in Durango. I used it again to post that insect photo via the laptop yesterday ... trials and tribulations of being away from home base and the familiar.

[Manfred M]

I do the camera to computer connection, simply because it is considerably faster.

That being said my situation is a bit unique; the camera uses a USB 3 connection and I have a USB 3 port on my computer, so it is extremely fast. The last time I looked, none of the shops in town had USB 3 card readers, but that was in early summer, so if I remember the next time I'm in a computer store I'll have another look.

[ajohnw]

I always used to use a card reader but have gone back to often using the camera. One thing I don't use though so far is the software that comes with the camera. I am slowly beginning to like this one which is basically a photo management package making it easy to put new shots where I want..

http://www.digikam.org/

Like most opensource software it grows and includes more and more. It could be used with cards as well but it seems to be easy to gear up to associate photo's with a camera. I haven't tried giving cards a name - yet. It has an increasing number of processing tools as well. I used on of them once and was rather impressed with the results of the default settings. It takes time to become conversant with it though. 3 stages and several sliders. It also has several skins (themes). Default (normal window), black, grey, darkroom and a number of others.

John

[Geoff F]

Depending on the software, I find direct camera connection so easy.

Why bother to remove the card, place in into a separate reader (which is connected with a USB cable) then replace the card afterwards. And with the risk of damage to connecting pins etc.

A couple of warnings though. I place my camera at ground level so it can't fall any lower! And if you need to recover 'lost' files from your card it won't work with direct camera connection. That is why I purchased a card reader. One of the mid price versions.

If you are downloading from a number of cameras a card reader may make more sense.

[jcuknz]

If the camera uses SD cards then there are no pins to damage and when I used CF cards with earlier cameras I considered the risk to the pins to be minimal if extraction and insertion was done with reasonable care and common sense with the guides to line up the card.

[Dave Humphries]

A: I use a card reader

When I replaced my laptop with a desktop for photo work, I made sure I bought one with built-in card reader slots on the front/top edge - nice and convenient as it is about 6"/150mm to the right of my knee and within arms reach while sitting at computer.

Yeah, I'm lazy

I don't worry too much about how long it takes, I do CiC while they download.

This seems safer than having a trailing cable just waiting for me to accidentally yank it and either send the camera crashing to the floor or damage a USB port.

Yeah, I'm untidy too

[wmoore]

A. I use a card reader that is built into my computer. I always misplace cables.
Oh and I misplace my SD cards as well.