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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Cards, Drives, or Wallets?
Richard Orr, Photographer
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Longmeadow | MA | USA | Posted: 10:45 AM on 11.23.02 |
->> Yesterday I had a "freak" (notice I am not saying "stupid") accident with a microdrive. For those of you who may want to save the money on independent testing, you cannot run over a microdrive with a 2000 Buick Regal.
So, now I have to come up with a replacement. I am moving towards larger cards, but I was curious if anyone was using those digital wallet things?
The price is about the same as a large card, and the only time I could see using them is at a tournament--so this is not a big, pressing deal...but I was curious if the quality has gotten better. |
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Craig Hobson, Photographer
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Salinas | CA | | Posted: 11:06 AM on 11.23.02 |
->> Richard,
I use the X-Drive with a 40GB hard drive. It comes with two internal batteries, house and car chargers, all for about $200. You would have no problem using it during a tournament. It uses USB 1.1 (?), so it is slow and you have no way of confirming if the download from your CF has gone properly. The flip side is, I have been using it for about 3 months and have no problem with a download from a CF card. |
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Robert Longhitano, Photographer
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Montgomeryville | PA | USA | Posted: 12:31 PM on 11.23.02 |
->> Richard
Since I’m a strong beliver in Murphy’s Law I stayed away from those Digital Wallet type devices. If I can eliminate any steps between getting images from my camera to my harddrive I’m a happy camper. With that said I did see one device that looks promising, unfortunately I don’t remember were I saw it. This device had a built in color screen so you can previw your images after you dumped them from your card. It even will preview RAW images from Nikon and Canon. Hopfully someone can tell me what device it was.
rob |
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Andrew Malana, Photographer
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Robert Longhitano, Photographer
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Montgomeryville | PA | USA | Posted: 2:53 PM on 11.23.02 |
| ->> Thanks Drew, thats the one. |
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Rob Ganzeveld, Photographer
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Sexsmith | AB | Canada | Posted: 8:48 AM on 11.24.02 |
->> Richard,
I bought a digital wallet some time ago and it now sits in a drawer collecting dust. Mine was very finnicky, seemed to work when it felt like it, the battery performance was horrid, ( 10 to 15 min with a full charge) not enough time to download, and as stated above no confirmation as to which files downloaded.
I would hope the newer ones are better, but I tend to agree with Robert in that it is a extra step with the possibility of error , and am reserved to downloading to a laptop.
Rob G |
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Shelly Castellano, Photographer, Assistant
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Huntington Beach | CA | USA | Posted: 11:38 AM on 11.24.02 |
->> I was looking into this as well. I found a solution thats has been great so far. Its a dual drive by BUSlink called a Data Banker #1394 60mb. Firewire Hard Drive with CF/Reader and Writer BUILT IN! for CF type I, II & IBM Microdrive. Its not all that portable because it needs power but takes data right from your cards to the hard drive in very little time. I can hook it up to my desktop or my laptop and have all my images ready to be worked on with either computer. On sale at Micro Center for under $200. www.buslink.com
Check them out! Tell me what you think! |
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Robert Longhitano, Photographer
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Montgomeryville | PA | USA | Posted: 12:26 PM on 11.24.02 |
->> My problem with these devices is there’s no true way to determine if your images were transferred or not (I’m talking about the one’s with NO LCD screen). I know there’s a verify routine, and you can see from the file size they made it but can it be truly trusted??? I would have a very hard time wiping a card that I just uploaded to one of these things without physically seeing the images on a screen. Until they build a better mouse trap I’m sticking with the routine I used with film. I always carry more then enough rolls to cover an assignment, in the digital world that translates to CF cards.
I do have a workflow in place incase I need more storage that my inventory of CF cards can’t supply. I always carry my Powerbook and SmartDisk FireLight Hard Drive with me. The FireLight drive is a very small external firewire drive that needs no external power source; it’s powered by the Firewire BUS. If I need to make more room I copy the contents of my CF card onto the FireLight drive through my Powerbook. When this is done I drop the folder into iView to verify the files are there and then clear the card. The beauty of the external drive is when I return to my office I just plug the external drive into my desktop G4 apposed to networking the laptop to my desktop.
I find it amazing how we photographers forgot how it was before digital technology. How may rolls of film to you carry at a big football game???
Rob
http://www.smartdisk.com/Products/Storage%20Products/Hard%20Drives/FireLite... |
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Michael Fischer, Photographer
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Spencer | Ia | USA | Posted: 1:13 PM on 11.24.02 |
->> I've also got a digital wallet collecting dust, for many of the same reasons listed above.
Card prices have dropped SO much, it makes little sense to use a digital wallet. If I was really concerned, I would just transfer images to the ibook during breaks in the action and use the computer's Hard Drive.
BTW Richard, if the first problem you had with a microdrive was running over it with a Buick, you've done REALLY well :) |
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Jeff Stanton, Photographer
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Tucson | AZ | USA | Posted: 6:28 PM on 11.24.02 |
| ->> Nixvue makes a digital wallet with a built in LCD screen and it works very well. I saw one demonstrated and it worked flawlessly. Only problem is a good number of other folks have seen it and there has been a serious back order problem. A friend here in Tucson uses something similar, (can't recall the name of it) but it has no LCD screen. We've used it on a couple of shoots when CF card space was running low and had no problems. Each time we inserted a card, a new folder was automatically created and images transferred to the device. We then connect it to the computer via USB connection and the images tranferred to my Dell with no need for additional software. Everything went fine. I realize folks may be skeptical about using portable hard drives, but as time goes by and reliability is proven, that skepticism will go away, just as it did when we started using digital cameras and images were saved on CF cards. |
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Richard Orr, Photographer
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Longmeadow | MA | USA | Posted: 7:51 PM on 11.24.02 |
->> Yes, running the 1GB over with the Buick was unfortunate. Except it came on the same day as putting the old 340 MB into the reader and hearing, "click, click, click."
Fortunately I had only been using that to shoot the kids and the dog.
I think I may just mozey over to Penn and get some new cards. |
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Mohit Chadha, Photographer
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Avon | CT | USA | Posted: 1:23 PM on 11.25.02 |
->> Consider the V-MP3H as a cheaper alternative to the Delkin PicturePad/Nixvue Vista (the only ones worth getting, as they have an LCD screen which will let you view your files to make sure they copied fine).
I got the V-MP3H from Compgeeks.com for $200, added an IBM Travelstar 40Gb drive for another $105; total less than half the price of the PicturePad. It's worked great so far - the only downside is USB 1.1 vs firewire on the PicturePad, it's SLOW to copy back to your computer. |
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Tommy Metthe, Photographer
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Abilene | TX | | Posted: 12:58 AM on 11.26.02 |
| ->> You might not be able to run over a microdrive with a car, but you can a CF card (they also work after running through the wash), ummmmm not that I would know anything about that. |
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Ryan Witt, Student/Intern
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Santa Barbara | CA | United States | Posted: 2:30 AM on 11.26.02 |
->> This is more of a workflow question but does iView have a caption writing tool in it where you can write captions to multiple files like photo mechanic?
I have heard mothing but bad stories about microdrives can't say anything about the wallets though |
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