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velocityphoto

Portable memory card drives?

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Just researching to see what people are using? Found one but seeing what else might be out there, maybe a better one with a viewer?

Found this one,

http://cgi.ebay.com/Digital-Foci-Photo-Safe-II-250GB-Drive-Midnight-Blue-/330529480953?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf517a0f9#ht_5470wt_907


A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

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I had/have one that i bought about six years ago.
It worked but there was two problems with it. Batterytime and speed.
And if you are transfering lots of data the speed can make the battery a real problem.

After using it a few months i could not copy my 1 GB CompactFlash card without it beeing connected to AC power.

And reading about the one you linked to it has a speed of 5 MB/s, its probably 10x the speed of the one i own but its not that impressive when you compare it to what you are used to.
A full 8 GB card is going to take about half an hour.

A viewer? Nice feature, but do you need it?


EDIT: I forgot.
Based on my expirience i would try and find one with normal batterys.
Something that you can replace, perhaps not needed today as batterys are better today than they where back then but i would still try and find one that i could replace the batterys on.

Is a laptop an option? You get all the same features plus much more

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Viewer is nice to verify my photo's are looking OK as the day progresses. Not sure about the whole battery thing as long as i had a place to plug it into once in awhile would be ok but we don't always have that option.


A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

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But you have a screen on the camera?

My reasoning is that you verify the pictures in the camera, and delete the pictures that is bad.
Then you copy them to the hard drive.

And about the battery, that is the reason i say buy one that uses AA batterys.
Either you charge a few high capacity batterys in the morning before you leave to the DZ (or wherever) or you buy a pack of disposable AA batterys.
This way you are not dependent on the crappy battery built in the drive, you can use muliple batterys and are not dependent on a wall outlet.

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Don't have time to delete photo's on the camera when your doing back to back loads. Just want to be able to glance at them from time to time within the drive . Plan on being able to pack while they are transferring to the drive and look at them if i have time.


A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

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Is a laptop an option? You get all the same features plus much more



I agree on the old laptop or desktop option. If you don't need to be working out of a backpack (and even if you do with a notebook), I would just re-purpose an old computer for stuff like this. An outdated computer with no other real use will do this job with ease. And it's a good "recycling" use for an old computer.

I might feel different if I was trekking in the Andes and wanted a back-up option that was small and light. But for regular use at a DZ? And you're driving there? Just sounds like gadgetry to me.

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And you can actually look at the pictures.
Even if you get one of those drives with a screen, the image will be so tiny that you cant see more than blue sky and something in the center.

If your camera by any reason might got knocked or something giving you out of focus pictures you are not going to see that on that tiny screen.


A brand new laptop 10" at newegg costs $259, not a rocket machine but it will do the jobb.
And as Phil says you can buy a used one.

I can not recomend you to buy a memorycard reader as the one you linked to based on my experience.
Sure, the technology might be much better today and they might be better than the one i bought.

The ones with a screen, how much do they cost?

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Our instructors turn back to back and shoot video and stills on every load. I was going to use a card reader to dump footage at the field so they didnt have to switch cards cards all the time and piece of mind of having a back up.

My thought was the catcher keeps it in his pocket, TM lands, zips footage to the drive, gives it back to the catcher to show or edit.

Any thoughts? Are there any tablets out there capable of this?

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Take a look at the Hyperdrive range. These can do 2gb in 1 minute, with full error checking, so are at least 7 times faster than the Digital Foci model.

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-COLORSPACE-UDMA-500GB-version-p/hdcsu-500.htm

I use one of the old Hyperdrive Space devices (now discontinued) for backing-up photos in the field and am very happy with it.

Pete.

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