Does anyone have experience or suggestions for a good workflow for handling photos from an SD card while on the road? I'd love to travel without a laptop.
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Workflow question
- Thread starter Will Y
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Beyond importing them, what else do you do? For example, I import raw images from the sdcard reader into Photos and from there into Lightroom. Once complete, delete the imports from Photos and process the images in Lightroom. It is clunky because we don't really have a professional OS. Apparently there is also a Siri shortcut that automates this for you somewhat.
You can do that with the current iPad and iPhone. Apple SD card reader cord. Open up photos. Plug in cord. Download photos.
For both the wife and I....our images on SD cards are copied into iPad Pro and into WD Wireless Passport Pro (we still have the HD version, not the newer SSD version). We do the initial cull on the iPad Pro for errors in focus and composition. If we need to to do an edit in the field to give someone an image, we use any editor we have on the iPads such as Lr CC. Affinity Photo, Raw Power,...etc. Then we can either airdrop the image to the person, email it to them or, use the Passport Pro to copy to a USB memory stick to give them.
Final edits are done back home on iMacs with larger screens and a wider choice of editing apps. We use image capture on the iMacs to copy in all the keepers on the iMac. On our 512K iPads we could import 15,000 raw images. With one of the new iPad Pros with 1TB of storage, we will be able to import over 30,000 raw files. We would have to be on the road for over a month to generate 30,000 raw images.
Final edits are done back home on iMacs with larger screens and a wider choice of editing apps. We use image capture on the iMacs to copy in all the keepers on the iMac. On our 512K iPads we could import 15,000 raw images. With one of the new iPad Pros with 1TB of storage, we will be able to import over 30,000 raw files. We would have to be on the road for over a month to generate 30,000 raw images.
I also import to my iPad Pro with the SDcard reader. Once you plug it in, the Photos import dialog loads. I offload the pictures and let Photos load them to iCloud. I later offload them in batches to my archive on my iMac. I shoot RAW, and so far no troubles.
I even edit on iPad with Affinity most of the time and export jpgs back to Photos.
I even edit on iPad with Affinity most of the time and export jpgs back to Photos.
Be careful with this approach and a lot has to do with your long term workflow. Keeping them on the iPad/iPhone or or further transferring all when get home, returning only those you want to the iPad/iPhone. Also, is there sufficient memory remaining on the iPad/iPhone vs the SD card.
I did that one year, shooting RAW + JPG and using the card reader with the JPG SD card. Next year, new camera with one SD card slot holding RAW + JPG. The card reader transferred BOTH files to the iPad, and the 42MB RAW files just blew through the memory. Worse, IOS does not display file type or file size, just two identical pictures. A file resizer app had the same issue and created a third identical picture. Now, I shoot RAW only and the camera will wirelessly transfer select or all photos in jpg format. I just transfer a select few I may want to publish on social media during the trip. I also travel with my 15" MBPro, but it stays in the room and accessed in the evening if necessary. Despite it's size (and I am looking at the new 13" MBAir) it fits snugly in my backpack in an area designed for a Camelback water Blatter. Without the laptop, I would just wait til returned home to transfer the sd card with selective incidental wireless transfer to the iPad/iPhone during the trip. Social media doesn't really need your best work.
Another option is to not delete your memory card until you return home and verify you have your originals. The iPad will know which ones you previously imported, so you can do multiple imports before clearing out the SD card.
Pick-up extra SD cards, enjoy all aspects of your travels and time away then deal with your photos when you get home.
Same here. Before I go on vacation, I check to see if there are any Pro camera shops near my hotel. If there are then I will bookmark it incase I need to grab something. Most of the time I carry 2 32GB cards in camera and 1 extra. Thats 64GB which is a lot of photos to go through.
Well,
You could get the camera kit and load them to your iphone/ipad and from there to your cloud if you have decent Wifi where you travel. I tried that at was underwhelmed.
It was however, better than loading them onto the WD My Passport Wireless Pro drive that has an SD card reader, WiFi, and a USB battery to charge your devices. While nice in concept, I want to SEE that the photos are stored someplace before formatting the card for the next day's shooting. So you have to view them on the Western Digital App, and that is even slower than option one.
If you are desperate to travel without a laptop, you can try either of the above. I tried it for exactly one vacation and went back to carrying a laptop. An MBPro weighs a lot less than my anxiety over losing pictures.
You could get the camera kit and load them to your iphone/ipad and from there to your cloud if you have decent Wifi where you travel. I tried that at was underwhelmed.
It was however, better than loading them onto the WD My Passport Wireless Pro drive that has an SD card reader, WiFi, and a USB battery to charge your devices. While nice in concept, I want to SEE that the photos are stored someplace before formatting the card for the next day's shooting. So you have to view them on the Western Digital App, and that is even slower than option one.
If you are desperate to travel without a laptop, you can try either of the above. I tried it for exactly one vacation and went back to carrying a laptop. An MBPro weighs a lot less than my anxiety over losing pictures.
When I travel , I take a memory card for each day I'm gone . 16 or 32 Gb. cards don't cost that much and can be erased and reused .Change them out for an empty one at the end of each day . Each night I'll download that days images into a Macbook Air . This way I've got my stuff on the original cards , and backed up on the Air. If you're really averse to taking a laptop , just change cards daily.
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Enjoy the travels and then deal with the photos when you get back!
I am just back from a trip and this time I tried a new way of working.
My wife bought me a cheap refurbished IPad Pro. I took the SD card adapter with me.
I took a SD card case with me and 12x 32GB cards. Each day or so, I swapped the cards in the camera with empties from the case.
Then I loaded only the pictures I couldn’t wait to play with onto the iPad.
I then kept the case safe. I suppose 2 cases loaded with the cards (camera takes 2 cards) then put one in each case and keep them apart as much as possible for redundancy is a good idea.
Anyway, I edited select images on the move and posted to Flickr leaving the originals safe on the cards. I then imported them all off the cards when I got home.
I think this is OK for a short trip but for an extended, say 1 year trip, I would probably opt to add a cloud storage subscription and upload to the cloud whenever possible. I might also consider mailing one of the cards home say, each month so they are there as extra safety. 32GB cards are very cheap now if you buy “fast enough to get by”.
I have to be prudent on clearing out photos from the ipad once I am done with them mind you as they eat up storage quickly.
Not sure this helps... but I will say that I kind of liked the not carrying a MacBook Pro laptop with me aspect - cheaper to replace an ipad than a MacBook Pro.
For editing I use Lightroom Mobile and Affinity Photo. I shoot Fuji and so I am forced to do the following in order to get it to work on the ipad end.
1. I have to shoot RAW+JPEG
2. Has to be uncompressed RAW - or Affinity won’t let you edit the image. It doesn’t crash, it just doesn’t show the image.
3. MUST be the card from slot 1 of the camera
If I don’t do 1&3 then photos on the ipad crashes when I try to import. If I don’t do 2 then affinity cant display the image.
My wife bought me a cheap refurbished IPad Pro. I took the SD card adapter with me.
I took a SD card case with me and 12x 32GB cards. Each day or so, I swapped the cards in the camera with empties from the case.
Then I loaded only the pictures I couldn’t wait to play with onto the iPad.
I then kept the case safe. I suppose 2 cases loaded with the cards (camera takes 2 cards) then put one in each case and keep them apart as much as possible for redundancy is a good idea.
Anyway, I edited select images on the move and posted to Flickr leaving the originals safe on the cards. I then imported them all off the cards when I got home.
I think this is OK for a short trip but for an extended, say 1 year trip, I would probably opt to add a cloud storage subscription and upload to the cloud whenever possible. I might also consider mailing one of the cards home say, each month so they are there as extra safety. 32GB cards are very cheap now if you buy “fast enough to get by”.
I have to be prudent on clearing out photos from the ipad once I am done with them mind you as they eat up storage quickly.
Not sure this helps... but I will say that I kind of liked the not carrying a MacBook Pro laptop with me aspect - cheaper to replace an ipad than a MacBook Pro.
For editing I use Lightroom Mobile and Affinity Photo. I shoot Fuji and so I am forced to do the following in order to get it to work on the ipad end.
1. I have to shoot RAW+JPEG
2. Has to be uncompressed RAW - or Affinity won’t let you edit the image. It doesn’t crash, it just doesn’t show the image.
3. MUST be the card from slot 1 of the camera
If I don’t do 1&3 then photos on the ipad crashes when I try to import. If I don’t do 2 then affinity cant display the image.
Weird. I shoot RAW only on my Lumix and Affinity for iPad has no problems handling the images.
It is a specific Fuji RAF file issue.... Works fine with other files. Just the Fuji files are a bit nitpicky.
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Its a Fuji raw file only complication