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Commentary, Equipment

An Itinerant Photographer and His iPad: A Second Report

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Some time ago I posted “An Itinerant Photographer and His iPad: A First Report” – and this is a follow-up to that post, written after a few more months of experience with the iPad. It is also an expanded version of something that I posted in a photography forum in response to a question about using the iPad as an image backup device.

One question that seems to come up a lot is whether it is possible/viable to use the iPad as a backup device for making copies of your files in the field. There at least two reasons that you might want to copy your files from your camera’s memory to an external storage. First, you may want to create duplicate backup copies of the image files on your camera memory cards for safety reasons – it is risky to have only single copies of them. Second, some might choose to do this so that they can economize by using a single memory card, transferring files from the card when it is full, erasing the card, and starting over again. I’m not convinced that this makes a lot of sense given the relatively low cost of memory cards today and the risks of having only a single copy of your files.

You can transfer raw files directly from your camera to the iPad using a USB cable and the “camera connection kit” adapter. Here are ome observations based on my experience doing this:

  • It works – you can move your raw files to the iPad and view them there.
  • The process is very slow. Thumbnail previews appear quite quickly, but downloading is a very long process during which I usually find something else to do.
  • You need to think through the memory issues carefully. Your raw files are quite large and the maximum memory in an iPad is currently 64GB. I have the maximum in mine which leaves me about 32GB for photographs. (I have a lot of music and video files on my iPad – perhaps more than the typical user.) There will be very little space for photographs if you get the 16GB model and the 32GB might be tight depending upon what else you store on it.
  • You can view the raw files directly on the iPad. They are not optimized – and raw files need some sharpening and so forth to look their best – but they are fine for previewing images and sharing with others who might want to quickly see what you came up with. Don’t underestimate the value of being able to share files this way. I notice that sharing the images with others on the iPad is often a more natural and pleasant experience than sharing them on a laptop – viewers will frequently hold the iPad and pass it to one another in ways that are rarely seen with laptops.
  • The raw files cannot display at full native resolution – there is some upper boundary currently built into the iPad – though they do  display at a resolution that is considerably larger than that of the iPad screen.
  • I may be missing something that would make the task simpler, but I don’t find it very easy to delete the files from the iPad once they are transferred to my computer.

A bottom line is that you can use an iPad for backing up files in the field, but you need to be aware of several issues before you decide to depend on this. The issues include the very slow file transfer speed and the importance of making sure that the unused memory on your iPad is sufficient for the files you will transfer. With a 64GB iPad, the vast majority of users will have more than 32GB available.

(If the speed and storage space limitations of the iPad are a problem for you, there are other options for backing up in the field. There are specialized back drive products that are designed for making backups of your camera memory cards, or you could use a regular laptop. The tradeoff its greater storage capacity and access to more photo editing applications include shorter battery life and greater size/weight.

What about image editing on the iPad? Several programs are available the provide varying levels of image editing capability.  I use Photogene. It is competent and well-worth the very tiny cost. It provides basic editing features that can let you create decent (but not stellar) jpgs for upload. It does a curve, cropping, black and white conversion, color adjustments, simple sharpening and so forth – but it most definitely is not Photoshop or Light Room. That said, I’ve used it for doing quick edits and web posts from the field. For what it is and for the very low cost, I recommend it. (iPad apps appear so rapidly that it is quite possible that other options will be available by the time you read this.)

Can an iPad replace your laptop? The iPad is only sort of a laptop replacement – I like to simply say that “an iPad is not a laptop,” though it can perform some tasks that you might otherwise use a laptop for. It is great for web browsing and OK for email, though extensive typing on the virtual keyboard is awkward and error-prone. I am fine with it for short emails and short web posts and reading the updating social media sites. You can do better with an external keyboard, but this starts to defeat the small size/weight and convenience of the iPad and makes a laptop look like less of a burden.

Battery life is excellent. Apple is not lying when they claim 10 hours per charge.

The tiny size and small weight make a significant difference. Even my small laptop seems downright large after carrying the iPad instead. It is small enough to easily slip into a side pocket of my camera bag when traveling. I left the laptop at home and carried only an iPad on a weeklong trip to New York City. I was very grateful for the size and weight savings and only mildly inconvenienced by missing some of the power of the laptop I would usually take. What with tripods, lenses, bodies, flash equipment and other gear, I welcome the smaller size/weight of the iPad when a regular laptop is not really needed.

One other reason to have an iPad is that publishing is likely to move increasingly to forms that can be distributed on devices such as the iPad. Photographers would do well to experience and understand this first hand, especially if they intend to distribute their photographs electronically and/or write about photography.

VERDICT:

It will make sense for some photographers and some circumstances, but not for others. There is no universal “right” answer to the question of whether the iPad is a useful tool for photographers – the real question is whether its features will or will not be useful to you. For my part, when I don’t have to do more than minimal editing in the field and I want to share electronic versions of photographs and travel light… I prefer to take the iPad rather than my laptop.

What do you think? Do you use an iPad for photography-related purposes? Are you wondering if it will work for you? Leave a comment via the link found below.

Commentary, Equipment, Ideas

An Itinerant Photographer and His iPad: A First Report

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I returned last night from a week-long visit to New York City. While this wasn’t just a photography visit, enough photography was part of the plan that I had to carry a reasonable amount of equipment. Typically I would bring along my Macbook, but this time I decided to leave the laptop at home and see if I could get by with just an iPad instead.

I knew that this would necessitate some compromises in the way I usually operate on the road. For example, serious photography applications like Photoshop and Lightroom simply don’t run on the iPad, so there would be no possibility of doing real post-processing work on the road. The iPad doesn’t have a “real” keyboard, instead providing an on-screen “virtual keyboard” – more on that below. On the positive side, the iPad is positively tiny compared to any real laptop. It makes my 13″ Macbook seem terribly bulky by comparison. The iPad slips easily into the external pocket of my Crumpler Eight Million Dollar Home camera bag, and doesn’t add enough weight to the package to be worthy of note. The battery life is tremendous and the charger is very small.

What follows is an early report on certain aspects of iPad use by the traveling photographer – or at least this mobile photographer. Continue reading An Itinerant Photographer and His iPad: A First Report →

Commentary, Equipment, Publications

Apple iPad and Photographers

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Unless you have been under a very remote rock today (and, of course, if you are a photographer you might have been… ;-) you heard about Apple’s announcement of the iPad, their new tablet computing device. I’m not going to rehash all of the specs, but I have thought a little bit about how this might (and might not) fit into the lives and work of photographers.

I think that one possibility is that many who now may create content (like some of the articles and/or photographs seen on this blog) may find an avenue for publishing in a more book-like format and perhaps even distributing content via the iTunes (or is it iBook?) store. While the big publishers are getting the initial press for porting their collections to electronic versions, if the iTunes store is any guide there will be some great opportunities for small runs of electronic books. In the same way that some musicians and bands now self-produce creative work and then sell it through iTunes (or eMusic and so forth) this may provide a way for photographers to distribute electronic versions of their photography and their related writing. Advice: if this makes sense to you, start working on it now!

The iPad might also be a wonderful way to carry around and share a large portfolio of work. Imagine that you have been asked to show some work to a potential client. She has some specific work in mind. You bring along a traditional portfolio or other method of presenting some work in this area. The conversation diverges to other areas of mutual interest and you realize that you have some additional work that the client might want to see. Imagine that you have a very large collection of your work organized and ready for immediate search and display on the iPad.

If the iPad will allow connections to cameras – and there is some information suggesting that it may – it could also be a very small and lightweight device for backing up memory cards on location, and it might also serve as a usable display device for these images while in the field. I can also imagine the possibility that it or something like it could serve as an attached “external viewfinder” for cameras with live view and similar features. (This is admittedly speculative – I don’t know whether the connectivity of the iPad will allow this yet.  It is also worth recognizing that with a maximum memory of 64GB that the usefulness for external file backup would seem to be a bit limited.)

Finally, photographers (like lots of other folks who travel) may find that the iPad is all the computer they need in order to stay in touch on the road. While a small laptop is great, an even smaller device with greater battery capacity could be better for many of us… as long as we don’t need to have our copy of Photoshop or Lightroom ready to roll. Those don’t work on the iPad as far as I can tell. Along these lines, I’ve been intrigued by the iPhone and the iPod Touch, but I haven’t quite felt compelled to make the purchase because a) I have wanted a larger screen, and b) the cost for cell phone access with the iPhone seems exorbitant to me. The iPad seems to address both of these issues – it has a screen that is big enough for real online access and it can come with (if I understand correctly) a much less expensive form of data-only access to the ATT cell system.

I wasn’t certain how I’d feel about the tablet concept, but after seeing what was actually announced I’m more intrigued by this device, and I’m sure there are other applications of the device for photographers. Other ideas, anyone?

Updates: Over the first few days after the announcement I’ll add to and modify this post rather than spawning a series of iPad posts at this blog – so don’t be surprised to see some editing here after the original post.

  1. I knew I wouldn’t be the only person thinking about this – Right away there was this post at Photofocus.
  2. Michael Reichmann on The Apple iPad: What it Means for Photographers.
  3. D-Day for Tablet Freaks at A Photo Editor.
  4. Will the iPad Save Photography? by Bastian Ehl at Black Star Rising
  5. I see that Greg A. Lato also has a very interesting post on this subject, too.

(And another update in mid-July: I finally gave in and order an iPad. I should arrive by early August or so, at which point I’ll be able to update this post with – wait for it! – actual use reports!)