iPad mini and travel/photo backup

[My2Girls66]

A quick report on traveling with an iPad for photo backup. I bought an iPad mini before our recent trip. It worked quite well for uploading photos to in the evening, it was nice being able to see the photos on the 7" screen every night vs the 3" screen of my camera. The upload time was quite a bit slower than my laptop but it wasn't bad. I didn't bring my laptop along.
I tried uploading to Smugmug but the iPad changed all the file names to IMG.jpg so when I went to upload I got a message saying they were duplicates, I had to allow duplicates. Ok, no problem I allowed duplicates. I go to look at what I uploaded, all the exif data is gone, every photo has the same name and the average file size is only 1mb. I took all my pictures on a Nikon D80(10mp) and a Nikon P310(16mp) using fine, large jpeg on both. I also haven't figured out how to get the photos from ipad to computer. I figured that since I bought the USB camera connector rather than the sd connector that maybe I could use my external hard drive or a flash drive but the iPad says it can not read either, too much power is needed. So maybe return the USB connector, get the SD connector and just transfer using a memory card?? For now I have given up trying to figure it out. I loaded the photos from my D80 onto my laptop and I am waiting & waiting......for DD to upload the photos from the P310 to my smugmug so I can have them full size. The P310 photos are on the iPad but she ended up keeping the camera and sd card and she is in France working until summer so here I wait.

 

[DSLRuser]

unless you shoot raw.

I would fill our ipad up in 1 days worth of shooting. have to bring the lap top.

 

[photo_chick]

A quick report on traveling with an iPad for photo backup. I bought an iPad mini before our recent trip. It worked quite well for uploading photos to in the evening, it was nice being able to see the photos on the 7" screen every night vs the 3" screen of my camera. The upload time was quite a bit slower than my laptop but it wasn't bad. I didn't bring my laptop along.
I tried uploading to Smugmug but the iPad changed all the file names to IMG.jpg so when I went to upload I got a message saying they were duplicates, I had to allow duplicates. Ok, no problem I allowed duplicates. I go to look at what I uploaded, all the exif data is gone, every photo has the same name and the average file size is only 1mb. I took all my pictures on a Nikon D80(10mp) and a Nikon P310(16mp) using fine, large jpeg on both. I also haven't figured out how to get the photos from ipad to computer. I figured that since I bought the USB camera connector rather than the sd connector that maybe I could use my external hard drive or a flash drive but the iPad says it can not read either, too much power is needed. So maybe return the USB connector, get the SD connector and just transfer using a memory card?? For now I have given up trying to figure it out. I loaded the photos from my D80 onto my laptop and I am waiting & waiting......for DD to upload the photos from the P310 to my smugmug so I can have them full size. The P310 photos are on the iPad but she ended up keeping the camera and sd card and she is in France working until summer so here I wait.

To get the photos from the iPad to the computer you may need third party software. They make it really easy to put stuff on an iPad but a lot tougher to go the other way with it.

 

[jimim]

I don't know if u use a Mac but if u open iPhoto u can import direct from an iPad to iPhoto. If u use lightroom u can do the same. When the iPad is hooked up via USB and u open lightroom it sees the iPad as a hard drive. I assume if on a pc the Lightroom way works the same. No iPhoto for pc so that's out.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[My2Girls66]

I ended up figuring out that the lightning-USB cord that came with the iPad for charging worked fine for transfering from the iPad to my laptop(pc). I had to go folder by folder so it was a bit of a pain but it did work with all files full size. I had my memory cards so I wasn't worried but am happy it was possible. My original thought of downloading to the iPad then uploading to Smugmug(then I could delete from iPad if necessary for space) was a bust. The files uploaded much too small, about 20-25% of the original size and all exif data was gone.

 

[photo_chick]

Glad you figured it out.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

I ended up figuring out that the lightning-USB cord that came with the iPad for charging worked fine for transfering from the iPad to my laptop(pc). I had to go folder by folder so it was a bit of a pain but it did work with all files full size. I had my memory cards so I wasn't worried but am happy it was possible. My original thought of downloading to the iPad then uploading to Smugmug(then I could delete from iPad if necessary for space) was a bust. The files uploaded much too small, about 20-25% of the original size and all exif data was gone.

It sounds like the iPad mini plan did not work as well you anticipated. For those who have similar questions/problems, going forward, what would be your recommendation for backup storage while on vacation? Myself, I bring my laptop and a portable hard drive, back up on each every night, clear and reformat my cards.

 

[My2Girls66]

I usually take my laptop and back up to that at night, though I don't reformat my cards. Lately I have just been buying new ones and leaving trip photos on the cards. I use a Nikon D80 which is 10mp, I shoot large/fine jpeg so I can use 4 or 8GB cards easily. They are pretty inexpensive these days.
I am not sure what I will do next trip, though. Take the laptop or use the iPad and maybe try buying space on iCloud to see if that works. I can say it was nice only carrying an iPad mini and no laptop as I like to travel light. Another thought was to see if I could transfer photos from the ipad to another memory card and use that for backup. The iPad won't recognize my external hard drives or even a thumb drive but it will recognize those usb memory card adapters with a memory card in it. Hmmmm...
I keep telling myself though, the laptop really isn't THAT bad to carry.
If I had spent the extra few $100 I could have gotten the 64GB iPad, that would have worked fine. Plenty of space for the amount of photos I take.

 

[11290]

It sounds like the iPad mini plan did not work as well you anticipated. For those who have similar questions/problems, going forward, what would be your recommendation for backup storage while on vacation? Myself, I bring my laptop and a portable hard drive, back up on each every night, clear and reformat my cards.

Wife has an ipad 2 and backing up photos to it is very cumbersome, the camera card adapter is kind of hit or miss as to it working, as it is with all iOS devices. It can be done but then you have to move them back to the PC or laptop when you get home but that it relatively easy with a windows based PC using windows explorer. The ipad shows up as a removable drive and you can just "drag/drop" them to a folder. At least one of the latest versions of iOS6 does let you create albums on the ipad now where it did not before. Camera roll, what can I say, why Apple will not put the file name on the pic or at least the number so you can keep track of them is beyond belief. Sometimes it does not even put the pictures in order either numerically or by date, just random.

In my case, I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. I have the camera card adapter and it will read directly to the file manager. I then upload all of the days pictures to a "created" folder on the MicroSD card, and then copy that folder to the system memory. That way I have them in 2 places in case one of the folders gets corrupted. Get home, put the MicroSD card in the PC and copy the photos to a folder.

Was also using a thumb drive for a 3rd backup location but after upgrading the Android OS for some reason thumb drives ( I have tried 5 different ones) will not work now. Camera cards will but not thumb drives.