Portable storage

[Jay5oh]

Hello all,

I am getting married in Key West in a few months and will be there for a week. I have two camera bodies I will be taking along with lenses and compact flash cards. Most of my cards are of the 2GB variety because sometimes I shoot at different venues the same day and I have found it's easier to use a different card for each track I go to. Anyway.. what kind of device could I use to transfer the images from the card to while I am in Florida? I am not taking my laptop so that is out.

Thanks for the help,
J

[AGP]

You could look at one of the Epson views P-3000, P-4000, P-5000...etc. They're great little units, compact and have good screens on them. They are however NOT cheap. Easily found at Adorama or B&H etc, and I'm sure you could look around for the best price. They take most card formats and depending on which unit you get have decent sized hard drives. I use mine as a backup for location shoots when I don't want to lug around my laptop. Only real complaint I have is the price.

Epson Digital Photography - Epson America, Inc.

There are other manufactures out there, but I can only speak to the Epson as it is the only one I've ever owned.

[brucky]

Agree with AGP, I actually have the much older P1000. Holds about 35GB of useable space. The newer ones will hold much more. They also let you view your photos on the screen after their loaded.

Price is high but I find it good handy and I have yet to have any reliability problems.

[Jay5oh]

Thank you for the replies.

[lightandimages]

I was considering one of the Epsons till I priced out a netbook. For 300 bucks you get 4 hours run time and a 160 gig drive, card reader plus a 10 inch screen. Yeah, it's bigger but I can leave the MBP at home, work on the plane with the small screen and still have battery to space if I use the 6 cell pack (11 hour run time). Plus wifi so Skype works.

[richlion]

For a small size solution maybe the Hyperdrive Colorspace is a possibility. About the size of an elongated deck of cards, it accepts SD, CF, and other cards for transfer to its HD of varying size.

Mine came fitted with a 120 gig Hitachi drive. Can get the skin only and install any HD you need. Unit has a small color display that shows each image as it is transferred. The display can be used to review all images on the disk.

When the Colorspace is connected to a computer (by the supplied USB cable), it acts as an external HD.

Rechargeable battery, instruction manual, web support. When the laptop is too much, this may be the answer.

Richard M, NYC

[Jay5oh]

I will check into that. How is the transfer speed from the card to the drive?


Thanks!

[richlion]

Copy speed depends partly on the speed of the card...claimed speed on a card like the Sandisk Extreme is about 1 gig a minute.

Hyperdrive has several models on the market at the same time: Colorspace UDMA, Colorspace "O", and Colorspace which I use. Prices vary as these models have varying options and capabilities. After looking at them, I decided for my basic need to copy and see what I copied, that the Colorspace model would do the job.

Hyperspace has a nice website showing the various models, HD drive sizes, manuals, FAQ, etc.

Some photoshops sell the Colorspace with a HD already installed but you can buy the shell and put your own choice of HD in if you prefer.
Richard M