Offload 7D images to portable HD?

Would it be possible to offload my 7D's pictures onto a portable hard drive without a computer? The portable HD uses a USB connection, and I wondered if I could plug my 7D's USB cable into it and transfer the files? This would be a lot cheaper than buying multiple cards if I'm on a trip and my 2GB card gets maxxed out.
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Ron
Torrance, CA

I think you can't do that directly.

You will need to take the card out of the camera and insert into the PHD, this I'm assuming that you have something like a X-Drive or something similar.

Mine just gets battery exausted after two 1GB transfers.
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Do photo just for fun

Smartdisk PhotoChute (no LCD)

http://www.smartdisk.com/eWeb/smartdiskus/www/staticpages/fotochute.asp

Works great!

But if your HD doesn't specifically say it supports USB to USB transfers you can get one of these...

http://www.delkin.com/delkin_products_usb_bridge.html
Know a guy who has one, seems to work well with his Canon 20D and generic USB HD
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KM 5D (AS ROCKS!)
18-70 kit lens
28-85 Macro 1st Gen Metal Body
70-210 f:4 (Killer Lens!)
Sigma 70-210 f:2.8 (Beat to S* t)
Minolta Xt-Si
Olympus XA
Rochester 5x7 plate camera

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7598090053&ssPageName=MERC_VIC_ReBay_Pr4_PcY_BIN_Stores_IT

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Thanks,

Digitalshooter!

Member of the 7D and Beercan Cult!

Ron

recently got one of these to try and transfer to my external USB hard-drive:

http://www.everythingusb.com/belkin_usb_anywhere.html

I can't get it to transfer from the 5D directly [in DataStorage mode it just creates an empty directory, in PTP mode it does the same with an empty .jpg file] but I can get it to copy the contents of the memory card when I use a card-reader as the input device...but it's not fast [3MB file takes maybe 15s]

IDM

--
http://homepages.tesco.net/~ian.midwinter/

Thanks all! I'm sure I can find something out of these.
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Ron
Torrance, CA

Just a word of warning, when downloading to a portable device, always start wit fresh batteries, or use A.C. adapters, because if you run out of juice during the transfer, you may loose everything, including perminate damage to youd Compact Flash card.

Rambler358 said:

Would it be possible to offload my 7D's pictures onto a portable
hard drive without a computer? The portable HD uses a USB
connection, and I wondered if I could plug my 7D's USB cable into
it and transfer the files?

Click to expand...

For a simple USB based hard drive you would not have a controller to do that. Both the 7D and the hard drive would be expecting control signals from a computer.

There are, however, setups designed for this task. Most download from the card to a hard disk, not from the camera. Even using them, most folks will have more than one card.

For the past year I've used a Epson P2000 for this. Insert the CF card into the slot on the Epson, choose the option to copy the card and it does the rest. The added advantage for the Epson P2000 is that it has a excellent display screen. So you can review, show off or whatever your photos while traveling. I highly recommend going this route, though it's more expensive than the blind copy systems.

I travel with just a few cards, normally empty the cards in rotation into the Epson at the end of each day. Then, format each card as I'm ready to reuse it. The Epson can copy a number of 1 gig cards per charge. I don't really push it, as I have the charger system all set up in my truck. Last year I spent three months out west away from plugins, both my photography and sound recording being recharged by the truck. I shot 9 gigs of keepers on that trip, gave slide shows with the Epson to several folks I visited along the way. I had a PC laptop along, and did copy all that was on the Epson onto the laptop for another backup about half way through the trip. Only time I used the laptop on photos on the trip.

Walt

Pretty fast and nice. The only problem I see is that the buttons on the side are easy to hit. I just connected a Sandisk extreme to it that had 630 megs. Only took about 4-5 minutes, if that long.

Then I went to pick it up and I hit the copy button and it started over. Going to look at it now to see haow it handled both copies.

Pretty neat, it copied each time into different folders and named them "card 1 and card 2".

If you have a notebook HD, take alook at this.

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Thanks,

Digitalshooter!

Member of the 7D and Beercan Cult!

2 ways to achieve that...

1. Use a ext HD enclosure with a built-in reader like X-Drive, DigiMate

U will have to remove the card and stick it into the drive. Then press the backup button.

2. Use a HD enclosure that supports USB-OTG (On-the-Go) specifications

Conenct your camera to the drive via the camera USB cable and press backup (no need to remove card). Such drives usually dont support LCD previews. Eg is the Sarotech OTG.

Rambler358 said:

Thanks all! I'm sure I can find something out of these.
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Ron

Click to expand...

Just my .02 Ron,

Get a portible that has a card reader in it. You have a camera that runs on batt power. You have a portible storage device that runs on batt power. You are on the road and need both devices to be as energy efficent as they can be. It takes power to operate a USB connection so now your devices will be less efficent and you'll be needing extra batts or will be doing more charging.
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...Dennis

I'm interested in this same subject also. Just recently was browsing the Adorama site and saw an ad for "media gear" flash HD to go with flash memory slots and LCD monitor, and USB 2.0 connector. 20 GB @ USd 120.00. Looks like a great solution for those of us w/o portable computer and going on a trip. Would provide a link but don't know how, so just checkout Adorama.com. Anyone out there with experience with this gadget ?
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jerryfixit

Here is the Adorama listing. Pretty good price for 20 gig, compared to other alternatives, from my own research on this subject. I wish I could justify doing this kind of image transfer to an IPod but it seems to have too many problems, too slow, chance of depleting battery power during the transfer, etc. The Delkin device sounds like it might be a good choice, too, but you'd have to still have an external hard drive or something to receive the transferred photos.

http://www.adorama.com/MMHG120.html?searchinfo=flash%20hd&item_no=2

I'm currently looking into buying this one:

http://www.compactdrive.com/product_info.php?products_id=31

It's more expensive than some of the competitors (about 155€ w/o HD) , but it uses four AA batteries, and you can transfer up to 50GB in one charge (using 2500mAh batteries), which is much better than anything else I've seen. And if you do run out of power, AA's are easy to get anywhere.

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Yours etc.
Torsten Balle Koefoed

http://www.elgsdyr.dk

These are great gadgets. Some Taiwanese clones can be had for real cheap. I'm using a Digimate2 enclosure for about US$50. CompactDrive is MUCH faster but bulkier due to the AA batt. However, do know these are using HD and are prone to mechanical failures. So, take care...