Tablet for photo backup and viewing - experience.

[Jeff Peterman]

I've just returned from two weeks in England, seeing family and doing some traveling. The Acer Iconia A500 32 GB worked very well as a photo tool. I found it very practical to take the CF card out of my Canon 7D and connect it to the USB host port of the tablet with a card reader, then transfer the RAW photos from the CF card to a 32 GB micro SD card in the tablet for backup. I was also able to view the RAW files on the tablet with the CR2 Thumbnailer App ($4), and select the ones I wanted to convert to JPGs for others. I could then transfer the JPGs to a thumb drive, e-mail them, or post them online.

Now that I'm home, I just popped the micro SD card out of the tablet and imported the backed up RAW photos from the card to my desktop PC with Lightroom for organizing and processing.

I could have done all the above just as well with a Toshiba Thrive (using an SD card instead of the micro SD), or with an Asus Transformer IF I had the optional keyboard attached (you need the latter to get the USB host ports). So, it is practical to use a tablet in place of a Netbook or laptop for photo backup and viewing.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
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[Wayne Larmon]

I've just returned from two weeks in England, seeing family and doing some traveling. The Acer Iconia A500 32 GB worked very well as a photo tool. I found it very practical to take the CF card out of my Canon 7D and connect it to the USB host port of the tablet with a card reader, then transfer the RAW photos from the CF card to a 32 GB micro SD card in the tablet for backup. I was also able to view the RAW files on the tablet with the CR2 Thumbnailer App ($4), and select the ones I wanted to convert to JPGs for others. I could then transfer the JPGs to a thumb drive, e-mail them, or post them online.

A few questions.

1. Are you saying that you used a single 32 gig micro SD card to back up all two weeks worth of RAW files? 7D/60D RAW files (I have a 60D) are about 25 megs and I don't know if 32 gigs would suffice for backup for an extended trip. But the price of flash memory is dropping (isn't it?), and stocking up on flash chips might not be prohibitive.
2. To clarify, are you saying that the Thumbnailer app will convert RAW to JPEG on your tablet? If so, then how long do the RAW conversions take? I can do RAW conversions on my old netbook with BreezeBrowser, but 60D RAW conversions take over a minute for each conversion.
3. To recap, in other threads you said that your Acer Icona's USB port can run in host mode so that it can mount an external thumb drive or external hard drive (but the drive might need to be self powered). So that files can be copied to and from the external drive. But it (and all other Android tablets) only supports FAT32 and not NTFS. If so, this is a limitation, but not necessarily a deal breaker. It is still better than not being able to write to external drives at all.

I could have done all the above just as well with a Toshiba Thrive (using an SD card instead of the micro SD), or with an Asus Transformer IF I had the optional keyboard attached (you need the latter to get the USB host ports). So, it is practical to use a tablet in place of a Netbook or laptop for photo backup and viewing.

Cool. I'd like to hear from others that are doing the same thing. My wife and I have a week long trip coming up in November and I'd like to be able to retire my netbook. We generally travel with five digicams, so backup is a must. The netbook is functional, but smaller is always better. So long as you aren't giving up too much.

Wayne

 

[Jeff Peterman]

1. Are you saying that you used a single 32 gig micro SD card to back up all two weeks worth of RAW files? 7D/60D RAW files (I have a 60D) are about 25 megs and I don't know if 32 gigs would suffice for backup for an extended trip. But the price of flash memory is dropping (isn't it?), and stocking up on flash chips might not be prohibitive.

I filled roughly three 8 GB CF cards, which easily fit on the 32 GB micro SD card. MicroSD cards are about $50 for a 32 GB card, so I could have taken two. With the Toshiba unit taking full-size SD cards, you could have a single, bigger, card for backup.

1. To clarify, are you saying that the Thumbnailer app will convert RAW to JPEG on your tablet? If so, then how long do the RAW conversions take? I can do RAW conversions on my old netbook with BreezeBrowser, but 60D RAW conversions take over a minute for each conversion.

Actually, I think it just extracts the embedded JPG, I'm not sure - the result doesn't have the full resolution of the RAW file, but is bigger than I expected from the embedded JPG. I'll have to pull a converted JPG off of the tablet and look at it on my PC. It was certainly good enough to show others the shots and give them a copy.

1. To recap, in other threads you said that your Acer Icona's USB port can run in host mode so that it can mount an external thumb drive or external hard drive (but the drive might need to be self powered). So that files can be copied to and from the external drive. But it (and all other Android tablets) only supports FAT32 and not NTFS. If so, this is a limitation, but not necessarily a deal breaker. It is still better than not being able to write to external drives at all.

Yes, the FAT32 issue is a problem, inherent in the current versions of Android Honeycomb for tablets. I've seen Apps that let the tablets work with NTFS drives, but you need to Root the tablet first.

I could have done all the above just as well with a Toshiba Thrive (using an SD card instead of the micro SD), or with an Asus Transformer IF I had the optional keyboard attached (you need the latter to get the USB host ports). So, it is practical to use a tablet in place of a Netbook or laptop for photo backup and viewing.

The netbook is functional, but smaller is always better. So long as you aren't giving up too much.

There are certainly advantages to a netbook (real keyboard, real Window, hard drives, etc.), but the tablet is just so much more portable and convenient (instant on from Standby with just about zero power use in Standby).
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 

[camerashy]

Thanks Jeff, very interesting experience......off to review the 3 oprions mentioned in your other thread and make a decision
Dave
--
pbase supporter at http://www.pbase.com/dav4184
for equipment see profile

 

[Jeff Peterman]

The choice wasn't easy for me. Each of the three has advantages and disadvantages compared to the others. For example, the Toshiba is the only one with a removable battery, but it also has the shortest battery life. The Asus has the attachable keyboard that gives you a real physical keyboard, doubles the battery life, and gives you two USB how ports, but adds weight, size, and cost, and you don't have any USB host ports without it.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 

[Wayne Larmon]

The choice wasn't easy for me. Each of the three has advantages and disadvantages compared to the others. For example, the Toshiba is the only one with a removable battery, but it also has the shortest battery life. The Asus has the attachable keyboard that gives you a real physical keyboard, doubles the battery life, and gives you two USB how ports, but adds weight, size, and cost, and you don't have any USB host ports without it.

Did you compare screen quality? Our local Best Buy is kind of picked over because of back-to-school sales and I haven't been able to find working samples of them all at the same time. The older 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab that my wife has from her work has a screen that is decidedly dark and is poor for viewing/evaluating photos. I'm pretty sure that the Honeycomb Motorola (soon to be Google) Xoom that I had for a few days had a screen that was much better.

Wayne

 

[Wayne Larmon]

1. To clarify, are you saying that the Thumbnailer app will convert RAW to JPEG on your tablet? If so, then how long do the RAW conversions take? I can do RAW conversions on my old netbook with BreezeBrowser, but 60D RAW conversions take over a minute for each conversion.

Actually, I think it just extracts the embedded JPG, I'm not sure - the result doesn't have the full resolution of the RAW file, but is bigger than I expected from the embedded JPG. I'll have to pull a converted JPG off of the tablet and look at it on my PC. It was certainly good enough to show others the shots and give them a copy.

If it just spits the JPEGs out without offering RAW adjustment controls, like Exposure and White Balance, then it probably is just extracting the embedded JPEGs. BreezeBrowser has an option to extract all the embedded JPEGs and it only takes a second, or so, to extract JPEGs from entire directory of RAW files.

This isn't a deal breaker. I usually only want JPEGs in the field so I can look at them with a different image viewer, because BreezeBrowser isn't as quick and handy as Windows Explorer is for skimming through a directory of images. This may not be an issue for the RAW viewer app you use, if it is as nimble as any other Android image viewer.

We can always shoot RAW+JPEG if there is a real need for full size JPEGs. The most important thing is being able to ingest RAW images in any fashion and then be able to save them onto some other storage device, and you already answered that question.

Wayne

 

[Jeff Peterman]

The reviews have said that the screen on the Acer unit is not quite as good as some of the others. My experience has been that it is fine in normal use (with the brightness set to Auto, which is typically pretty low), but to get the best image you need to set it to full manual brightness, which uses more power. I leave mine in auto brightness most of the time.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 

[Jeff Peterman]

For me, the limited quality of the embedded JPG isn't an issue. It is certainly good enough to see (and show others) the shot, even if it isn't good enough to judge critical focus. The key thing is being able to back up the RAW files, which works well.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 

[TonyGamble]

Of the three options mentioned above I like the Toshiba Thrive as it ports a proper USB socket without the need for the dock and I like the idea of the SD card being used as a backup.

Does anyone know what the max size of an SD card is?

Does anyone know whether, once I have copied my files from my GH2 SDHC cards on to the SD whether I can use the Toshiba to view them and delete the b*mmers?

To me the thought of carting a keyboard around to support an Asus seems one step too near to a netbook.

Tony

 

[Jeff Peterman]

I like the Toshiba Thrive as it ports a proper USB socket without the need for the dock and I like the idea of the SD card being used as a backup.

The Acer has a proper USB socket, if we're discussing the host one (like on a PC). The second, the device socket, is mini USB on the Toshiba and micro USB on the Acer: older devices tend to have a mini USB port and newer ones a micro USB port, so I don't think there's an advantage either way.

For me, the main advantage of the memory slot is for backing up to removable memory - I can backup photos from my camera to that memory and then store it somewhere safe, if I wish. In that aspect, the only real advantage of the Toshiba is that you can get bigger SD cards (the Toshiba will take up to 128 GB) than micro SD cards (max 32 GB).

As for your other question, if you shoot JPG, it won't be a problem - you can view the contents of the camera's SD card (in the SD slot or in a card reader connected to the USB host port - I use the latter on my Acer). If you shoot RAW, you'd have to find an App that can view Panasonic RAW files, as the ones I know only handle Canon and Nikon so far.

When I chose the Acer over the Toshiba, it was mostly for price: the 32 GB Acer was available many places for under $450 (in the end, I paid $350 on sale at Costco), while the 32 GB Toshiba cost $575. Now, things have changed. The Best Buy flyer this weekend showed the 32 GB Toshiba for around $490 and the Acer for $500, but note that Amazon has the Acer for $440 and the Toshiba for $480. If I was buying today, I'd probably lean towards the Toshiba with the small price difference.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 

[TonyGamble]

Jeff,

If I shot combined RAW and JPG would I be able to delete the duff shots on the Toshiba's 128 gig SD card?

Tony

 

[DLBlack]

I have owned the Toshiba tablet for less than a week and am still learning my around it. It should be able to view your jepg just fine and with the file manager it should be able to delete any files you want. I did find an app that can few a long list of raw files. It will even show the exif informationand the clipped dark/highlights. If interested go to the Android Marketplacd and do a "camera RAW converter" search. It is just a raw viewer and does convert or save anything.

Dave
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[TonyGamble]

Thanks Dave,

Nightime UK. I'll be back with more q's tomorrow.

Tony

 

[TonyGamble]

Dave,

My needs are a tablet to travel with so I can stay up to date with my emails and do any web browsing required on the trip.

Plus I'd like to make a second copy of all my GH2 SD cards in case the originals get lost/stolen. I'd also like to be able to cull the unwanted shots to reduce the time doing it when I get home. I shoot RAW.

It seems that your Toshiba is what I want - using the Android RAW viewer that I found via Google and which seems to accept Panasonic files.

I'd also buy a 128 gig - or maybe only a 64 gig - SD card to fit in that extra slot.

Presumably I then put a card reader into the full size USB and use the Toshiba to move the files across the the big backup SD card. At some stage I view the backed up files using the viewer you suggest and dump the shots I know I'll never need.

Seems a good solution. Anyone want a one owner iPad 1 ??

Tony

 

[DLBlack]

It sounds like it shoul work. I am still learning my way around the Thrive, but you should be able to copy files from a memory card to the Thrive or even to an attached usb hard-drive. Hard drive depends on how it is formated and it need to be self-powered. Viewing JPEG is great viewing raw needs an app.

Dave
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[Jeff Peterman]

That should work without any problems, and is essentially what I do, except I have an Acer Iconia, not a Toshiba Thrive, so I backup to 32 GB microSD cards.

What RAW viewer did you find? I'd be interested in seeing how it compares to the one I use (CR2 Thumbnailer).
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 

[Jeff Peterman]

This can be problematic in two ways. First, Android Honeycomb only suports FAT or FAT32, and it is hard to find anything that can format FAT32 drives bigger than 32 GB (even though theoretically you can go much bigger). Second, self powered drived can require more power than provided by a single USB port. I have quite a few of these drives, and several will only run on my PC is I use a USB splitter so that they're connected to two USB ports, even though the same ones will run on one of my laptops with a regular (single port) cable. I haven't tried the problem drives on the tablet as they're formatted in NTFS, not FAT32.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 

[TonyGamble]

Jeff

Photo Mate was the RAW converter I found last night. But of course I have not tried it as I am not yet an Android user.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.tsgames.pictureinfo&feature=search_result

I see your msg about 128 gig formatting - and self powered external drives.

So the more one can use that internal SD slot on the Toshiba the less the problems lurking around.

In reality there is no need to buy 128, or even 64 gig. The equivalent number of 32 gig drives will still do as back ups. And my obsession with deleting the shots I wish I had never taken will inevitably mean that each will contain more than four 8 gigs worth of originals.

Would you expect any problem in reading an SDHC card attached to the USB socket of the Toshiba?

Tony

 

[Jeff Peterman]

The equivalent number of 32 gig drives will still do as back ups.

That was my thought, which is why I decided that the micro SD slot on the Acer tablet was fine.

Would you expect any problem in reading an SDHC card attached to the USB socket of the Toshiba?

I don't know the native format of SDHC cards, but assuming that they are FAT32, it shouldn't be an issue. Note that it is possible that Toshiba have dones something special to their tablet so that it can read things other than FAT32 (you can easily root the Acer and then run an App that can read NTFS hard drives, so that capability might be built in to the Thrive, or maybe not!).

--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com