20D: Why not simple drag-and-drop download?

According to Bill :
Gisle Hannemyr wrote:

I would use a card reader for the following reasons:

[ ... ]

- Unloading from the camera is a quite heavy drain on the camera's
batteries.

The battery drain is actually quite minimal. And the power down timer
will kick in when connected to the computer anyway.

Are you sure about that last bit? I know that on some other
cameras, when the camera is connected to a computer, the auto power-down
is totally locked out -- to prevent a power-down in mid download.
This is certainly true on the Kodak/Nikon NC2000e/c (Nikon N90s
converted to digital by Kodak for the AP.)

Looking at my manual for the D70, it does not explicitly say
whether the power-down timer will kick in -- but it *does* warn the
following:


================================================== ====================
"To ensure that the data transfer is not interrupted, be sure
that the camera body is fully charged. If in doubt, charge the
battery before use, or use an EH-5 AC adaptor (available
separately)."
================================================== ====================

This at least suggests that the power down timer will *not*
protect you.

- Finally, hooking the camera up to the computer with a wire always
creates the risk of tripping over the wire and making the camera fall
on the floor.

That makes no sense...how many people have USB wires long enough to
reach the floor, let alone get in the way and cause them to trip and
damage their cameras.

I have some that long -- and I don't even use USB with my
camera. But different people have different layouts -- and toss a cat
into the equation, and perhaps *you* might not trip on the cable, but
the cat can certainly nudge it off a shelf.

BTW One more reason to not make a practice of connecting your
camera to your computer is that your computer is connected
directly to the power line, and likely to a modem or a network
line of some form or other, doubling the chances of it being
struck by lighting badly enough to damage not only the computer,
but also anything else connected to it.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

In article , DoN. Nichols
writes
According to Bill :
Gisle Hannemyr wrote:

I would use a card reader for the following reasons:

[ ... ]

- Unloading from the camera is a quite heavy drain on the camera's
batteries.

The battery drain is actually quite minimal. And the power down timer
will kick in when connected to the computer anyway.

Are you sure about that last bit? I know that on some other
cameras, when the camera is connected to a computer, the auto power-down
is totally locked out -- to prevent a power-down in mid download.
This is certainly true on the Kodak/Nikon NC2000e/c (Nikon N90s
converted to digital by Kodak for the AP.)

Looking at my manual for the D70, it does not explicitly say
whether the power-down timer will kick in -- but it *does* warn the
following:


================================================== ====================
"To ensure that the data transfer is not interrupted, be sure
that the camera body is fully charged. If in doubt, charge the
battery before use, or use an EH-5 AC adaptor (available
separately)."
================================================== ====================

This at least suggests that the power down timer will *not*
protect you.

My EOS 10D will not power down while actually transferring files, but
will auto power off when the download is complete. The warning about
battery exhaustion during transfer is of course valid, and IMO is
another reason in favour of a card reader.

David
--
David Littlewood

In article , Bill wrote:

For my Canon Rebel XT, I'm positive. I would like to think others that
have an auto power down mode will also do the same.

I turned off that useless feature the day I got the camera.

"DoN. Nichols" wrote

Do you have only a single CF card (or whatever format your 20D
uses)? Is it really that difficult to remove the card from the 20D?

Actually, I do just have one CF card right now, a 512 that I am using in the
20D. I could buy more, of course, and would if I were going on a trip and
planned to take a lot of pictures and not download them until I got back.
Can't hurt to have a spare, of course, but just one card generally is all I
need.

No, it is not difficult at all to remove a card from the 20D. About the
same amount of difficulty as plugging the camera into my desktop via USB, I
think.

Well, from the responses I have gotten to this question, I can see several
situations where it would be preferable to use a card reader rather than
download from the camera. Otherwise, sounds like just a matter of personal
preference. I don't really have a reason to do it that way right now.

mack
austin

It might be a useless feature to you, and obviously it may suit you to turn
it off, but I find it very useful on my 350D.

Mike Bernstein

"Randall Ainsworth" wrote in message
...
In article , Bill wrote:

For my Canon Rebel XT, I'm positive. I would like to think others that
have an auto power down mode will also do the same.

I turned off that useless feature the day I got the camera.

In article , Bill wrote:

So you leave your camera on 24/7...?

I turn it on to use it...turn it off when I'm done. Pretty complicated,
eh?

Bill wrote:

G.T. wrote:


Recently got my new Canon 20D, which I am enjoying very much, but was
surprised to discover that I had to use imaging software to download the
20D pictures to my computer.

Get a stick reader.

No kidding, the guy has had 5 digital cameras and he still doesn't have a
card reader?


What's a card reader?

Is that a psychic or something...?

It's a device that plugs into a USP port & you plug your memory card
into the card reader. Your card then shows up as a drive & you can drag
and drop your photos to copy/move them onto your computer.

One shortcoming I've found with plugging the camera into the computer is
it drains the batteries while transferring the images. A card reader
eliminates that. Pop the card out & slip in another. Put the card into
the reader & download your pictures.

My first couple of Lexar cards came with a card reader in the package.
Looked like this one:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Bill wrote:

David Geesaman wrote:


But personally, I have never seen the advantage of opening the camera,
popping out the card, putting it into a reader, moving the pictures off, &
putting the card back into the camera -- over just plugging in the camera
and pulling the pictures off that way. If there IS a good reason -- if, for
example, I am doing something terrible to the camera by doing it this way --
then, please, enlighten me.

On my dRebel, it was 2 orders of magnitude faster to make the copy
using a card reader. I know the 20D is faster than the dRebel, but I
doubt it's as fast as a card reader.


The 20D and Rebel XT have a USB 2.0 high speed port, which means it can
transfer about 10x faster than the original Digital Rebel.

A card reader is designed to be as fast as possible, and the older Rebel
and other models were slow transferring data. But with the newer cameras
the speed difference between a reader and the camera is minimal.

The other thing is that with a card reader, you could be out taking
pictutres while the other card is downloading.

"Bill" wrote in message ...
Mike Bernstein wrote:

"Randall Ainsworth" wrote in message
.. .
In article , Bill wrote:

For my Canon Rebel XT, I'm positive. I would like to think others that
have an auto power down mode will also do the same.

I turned off that useless feature the day I got the camera.

It might be a useless feature to you, and obviously it may suit you to
turn
it off, but I find it very useful on my 350D.

I hate to say it, but "me too".

I like that it will turn off automatically when I'm walking around. It
springs back to life instantly with a quick tap on the shutter button,
so there's no need to waste battery power.

The battery life on my Rebel XT ain't that great so I find it useful, too.
With the quick startup time of the Rebel XT I find no problem with auto
power down.

Greg

Bill wrote:

no_name wrote:


A card reader is designed to be as fast as possible, and the older Rebel
and other models were slow transferring data. But with the newer cameras
the speed difference between a reader and the camera is minimal.

The other thing is that with a card reader, you could be out taking
pictutres while the other card is downloading.


???

It only takes a few minutes to download dozens of photos. I usually have
a bite to eat or take a shower or something while I download an entire
gig of photos. I certainly don't need to wait long enough that I would
have to go without it.

My memory cards are like the American Express commercials...I never
leave home without them.

"Out" can be as near as the patio taking pictures of the butterflys on
the potted plants, or "out" the kitchen window taking the birds in the
back yard.