What is the "BEST" way to transfer images from the camora to the computer??

Hi,

I have been thinking about this "issue" and I want to hear from what you guys have to say.

What is the "BEST" way toi transfer images from DSLR Camera to PC? especially for those cameras using CF cards.......

How I do it:

I normally attach my camera via the USB port directly to the PC and download the files with like say .... EOS UTILITY. For one I feel it downloads faster this way.. or maybe I just have a crappy card reader.

Question.....

Would it be better to remove the CF from the camera and have a card reader transfer files to the PC? My apprehension with the constant removal of the CF from the camera is that I might wear out the "contacts" of the CF card or those on the camera body "earlier"...... though I admit the USB port wears out also but I do see it being more robust than those pins and holes.

OR is it betterthe way I normally do it... attach the camear via USB directly to the PC

Waiting to hear from you guys.....

JKS, I think this is purely a matter of choice, I have done both download from the camera and download from the card reader and I suppose there are pros and cons to both. In my opinion, just do what is convenient to you. I personaly invested in a $20 built in card reader which I find very convenient. If your computer supports them, there are some USB 3.0 cardreaders out there which should speed up the process significantly, but I haven't invested in one of those yet, so I can't say for sure.

Maybe someone else can give a more definitive answer.

Good luck

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Originally Posted by jks_photo

Hi,

I normally attach my camera via the USB port directly to the PC and download the files with like say .... EOS UTILITY. ..

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No matter how I do it, I never use a utility. I just open the card or camera like another drive on my computer, drag and drop to the folder of choice. done.
I find attaching the camera via the USB port directly to the PC to be slow as Christmas. I have an in computer card reader.
Mark

thanks guys

I'm in the midst of a shift of operating, and I'm not sure which way i'm going to end up going.
When I first got my camera, I had a laptop only, running Linux. Laptop didn't have a CF-slot, only SD. Linux doesn't work with EOS-Utility. But it does have Gphoto, and more importantly Digikam (which is basically Lightroom). So using Digikam, I could connect the USB-plug on my camera, and download the photos.
(Also, at this time, space on the laptop was limited, the monitor wasn't calibrated, I could only RAW-convert using UFRAW which doesn't have the correct "profiles" for my camera, so the gamma was all wrong and imaes just ended up looking really weird). Long-story short, I shot JPG-only except for a few where I hit the RAW+JPG button for special shots.

So then I got back to australia, bought myself a nice big comp with a nice fast 6-core cpu, a nice huge data hdd, and a nice huge 27" dell ultrasharp. I started as I'd left my laptop, usb-through-Digikam. Then I got DPP working under wine, and started shooting RAW+JPG everything. But that is *slow* downloading. Even worse is that Digikam scans every photo (15k+) for changes on startup, so the program can take 5-10 minutes to load. I used digikam for downloading, gwenview (like irfanview or windows picture viewer) for viewing the JPGs, DPP for processing the RAW shots with noise-reduction, WB, contrast/sat, whatever, and GIMP for anything else. (then later on Hugin for panoramae/HDR, and Luminance HDR for tone-mapping). If I wanted to delete something (mostly only blurry/OOF, especially from High-Speed 7D chasing birds or bugs, sometimes more than half the shots from a session), I'd delete it in gwenview, then in my filemanager I'd look for .cr2-files that didn't have a .jpg next to it, and delete that too. (It's a long workflow...)

Then I found my old card reader, usb2.0, works under linux, great. Plug it in, mount it, copy at full speed directly using Dolphin (filemanager). Same workflow as before.
Now i've decided that I'd rather just shoot RAW-only. So I can't view .cr2 files in gwenview, and I'm contemplating what to do. I can keep using the CF card-reader (i'm contemplating buying a USB3 card-reader if i can find a linux-compatible one). But I might switch back to Digikam/Showphoto for reviewing the RAW files before converting, or i'll batch-convert in DPP then delete same method as before if I decide it doesn't take too long...

I download directly from the camera, using EOS Utility, for a number of reasons:

1. I rarely shoot with more than one CF card. Not removing the card from the camera means I minimize the risk of damaging the card or the camera through carelessness.
2. Downloading through EOS Utility minimizes the risk of accidentally deleting or corrupting the card's contents. If I forget to delete old files on the card, EOS Utility knows which files I've already downloaded, so I don't get duplicates and I don't miss any files.
3. I've set up EOS Utility to automatically rename each file to the format YYYYMMDD_NNNN.CR2, to be automatically placed in a directory structure that organizes images by the year, month, and day of capture.
4. Connecting to EOS Utility on a regular basis means the camera's internal clock is automatically synchronized to my computer's clock, which in turn receives its timing adjustment over the internet, thus making sure that the time and date of exposure is always accurate.
5. Not mounting the card via a CF reader ensures that my OS does not write extraneous filesystem data on the card.

In summary, EOS Utility works best for me. I don't use anything else. I can understand using another method if you're shooting several CF cards on a body and need to run the images to an agency while you continue shooting. But I find EOS Utility is so often overlooked by Canon shooters--it is a LOT more than just a downloading application and a firmware updater.

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Originally Posted by wickerprints

Connecting to EOS Utility on a regular basis means the camera's internal clock is automatically synchronized to my computer's clock, which in turn receives its timing adjustment over the internet, thus making sure that the time and date of exposure is always accurate.

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I did not know this before...thanks for the info! I assume it does this automatically and I don't have to manually synchronize...

Stephen

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QUOTE=wickerprints;60547]I download directly from the camera, using EOS Utility, for a number of reasons:

1. I rarely shoot with more than one CF card. Not removing the card from the camera means I minimize the risk of damaging the card or the camera through carelessness.
2. Downloading through EOS Utility minimizes the risk of accidentally deleting or corrupting the card's contents. If I forget to delete old files on the card, EOS Utility knows which files I've already downloaded, so I don't get duplicates and I don't miss any files.
3. I've set up EOS Utility to automatically rename each file to the format YYYYMMDD_NNNN.CR2, to be automatically placed in a directory structure that organizes images by the year, month, and day of capture.
4. Connecting to EOS Utility on a regular basis means the camera's internal clock is automatically synchronized to my computer's clock, which in turn receives its timing adjustment over the internet, thus making sure that the time and date of exposure is always accurate.
5. Not mounting the card via a CF reader ensures that my OS does not write extraneous filesystem data on the card.

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Reasons 1,2 and 5 are also my reason for using EOS utility. I didn't know about reason 3 and 5 though. Thanks for the info

A clarification regarding points 3 and 4 of my previous post: you must set up the correct EOS Utility preferences to perform these functions. You must connect your camera to the computer in order for preferences to be saved.

For renaming downloaded files and automatic organization, you must enter the preferences and make sure the following are set:

• Under the "Destination Folder" drop-down menu option, the organization scheme should be set to "Shooting Year/Shooting Month/Shooting Date." No further customization is required.
• Under the "File Name" drop-down menu option, Select "Customize..." and choose in the first field, <Shooting Year>, the second <Shooting Month>, the third, <Shooting Day>, the fourth, a separator symbol of your choice, such as "_" (optional), and finally, <Image Number>. This would create a file with the name YYYYMMDD_NNNN. You could of course choose whatever other customization scheme you wish, including the use of <Shooting Time>, depending on your needs. The reason I use the YYYYMMDD syntax is because this guarantees all files will be lexicographically listed in increasing chronological order.

For automatic synchronization of the camera clock, this is not in the main preferences menu. Instead, it is buried in the Camera Settings/Remote Shooting menu. Connect the camera and Select "Camera Settings/Remote Shooting" from the main window. Choose the little tool/wrench icon in the center of the control panel, which is the "Set Up Menu" for your camera. This is the same menu where you would update the firmware. Here, you can enter the name of the owner of the body, the author and copyright holder notices, and the Date/Time. Select the Date/Time, which will pop up a dialog box. Make sure the second radio button, "Always match the computer time" is selected, and choose "OK." This will cause EOS Utility to set the connected camera body's internal clock to match the computer's clock each time the camera is connected to the computer.

Note that EOS bodies have a removable main battery as well as a small coin battery for operating the clock when there is no main battery (or it is depleted). If this coin battery loses power, the camera's clock may not continue to function properly. In such an event, changing the clock synchronization setting as described above may mask your ability to notice that you need to replace this battery.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wickerprints

I download directly from the camera, using EOS Utility, for a number of reasons:

1. I rarely shoot with more than one CF card. Not removing the card from the camera means I minimize the risk of damaging the card or the camera through carelessness.
2. Downloading through EOS Utility minimizes the risk of accidentally deleting or corrupting the card's contents. If I forget to delete old files on the card, EOS Utility knows which files I've already downloaded, so I don't get duplicates and I don't miss any files.
3. I've set up EOS Utility to automatically rename each file to the format YYYYMMDD_NNNN.CR2, to be automatically placed in a directory structure that organizes images by the year, month, and day of capture.
4. Connecting to EOS Utility on a regular basis means the camera's internal clock is automatically synchronized to my computer's clock, which in turn receives its timing adjustment over the internet, thus making sure that the time and date of exposure is always accurate.
5. Not mounting the card via a CF reader ensures that my OS does not write extraneous filesystem data on the card.

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I also download from the camera using EOS utility, mainly for convenience - I've "always" done it this way and have established a fast workflow for importing (EOS Utility) and making the first rough keep or delete decision (DPP - CtrlA - AltQ). (I don't use DPP for RAW conversion anymore, but I still use it for this.) For the moment I see no reason to do otherwise. So far no. 1, 2 and 5 have also been reasons for doing it this way, but I didn't know about no. 4 - I probably didn't look deep enough in the manual. I will definitely use this feature if I can manage to set it up - thanks for the description!

Meh, I just use lightroom. As far as the method, I suppose that depends on the PC. If you have a PC that has a mobo with usb3.0 support then of course something like the Kingston external usb3.0 card reader would be the faster choice. I suppose the real answer will the the 1dx's Ethernet cable connection.

Just one piece of advise if you don't mind? When transferring regards of method used, never and I repeat never 'move photos to' always 'copy photos to'. That way if anything can go wrong and things do, your card will still have to info (photos) still there. Personally I use a card reader. I make sure I use one from a reputable company, and not a 'no name cheapo brand' .

I use a Lexar Firewire 800 card reader in conjunction with with fast CF cards as this is much quicker than the cameras USB port.
My computer automatically opens Canons Camera Window (part of Imagebrowser/Zoombrowser)
I have this set to put the files in a new sub-folder (it asks me for a new folder name each time) which is in a year folder

The part I don't like and don't know a way round is that after downloading it opens Imagebrowser which I don't use ever, I'd like it to go straight into DPP, but am unable to see how that can be done.

Mark, could you just specify DPP as the default app to handle .CR2 files?

I have set DPP as the default app for .CR2 files, which will of course automatically open DPP when clicking on a RAW file, but there is no import facility in DPP.

You would just have to create a folder then drag and drop the files. You can't set it up so that you push card into the reader and the images are automatically downloaded in to a new folder and then DPP automatically starts with your new images showing.

What I like about Camera Window is that it asks for a new folder name each time, which I find very useful for keeping each event/session separate, just a shame you cant have it import and just shut down without opening any other software.

Not a big issue, more a little niggle, and getting less so as I now use Aperture for most of my photo work.