Quick Review: Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit

By Marc Rochkind

I got my Apple iPad on its first day, April 3, but had to wait until today for the Camera Connection Kit ($29), which just arrived. The Kit consists of two separate receptacles for the iPad's connector: one for SD cards, and one with a USB female socket.

The USB socket is intended for connecting directly to a camera that's configured either for PTP or as a mass-storage device. I didn't test either, as I don't connect that way. Instead I connected a USB card reader and used that to read a CF card, which worked fine. Probably other card types work, too.

I also tried an Epson P-3000* portable viewer, which didn't mount at all. My guess is that most devices that aren't cameras or cards probably won't work. I leave it to others to try out all the possibilities.

Of more interest to me is what files the iPad can read and understand. When you connect a card or camera, the iPad jumps to its built-in Photo app and opens a new tab called Camera, not previously seen (by me, anyway). You select the thumbnails you want, or you can just import them all. You also have a button for deleting, but I didn't try that (and won't). After you import you're offered the option of deleting what you imported, but I didn't try that either.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Photo app imported my Canon G9 and Nikon D700 RAWs and a Canon G9 movie, in addition to JPEGs. It showed all of them full-screen, too. I'm sure it's just showing the full-size JPEG preview embedded in Canon and Nikon RAWs, not converting the raw data itself. But the intact RAWs are indeed imported.

What you import goes into an album called Last Import, and also an album in the Events tab whose name seems to be the date of the first photo. And everything you import goes into a catch-all album named All Imported. There's no way I know of to rename albums.

When you sync Photos with iTunes, albums imported with the Camera Connection Kit are left alone, not deleted, which is good. (Normally, synced albums no longer on your desktop or laptop are deleted as a function of the sync.)

You can transfer images from the iPad to your computer with the Image Capture app that comes with OS X, or with Lightroom. I understand that other apps like Aperture, iPhoto, and probably some Windows apps other than Lightroom work as well. (I'm embarrassed to say that my own ImageIngester doesn't see the iPad. I'll look into that, of course.)

As a previewer and backup device for field use, the iPad works okay. Its screen is way better than the one on the Epson P-3000, or any other portable viewer I've seen. Clearly an issue for production work is its limited storage: 64GB at most, some of which you'll be using for other things besides photos. Also, the iPad is somewhat cumbersome with its USB or SD connector, and maybe a card reader, too. My Epson P-3000 and many other portable backup units are self-contained.

Marc

Marc Rochkind is a developer of software such as ImageIngester for profess- ional digital photographers.

*Current version is the P-6000.

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

UPDATE: As I reported above, the iPad did fine with a 2GB SanDisk Extreme III card in a Kingston card reader, but when I tried an 8GB Kingston 133S Elite Pro card in the same reader, the iPad popped up a message saying that the device took too much power, and refused to mount it. Putting the card back in the camera (a Nikon D700) and connecting that way worked fine. So, although I have always removed a card from the camera to ingest it, when I travel with the iPad I'll just go straight from the camera. (And, as it happens, that's the only method Apple officially supports. I now know why.)

Featured Comment by Stephen Best: "The obvious question is why didn't Apple include a SD slot and USB connector in the iPad in the first place?"

Comments

[Christopher Lane]

Thanks Marc. Great news, just what I have been waiting for. Come on tax refund.

[Josh Marshall]

Marc, would you possibly be able to inform us at what speed the import takes place?

I used to have an iPod camera connector back a number of years, but the USB1.1 transfer speed made using it an exercise in frustration. If the iPad connection actually happens at reasonable speeds, I'll be up for one. It'll be the (multifunction) equivalent of the Epson ingesters.

[Andrew Kowalczyk]

Thomas Pindelski has posted timings and file structures on his blog - iPad Camera Connection Kit.

[Martin Doonan]

Would this constitute a recommended solution for those who have an iPad anyway, or do you feel it is a solution in itself?
Doesn't seem as good as my netbook/external hard drive solution for photo back-up in the field and I run a full copy of Lightoom on the netbook. Cheaper, too.

[Marc Rochkind]

@Josh: From what I read, speed is much better than that of the iPhone. True USB 2.0. Depends a lot on the card and reader/camera. My testing wasn't scientific enough for me to quote numbers.

--Marc

[Richard Ripley]

Thanks Marc for the information about the connection kit. Too bad it can't "handle" the card reader and some CF cards. I've always been told it's best to use a card reader and not to ingest directly from the camera. Anyway, as another person has asked in a post, how is the import speed?

[Karl K]

Why didn't apple include a card reader? Probably so they can offer one in six months. Why offer now what you can generate more upgrades with later?

[Marc Rochkind]

@Martin: Too soon to know for sure, but I think the iPad as a field backup/viewer is only for those who have other reasons to have an iPad and are not taking a lot of shots. Dedicated devices are better solutions for more demanding situations. (I certainly didn't buy my iPad to replace my Epson P-3000.)

As a viewer, in the field or not, the iPad excels.

--Marc

[Yoni C]

Thanks for the review Marc. Did you check how it handles duplicates? can it be used for incremental importing?

[Dennis Ng]

That is iteration 1. Unfortunately as Apple is a close shop, it is hard to tell.

May be one day, one can turn the live feed image to IPad and turn it upside down plus horizontal flip it, you can have the experience of a 8x10 camera without the dark cloth. Joke aside, you can zoom it to check focus zoom out to check the overall shot with RGB/histogram per small area etc.

Whether if Apple did not do it can one develop an IPad application to somehow sync with the camera. No doubt, it is a better way to do live view on an A4 size viewer than a 3" inch one.

BTW, looking at a subset of pixel (like the embed JPEG) can be misleading. The real deal is look at the raw in real time on A4 size display!

[John]

Apple generally pares down all of its products to the core essentials, and this is no exception.

Imagine: there's an SD card slot built-in.

Immediately, the question from the general audience: how do I copy apps/music/PDFs/office documents/VPN configurations/whatever from the card into my iPad (or vice versa)? How do I browse the card?

Suddenly, the appliance experience the iPad offers becomes polluted.

By offering it as an external device clearly labeled for camera connectivity, Apple maintains control over the experience and expectations. This functionality is for importing images. Full stop.

Think how rare this device is. How many computers sold at Best Buy can you honestly say that, within two days of use, you've used every port available, every button? The iPad has what you need and nothing more; if you want something it doesn't offer, hey, that's fine, you can buy some other device.

Apple doesn't have to "pad" a feature list to sell its products. It sells a promise: if you buy this, the things we do support will work very, very well, and easily, and intuitively.

Think how rare that is, too.

[Jay]

Can you export images from the iPad to another SD card or a flash drive. This would let me make backups when traveling without a computer.

[Richard Chen]

There's lots of empty space inside an iPad, so I'm guessing the omission of SD reader/USB port has to do with profit and power demands. There are other features a next-gen iPad could use, perhaps a variant with huge amounts flash memory could be one of them. Not to mention an onboard camera or two, a decent sized sensor could fit in there.

[Marc Rochkind]

@Yoni: Skips dupes, so incremental works very well.

--Marc

[Richard Sintchak]

See here too:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/24/apples_ipad_camera_adapter_supports_usb_audio_keyboards.html

[Michel]

I wish the iPad photo app allowed you to rate photos and have those ratings carry into iPhoto or Aperture. It would be great to be able to perform a first edit in the field.

[Mike Johnston]

We should suggest a "PhotoPad" to Apple, with features specifically designed for photographers.

Mike

[Steve Ballantyne]

A specialized PhotoPad from Apple? They'll never do that, because their bag is generalize, not specialize; and with a name like "PhotoPad" users would expect some kind of camera to be built in.

On the other hand, iPads run iPhone software, so a collection of third-party iPhone apps upgraded for the bigger iPad screen is not ureasonable -- existing stuff like PhotoShop Mobile, MillColour, Pixel Perfect, PhotoTropodelic, TiltShiftGen and suchlike could make an iPad into a handy portable editing suite.

But what I'd really like to see would be an iPad version of Lightroom. I used to like dodging and burning with my hands back in the day; a touch version of Lightroom could bring that back, assuming Adobe ever gets over its snit with Apple.

[Marc Rochkind]

@Steve: There might be a touch version of LR someday, maybe even on an Apple device, but definitely not on the current iPad generation. Memory is much too limited (256MB), and so is CPU speed. Also, it's not an Intel x86 processor, which is all LR v3 runs on.

--Marc

[Julie]

Very interesting review. Guess it's time for me to go get one myself and test it out.

[Account Deleted]

As Jay commented, I also want export images in IPAD to external SD or CF card by using camera connection kit. I didn't find the solution yet.

I also want to browse images, delete bad images directly in SD/CF card. Currently, we have to import images in SD/CF card to IPAD to view full image and delete bad ones.

When I'm in the outside, sometimes I have to quickly select good photos and hand them to press. Hence, direct browsing and deleting images in SD/CF card via camera connection kit is very important to me. That's why I bought IPAD, or PhotoPad. :)