If you have a DSLR, I hope you opted for the 64GB model when you bought your new iPad – MIC Gadget has just announced a new camera connection kit which will let you slurp in your huge RAW (and not-so-huge JPEG) files from your Compact Flash cards, SD cards, microSD cards and even via USB direct from the camera.
The dongle is larger than ones that Apple puts in its own camera connection kit, but on the other hand it keeps everything all in one place. Plug it into the 30-pin dock connector and it acts just like Apple’s own.
Why would you want this? Because the battery drain on a camera when transferring photos and videos direct via USB is substantial. Usually a DLSR has great battery life, but start down this roads and that life will quickly be sucked out of it. And at $33, the All-In-One Card Reader is less than a third of the price I paid for a spare battery for my Panasonic GF1.
The folks at MIC Gadget are also tech bloggers, and they have run the card through its paces (you should of course take into account that they are testing something they sell). Still, it looks to be fast enough, pulling a 36MP uncompressed RAW file into the iPad in 20 seconds (there are lots more tables, charts and videos in the blog post).
I just wish Apple would add an option for me to only import the JPG part of a RAW+JPG photo, letting me preview and edit the smaller file while keeping the RAW file on the card for later processing in Lightroom. Until then, I’ll be forever juggling photos. And yes, I sprung for the 64GB iPad 3. Even that might not be enough.