Three reasons why you need a card reader
If you’re still plugging your camera into your computer every time you want to get at your photos, you’re not alone. I meet loads of photographers who don’t own a card reader and even some who have never removed the card from their camera.
Card readers are cheap, convenient and utterly essential in my book. Still not convinced? Here are three great reasons to use one.
Speed
If you want to access your photos fast then a modern USB3 card reader can’t be beaten as long as you have a spare USB3 socket to hand (it’s usually blue coloured, if it helps identify it).
Even the more pedestrian USB2 readers will often out perform download speeds from many camera when pluging them directly in to your computer.
Convenience
Do you know where you put the little cable to hook up your camera to the PC? If the answer is yes then well done you. Like most people I have a habit of loosing cables on a regular basis espeically if it’s a really, EALLY important one. Generally speaking a card reader remains attached to your computer or can even be built in, which makes it much tougher to loose!
Power
Using you camera as a card reader will mean turning it on, which is fine as long as your batteries are charged. Murphy’s Law dictates that the day when you absolutely must get those photos off your camera the batteries are going to be flat and the charger is no where to be found. No such problems exist with card readers as they draw thier power through the USB cable.
There are 100’s of different USB readers on the market. I’ve used the Lexar brand for many years and can highly recomend them. A word to the wise, if your buying one for a modern SD card make sure it’s compatble with your SDHC or SDXC format if that’s what you have.
Not only do I know where the cable is, I have about thirty of the flipping things which causes it’s own problems – all tangled up!
Another possible problem *some* might encounter is leaving the camera plugged in, forgetting it is then quickly grabbing the camera. It only takes a few steps to pull a mini usb socket out of the camera whilst dragging your computer behind you… 🙁
That’s a good point Steve although it’s possibly balanced by rushing off and leaving the memory card in the reader. Both bad in thier own way 😉
That’s why I keep a spare card or two in my camera case!
I had that happen to me the other day, went out to go take pictures turned on the camera, and it read no card in camera i was depresed because it was one of those amazing moments you do not come across too often
I’ve got to admit I only use my USB cable to transfer photos. I do own a card reader and my PC has USB 3 but my bigget concern is scratching the metal contacts of the not-cheap-memory cards which could cause them to stop working. Should I stop worrying even though I can see the metal parts are scratched?
Cards are more durable then you think Jared. Most claim to be shock resistant, water resistant and magnet resistant… although none have a homing device for when you loose them 😉
I have been removing the CF from my Canon since i got it.
Now i rarely use that old camera but after 10 years it still works fine. I never had any contact problems with any of the CF cards.
I have found the lowest impact method of all, the wifi-enabled sd card. As I shoot, the images are passed directly to my pc and held in a dated folder ready to import into Lightroom. It’s not at top speeds, but by the time I have put away my camera and equipment, it’s all transferred and ready for me when I set down at the pc. It works in my shop where my wifi lan does the transport, and away by setting it up in peer to peer mode.
hi dave:
do you shoot raw? download times seemed to take a really long time when i tried eyeFi.
i remove the card and stick it in my mac. i buy big cards and avoid deleting the images from the card. this gives me another backup. i got the idea from a friend who never uploads images from his memory cards1
cheers,
bert
Yes, I shoot RAW (else Gavin would bounce me out of here). I got the fastest card from eyeFi, too. I may end up watching the last couple of shots load onto the PC when I sit down to launch Lightroom, but I’m usually poking about with other tasks not to notice. I like having transfer stepts taken out of the workflow process and I get an extra backup copy to boot (on the card, in the eye-fi folder, and when I import the image into lightroom, it puts the DNG file into another folder). I also use drobo backup to take copies of both the RAW and the DNG onto the networked drobo 5n. I do have a card reader handy just in case, but since I got the wifi card, I’ve not used it.
I stopped downloading images with the camera connected to the PC. I was getting the odd corrupted picture and couldn’t understand why. There were no bad images if I downloaded through a card reader…. So now I always use a card reader to download and I get no problems.
I have always used a card reader, I had an original compact flash reader but for less than £10 I bought a multi card adapter. Most laptops have built in SD readers now.
I have 5 Card readers and two of them are in my bag. I download to my laptop to look at the photos while shooting on a different card. I don’t trust electronics and backup everything as soon as I can. I always copy to my laptop or pc and keep my camera ready for any candid shots that might pop up.
I tend to use the built-in SD Card Reader on my iMac for my Nikon D7000, but then use a CF Card Reader for the D700. This way even if I do forget about the card in the various slot, I still have spare cards of both formats in my camera bags.
I was using a card reader for years until I said “I wish my computer had an SD card reader slot” after forgetting mine while out of town visiting family last month. My dad proceeded to point out that his similar computer had one. Well what do you know? My laptop had an SD card slot on the front the entire time and I never noticed over the few years that I’ve owned it. So now I just use the one on my laptop. Much more convenient than using an external card reader and it transfers just as fast as the other card reader did.
Never lost an image using a cable plugged into my camera. But I have had card readers totally destroy cards on 3 ocassions over the years. While a lot slower, it certainly is safer to use the cameras electronics and pins for the connection to shield against faulty card readers and possible power surges. Certainly cheaper than another flight and accomodation expenses to go back for a reshoot.