When traveling, I load pictures to my iPad directly from my camera so I can better view them and make some modifications using graphic apps on the iPad. I only have a 16G iPad and I don’t want to dump all my apps to free up space. Rather than taking my MacBook Pro along all the time, is there a way to transfer my photos or other data on the iPad directly to an portable external drive? I’d also like to see the data on the drive from my iPad and be able to move the data from the drive to my iPad.
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Bill Semenick
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Can I Transfer Phoos On My iPad Directly To a Portable External Drive?
Comments: 7 Responses to “Can I Transfer Phoos On My iPad Directly To a Portable External Drive?”
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There are two ways I can think of to get photos off of your iPad (or iPhone) and stored elsewhere, without the use of a computer.
The first is to do as you suggest and use a drive specially designed for such a purpose. I know they exist, and a search turned up the Kingston Wi-Drive, though I'm sure there are others. I've never used this Wi-Drive, so I can't say much about it.
Of course a device like this has to be much more than a portable drive -- it needs some way to communicate with the iOS device. In the case of the Wi-Drive, it does so through wi-fi. You'd think there would also be devices that do it through the dock/lightning connector, but I couldn't find any. Perhaps wi-fi is best, as it can work with non-Apple devices too.
But the second way to get photos off of your iPad without a computer I think is much better. That is to use the cloud. If you are using Photo Stream, then you're already there. But using something like the DropBox app is another way to transfer photos. And a search through the app store shows there are many more apps that will allow you to transfer photos to a server somewhere. You can do it when you are traveling when you have a good wi-fi connection, like in a hotel or office, etc.
A big advantage to the second method is safety. When you transfer to a single drive that you carry with you, you have one point of failure. If that drive breaks, is stolen, lost, or whatever, then your photos are gone. Some problem with not transferring the pictures off your iPad at all. But with the cloud, you can lose all of your luggage, get robbed, have your hotel burn down, and be hit by an EMP device and your pictures will still be waiting for you to access when you get home.
Sorry, I was away and didn't have access to wi-fi. Happens a lot -no cloud access.
I edit photos on my iPad allowing me to do some remarkable effects cheaply that I'm unable to do on my Mac Pro - the main reason to store my edited photos on external device.
The Wi Drive app mentions one of the features as Camera Roll
Supt-moving from device to the SSD Wi-drive. I wish I could test this feature before buying the drive. I'll ask Kingston directly about this.
Thanks for the replies.
FWIW
A photog journo friend of mine travels around the globe
he has tried all options,
suggested that the safest way is to, "carry a hat full cards"
1. he fell over in a river and all was lost except his images on cards
2. gear stolen, still had the cards on his person
3. he has tried portable storage devices, found they failed as well
lastly, since then, as suggested, the cloud option is a great option
....Gary
That's a good solution, if you are using a camera that takes SD cards. But the original question is about using the iPad to take pictures.
Adobe JUST (9/5) announced a "Creative Cloud" package for photographers for $10/mo x 12. It includes Photoshop & Lightroom 5.2 AND 20GB storage on the Cloud. An iPad user might be able to utilize these high-end graphics programs without having to "carry 'em around." One could move photos from camera to iPad, do the photo mods and WiFi them to Adobe Cloud seamlessly. (FYI: No Adobe affiliation here. Suggest to look to their site for full info.)
Not sure how this applies to the question. Perhaps you mean that some apps use the Adobe Cloud storage as a place to transfer the photos? Maybe, I'm not sure. You wouldn't be able to use PhotoShop or LightRoom if all you had with you was an iPad. Those are Mac (and Windows) apps.
Yep, a little off course! I had just read a news flash about "Photoshop & Lightroom", "photographers" and "20GB Cloud storage" and then read this post, including "Gary's" grief about his losing/saving photos. Adobe's Cloud storage seems to fit the bill for a WiFi-to-storage but you're right (as always!) about the full software; not for the iPad. Ready, shoot, aim.