Viewing RAW Images Stored On External Drive with Ipad

Afternoon

I could have worded the title a little better but it can be said so many ways. Let me explain what I want to do and hopefully there are some smart ones among you that can help.

I'm going to Yellowstone NP for 3 weeks in September. My camera bag is rammed with gear and I don't really want to take a bulky laptop with me. I will however, have my iPad and iPhone. At the end of each day, I want to be able to back up the photos from my SD cards onto an external drive.........and be able to view said photos with my iPad.

I read about the WD Wireless Passport but heard some horror stories about losing images and slow transfer rates and that it doesn't support RAW so I would have to shoot RAW+Jpeg. I also saw someone mention an OTG USB Hub, but I can't work out whether I can plug in my iPad and external drive so that the iPad sees the external drive and be able to view the images in the Photo app.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Julian

If you will have access to WiFi, try a cloud service.

JuSlaughter wrote in post #17629891
My camera bag is rammed with gear and I don't really want to take a bulky laptop with me. I will however, have my iPad and iPhone. At the end of each day, I want to be able to back up the photos from my SD cards onto an external drive.........and be able to view said photos with my iPad.

Three weeks of shooting RAW could kill many an iPad. I can't offer much advise in the way of external hardware but West Yellowstone has a public library with free use of computers. A few years back I carried a bunch of cards, stopped in the library, and burned the images to a DVD. (I learned this trick while traveling in Scotland)

I've noticed you have another thread about this trip and some people recommended Schwabacher's Landing just North of Jackson Hole. I suggest you get there a 1/2 hour prior to sunrise and set up along the water. You will be facing west and as the sun rises the mountain peaks are bathed in the early morning light which starts at the peaks and works its way down. Usually the water is quite still in the early morning so you get the reflections in the water. When you are done there go to Mormon Row, opposite side of the road and not too distant, and get some good shots of the very old homes. Usually Bison roam the same area.

See https://www.google.com …I3sa09r_YxgIVyw​uSCh3ekgxF
for some images from Schwabacher's Landing.

I haven't had much time to read about this thing, but maybe this is what you might need?

http://www.amazon.com …reless+photo+ba​ckup+drive

ETA: only works with SD cards and I'm not sure if it handles RAW (or maybe you'd need an app that can read RAW files instead? but an interesting idea.

did some more reading, I don't think RAW files are supported, which I almost expected. Probably would take quite some time to look at photos this way too. As nice as the iPad usually is, I sure wish it were easier to attach a card reader to that thing and have an app that can read RAW files.

I was in YS just two weeks ago, came home with some 3600 photos. Would have been nice to cull them at night, especially the many many captures needed to get a nice spray or mud bubble. I'm actually thinking of getting a macbook air or something for that reason. Or - like this time - just wait until I'm home.

Curious if others have some ideas here!

Although pricey, a Surface Pro 3 would make an ideal traveling companion since its a real computer without being too much bigger than an iPad. They're probably cheaper in the States than the UK too.

How about http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …tation_cs100_st​orage.html.

B&H Photo is in New York, very reputable. Have it shipped to your first place of stay.

I'm afraid you can't do what you want to with an IPad. The cheapest solution, if you already have portable hard drives, is a powered USB hub, an OTG USB cable and a cheap Android tablet.

There are plenty of RAW viewing apps for Android, even a Lightroom like RAW editor "PhotoMate R2". I bought a cheap Acer tablet for less than £100 which does the job easily.

Hope this helps.

Stevegg wrote in post #17630913
I'm afraid you can't do what you want to with an IPad. The cheapest solution, if you already have portable hard drives, is a powered USB hub, an OTG USB cable and a cheap Android tablet.

A regular IPad is very hard, but not impossible. With a USB adapter and hub, you can plug a USB drive on an IPad. The difficulty becomes file management. Jailbroken IPads have a file manager that can read/write to external drives. If you don't want to jailbreak, there may be a handful of file manager apps that could let you write to a device. Guessing for several weeks, you will need an external HD, since Dropbox and cloud services might be too small (don't think there's much for trying to preview RAWs on the IPad, but at least you should be able to save for later).

I just came across this thing, www.gnarbox.com that promises to do these things. Will it work? Who knows, but I decided to back it. So far I've had luck with kickstarter things.

Never tried to use my tablet for things like this but perhaps this link is of use to you :
graphicssoft.about.com​/od/iphoneandipodtouch​apps/a/iPad-Photography.htm

Alyx wrote in post #17637422
Never tried to use my tablet for things like this but perhaps this link is of use to you :
graphicssoft.about.com​/od/iphoneandipodtouch​apps/a/iPad-Photography.htm

Correct link http://graphicssoft.ab​out.com …ps/a/iPad-Photography.htm

I've been working through a similar issue. I'm going to Africa and didn't want to lug my old heavy laptop around and didn't want to spring for a 1000 ultra book (which was probably the best solution but expensive). I bought a device on amazon that lets you transfer images wirelessly to Ipad, Adroid or PC. It's called a RAVPower SD Card Reader and it acts like a NAS.

http://www.amazon.com …oh_aui_detailpa​ge_o07_s00

The problem is that you cant view the images on an IPad until you import them. It would be so much better if there is a way to view the images remotely ( still on the SD Card) and cull from there. I ended up getting a chromebook with an i3 processor and upgraded to a 128 gb drive to have a light weight way of backing up and viewing images...

I would love for someone to do a tutorial on an effective way to do something like this.

my iPad is crammed full with other stuff and thanks to the generous thinking of Apple I can't add memory or stick a memory stick in, so anything that requires me to download images to the iPad is out by definition. Hopefully that gadget I linked above via kickstarter will remedy this stupid restriction Apple throws at us. It would be so nice if I could plug in my memory card, delete what I don't want, and put the thing back in the camera. I'm not even interested in editing while on vacation, just culling on a screen that's larger than the one on the camera.

As far as viewing goes, the native Photos app is said to read and display raw files.
With the Lightning to SD card reader I don't see why you couldn't see them off your sd card.

As for copying them from SD to an External Device see this.
http://www.dpreview.co​m …h-built-in-sd-card-reader