Card reader vs camera direct-connect for downloading image files?

card readers are so much faster and as far as bent pins go how can you bend them unless you turn it the wrong way and hit it with a hammer?

Card reader - mainly because it's 8x faster than downloading from the camera.

Bending CF pins is virtually impossible if you take the slightest amount of care. I've seen more people catch the USB cable, throwing their camera off the desk, than I have seen bent pins.

My 350D has an 8gb card in it, I never remove it, always use the USB cable.

As an amatuer I don't take 1000's of photos when I'm out, maybe a 100 or 150 at most so 2-3 minutes downloading them via USB is not a problem for me, I do not expect everything to work at the speed of light.

I have just upgraded my PC to windows 7 premiun 64 bit and as stated earlier the EOS utility does not work, but if you change the communication option in tools menu 2 on the camera to PRINT/PTP then a windows 7 utility will read and import the files from the camera.

Works for me.

John

card reader

The Hoodman RAW FireWire 800 CF reader for me...

Card reader.

i plug the cable directly to my camera and use LR3 to import my photos. not much of a heavy shooter so the battery life and speed don't bother me

I use both reader and direct/EOS Utility, depending upon my situation. But most of the time direct from camera.