Brainstorming Ipad vs regular HD

[Steven Davis]

I was shooting stills the other day and wanted to show the client the images afterwards. I was thinking it would have been nice to plug up a monitor. Then I started thinking about the ipad, but I'm not sure if you can just plug in play an ipad without copying the images to the ipad itself.

Any thoughts. If I buy an actual small field monitor, I would double it's use on my video cameras as well.

Thanks in advance for the thoughts on my brainstorming.

[Baiju Gadhia]

As far as I know Its not possible to show images on the iPad without downloading them locally unless you are viewing them off a webserver online or on a local network (which can be a pain, and you dont get the smooth interface and best quality)

Having said that, Pulling photos from your memory cards straight to the iPad is pretty easy with the camera connection kit. You can either just pop in a SD card, or Connect your camera or USB card reader if your are using CF and the the photos just just appear Under the camer Tab in Photos.

While it does show you thumbnails to allow you to select which photos you want to copy over, it does not let you do much else. Still you can Pick and choose or transfer them all over and they will show up on the iPad. Depending upon the size and number of files it has taken between 2 to 20 minutes when I've done it in the past.

One nice thing is that you can import and view Raw files (Well I've tried with my old Nikon D70s and Canon 7D) so no need to Do RAW+JPEG that you needed to do to review you pics on some of the older standalone Photo Backup devices. (One side note while it will copy over videos shot on a DSLR, it does not yet play them natively so do check if that is what you need it to do)

So I'll definitely suggest going the iPad route as opposed to a standalone monitor, as it can do a lot more and can serve as an excellent digital potfolio as well as a laptop replacement in some cases (When you don't want to lug a laptop when out and about)

Having said that (and probably about to contradict myself) A field monitor is probably going to be more useful if you only want something to show off you pics occasionally, and would primarily be useing it for video work, where I have to admit I've often longed for a larger screen, especially when focusing manually.

[Steven Davis]

Thank you kind Sir for that information. I would buy both but I would need to sell a kidney first.


Mmm, seems Smallhd has discontinued the 8inch monitor.

[Baiju Gadhia]

Glad to be of help.

In fact I should be thanking you as I'd almost forgotten about this capability as I had not used it in a while as I normall have my MBP with me.

Still this may prove useful on a couple of upcoming project when I wou't need to head back to the Temp Office to review, and can just check onsite Before moving to the next location.

Sorry to see that the Monitor you were looking for is no longer available. There should be a few alternatives around as if I remember correctly there were quiet a few affordable good quality Portable Monitors announced at NAB and IBC this year.

I See if I can dig up the wish list I made at that time as I think I did have a couple of the new field monitors on it.

[Greg Fiske]

the best setup with an ipad is if you have a d series camera with multiple card slots. You use a wifi card and have the small jpeg write to the sd card and your raw files to the cf card. On the ipad, just load the small jpegs and they pop up instantly.

[Victor Wilcox]

With the "Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit" you get two adapters, USB and SD Card connections. You can read directly from the camera if it has a USB output or read from it's SD Card. You can even load and display RAW images.

Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit - Apple Store (U.S.)