Laptop or tablet for traveling???

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armchicago

armchicago

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Looking for options to back up my cards to external drives when on photo trips. I wouldn't mind the ability to do a some basic editing here and there and sharing some pics to social media but again, the primary goal is to back up. Light and small is important. Mac Book Air is attractive but I know I wouldn't use it when I'm not traveling (and I'll only be doing a few of these trips a year), so I'm not in love with spending a $1000 for it to collect dust most of the year. I'm pretty tech challenged so my question is...

Is anyone using an iPad to unload memory cards and then send them to an external ssd drive? Can that even be done with an iPad? If it can, is there a version of Lightroom that can be run on an iPad, so some sorting and editing can be do too? I would definitely use an iPad on a regular basis, so I like the idea a lot better, if it is an option from a technical standpoint. Thanks in advance!

Adam
 
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Graham Clark said:
Can't help with Apple specifically but I travel with a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet and it works just fine with LR Classic. I also take a pair of 1TB Samsung T5 SSD's for back ups.
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Thanks, Graham! I had a surface pro for work and I didn’t like it for that application but definitely a solid option for the travel photo stuff. About the same size as an iPad Pro.
 
We prefer our macbook pro with Western Digital My Passport for Mac use external hard drives. It seems like overkill but it will do anything our iMacs do at home which is very nice when you travel a lot.

You can buy those WD external drives 5TB for less than 2 hundo now. Anyone else remember standing in line to buy a 2 GB hard drive for double that price....lol
 
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armchicago said:
Looking for options to back up my cards to external drives when on photo trips. I wouldn't mind the ability to do a some basic editing here and there and sharing some pics to social media but again, the primary goal is to back up. Light and small is important. Mac Book Air is attractive but I know I wouldn't use it when I'm not traveling (and I'll only be doing a few of these trips a year), so I'm not in love with spending a $1000 for it to collect dust most of the year. I'm pretty tech challenged so my question is...

Is anyone using an iPad to unload memory cards and then send them to an external ssd drive? Can that even be done with an iPad? If it can, is there a version of Lightroom that can be run on an iPad, so some sorting and editing can be do too? I would definitely use an iPad on a regular basis, so I like the idea a lot better, if it is an option from a technical standpoint. Thanks in advance!

Adam
Click to expand...
Laptop is the way to go I think. You can upload to the iPad and then offload to a USB (and I think a spinning drive or SSD as well). It the limited storage on the iPad would make it a slow process...plus you can’t run LR to edit...you could use the iOS version of LR. It it is pretty limited IMO.
 
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I also use a Surface pro and portable SSD so that I can download all of my shots onto TWO independent storage locations. If I have wi-fi available, I also upload to the cloud. I don't really do much editing on my laptop. I'd rather save that for home and my 32" monitors. I just want to look at my shots in the field on the laptop to get a better idea of what I've captured.
 
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Old laptop with Samsung 1tb ssd drive. And another portable hd ( name escapes me now). I like having it backed up to my laptop and two portable HD.... One is good two is better three is best.

my ipad is great for viewing images though and I use it a lot for just that, much nicer then my laptop screen.
 
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On a case by case basis, I use both iPad Pro (128gb capacity) and MacBook Pro with external SSD hard drives for backup.

@Neil Laubenthal. About 3 years ago I bit the bullet and signed up for the photography plan on Adobe (in those days it was subsidised by my business :) and now out of my pocket :cry:) which means any of the software on that plan stays up to date and LR certainly can edit on the iPad and it is surprising how much you can actually do with it. Auto adjust to quickly see how much detail can be recovered in an off shot, light, colour, texture, clarity, dehaze, sharpen and denoise, lens correction, crop and even presets.

The D500 allows instant download so if you want to have a closer look at something to decide if you want another shot or are happy with it, it's great for that. Mind you, I wouldn't recommend leaving it on automatic download. :)
 
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Oztours said:
On a case by case basis, I use both iPad Pro (128gb capacity) and MacBook Pro with external SSD hard drives for backup.

@Neil Laubenthal. About 3 years ago I bit the bullet and signed up for the photography plan on Adobe (in those days it was subsidised by my business :) and now out of my pocket :cry:) which means any of the software on that plan stays up to date and LR certainly can edit on the iPad and it is surprising how much you can actually do with it. Auto adjust to quickly see how much detail can be recovered in an off shot, light, colour, texture, clarity, dehaze, sharpen and denoise, lens correction, crop and even presets.

The D500 allows instant download so if you want to have a closer look at something to decide if you want another shot or are happy with it, it's great for that. Mind you, I wouldn't recommend leaving it on automatic download. :)
Click to expand...

Yeah…I've been on the photo plan for 3-4 years at least myself and have used both the LR Classic version on the Mac and the cloud version on the iPad…and while you can get things done on the iPad it's capabilities are still behind what Classic version can do, then add in plugins like Luminar or SnapHeal or wherever else you might like and that you don't get in the cloud version. I can make do with the iPad version but the real problems for me are lack of storage space on the iPad and lack of internet bandwidth in most places to adequately manage travel usage. That's why I stick with my laptop for traveling…using a separate catalog on the laptop which gets exported and imported to the master catalog on the iMac when I get home. I keep the laptop catalog synced with the iMac one as far as keywords and plugins go and use a similar file structure on each so when I get home it's a pretty easy export/import then delete the images from the laptop catalog once they're imported and backed up so it's ready for the next trip.

I would likely carry my laptop with me regardless if the trip was longer than just a couple of days anyway…and in that case the extra capability in LR on the laptop is worth it…for a shorter trip I have carried just my iPad but in that case I just don't process much until I get back. Blogging on the laptop is easier with MarsEdit than doing it on the laptop via the email posting trick…although for a shorter trip I transfer only the ones I want to post to the iPad. I know there are folks who use the iPad exclusively…and they're not all photo folks, Frederico Viticci of the Mac tech press works almost exclusively on an iPad Pro large size and runs his business on it…but I've always found that the iPad is simply harder to use for actual work as the single app at a time (improved by split view and some of the goodies in later OS and hardware versions) than the laptop so since I'm going to have the laptop anyway I just stick with what works for me.
 
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While traveling I mainly use my Macbook Pro 13" (2TB SSD) to download pictures on my laptop first. Then I backup the same on my OWC Envoy Pro EX Thunderbolt 3 external 2TB SSD for safety. Also if I get a good internet connection, I upload my pictures shot to my home NAS Drive. That process is sometimes slow depending on the internet connection and the number of photos being uploaded.

You could use an iPad instead of a laptop but you need to get the iPad Pro with Thunderbolt 3 port. So even an 11" iPad Pro 512GB will cost you around $1099 and an iPad Pro 1TB will set you back by $1299. Lightroom does work on the iPad but will limited capabilities. And as Hut suggested you can get ta 5TB Western Digital My Passport Drive with USB-C port (recently released) to directly connect to your iPad for backup.

So finally it boils down these 4 issues.

1. How important are your photos to you & how much are you willing to spend for backup?
2. Depending on your camera & the file sizes of each photo generated, how many pictures do you think you might upload per day. I typically shoot around 150 to 200 shots/day (sometimes even more) in the field which amounts to around 10 to 15 GB of file size transfer.
3. How many days will you spending away from your home computer while traveling?
4. How fast do you want the file transfer & backup to be done. SSD transfer rates are much higher than Hard Drive rates. After a tiring day in the field, are you will to spend another hour or so depending upon the number of pictures shot transferring those files for backup?

Hope this helps in your decision on how to go about.
 
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Like Yezdi, I also travel with a Macbook Pro 13". I download photos to it at the end of the day, then also back them up from computer to external drive. Macbook Pro 13" weighs 3.1 pounds. Macbook Air is a fine machine, too, weighing 2.8 pounds. I also have an iPad, but it is easier for me to travel with the small laptop because I am intimately familiar with how it works, downloads/uploads are fast, and because I also have all the same software with me, complete versions, that I have on my iMac at home. If you have not used a Mac before, however, keep in mind that even though Macs are extremely user-friendly, there is still a learning curve. Cost differential between iPad Pro and MacBopk Air is minimal.

If you do not subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, and/or if you're not familiar with the Mac OS, and--as you mentioned--have no other use for a laptop, then go the tablet route (first verifying that it will do all you want it to do). If you could benefit from a more versatile machine, consider the laptop. While I am a hardcore Apple guy, and it pains me to say this, there are also a lot of lightweight, small, Windows-based laptops on the market for less $ than a Mac. Hope this helps a bit.
 
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Hut said:
We prefer our macbook pro with Western Digital My Passport for Mac use external hard drives. It seems like overkill but it will do anything our iMacs do at home which is very nice when you travel a lot.

You can buy those WD external drives 5TB for less than 2 hundo now. Anyone else remember standing in line to buy a 2 GB hard drive for double that price....lol
Click to expand...
Thanks for taking the time!
 
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Neil Laubenthal said:
Laptop is the way to go I think. You can upload to the iPad and then offload to a USB (and I think a spinning drive or SSD as well). It the limited storage on the iPad would make it a slow process...plus you can’t run LR to edit...you could use the iOS version of LR. It it is pretty limited IMO.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply! I think laptop is certainly the easiest.
 
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Ron G said:
I also use a Surface pro and portable SSD so that I can download all of my shots onto TWO independent storage locations. If I have wi-fi available, I also upload to the cloud. I don't really do much editing on my laptop. I'd rather save that for home and my 32" monitors. I just want to look at my shots in the field on the laptop to get a better idea of what I've captured.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Ron!
 
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gordon_g said:
Old laptop with Samsung 1tb ssd drive. And another portable hd ( name escapes me now). I like having it backed up to my laptop and two portable HD.... One is good two is better three is best.

my ipad is great for viewing images though and I use it a lot for just that, much nicer then my laptop screen.
Click to expand...
Thank you!
 
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Yezdi said:
While traveling I mainly use my Macbook Pro 13" (2TB SSD) to download pictures on my laptop first. Then I backup the same on my OWC Envoy Pro EX Thunderbolt 3 external 2TB SSD for safety. Also if I get a good internet connection, I upload my pictures shot to my home NAS Drive. That process is sometimes slow depending on the internet connection and the number of photos being uploaded.

You could use an iPad instead of a laptop but you need to get the iPad Pro with Thunderbolt 3 port. So even an 11" iPad Pro 512GB will cost you around $1099 and an iPad Pro 1TB will set you back by $1299. Lightroom does work on the iPad but will limited capabilities. And as Hut suggested you can get ta 5TB Western Digital My Passport Drive with USB-C port (recently released) to directly connect to your iPad for backup.

So finally it boils down these 4 issues.

1. How important are your photos to you & how much are you willing to spend for backup?
2. Depending on your camera & the file sizes of each photo generated, how many pictures do you think you might upload per day. I typically shoot around 150 to 200 shots/day (sometimes even more) in the field which amounts to around 10 to 15 GB of file size transfer.
3. How many days will you spending away from your home computer while traveling?
4. How fast do you want the file transfer & backup to be done. SSD transfer rates are much higher than Hard Drive rates. After a tiring day in the field, are you will to spend another hour or so depending upon the number of pictures shot transferring those files for backup?

Hope this helps in your decision on how to go about.
Click to expand...
Thanks for thorough reply! For me it’s really about being small/light weight versus money. Laptop is clearly the easiest, I was just curious if there was other options. I just use my iMac at home and hate being on the computer if I don’t have to be, that’s why I’m kind of pushing back on a laptop. I think I may start another thread see who out there has tried the Gnarbox. Thanks again!
 
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BirdDogDad said:
Like Yezdi, I also travel with a Macbook Pro 13". I download photos to it at the end of the day, then also back them up from computer to external drive. Macbook Pro 13" weighs 3.1 pounds. Macbook Air is a fine machine, too, weighing 2.8 pounds. I also have an iPad, but it is easier for me to travel with the small laptop because I am intimately familiar with how it works, downloads/uploads are fast, and because I also have all the same software with me, complete versions, that I have on my iMac at home. If you have not used a Mac before, however, keep in mind that even though Macs are extremely user-friendly, there is still a learning curve. Cost differential between iPad Pro and MacBopk Air is minimal.

If you do not subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, and/or if you're not familiar with the Mac OS, and--as you mentioned--have no other use for a laptop, then go the tablet route (first verifying that it will do all you want it to do). If you could benefit from a more versatile machine, consider the laptop. While I am a hardcore Apple guy, and it pains me to say this, there are also a lot of lightweight, small, Windows-based laptops on the market for less $ than a Mac. Hope this helps a bit.
Click to expand...
Thanks for taking the time! Yeah, I’m a Mac guy too but... I prefer to not look at a computer if I don’t have too! LOL So, I really don’t want to pic up a second one (laptop) if I can avoid it. It’s clearly the easiest and safest route but I was curious to know if an iPad or something else would even work. Thanks again!
 
I just want to add that we recently purchased an inexpensive Dell Windows based laptop. The sole reason we purchased it was for a single piece of software, that programs a single digital sound processor.
I thought we might use it for other things but I hate it. I'd rather go back to compiling drivers on Linux than ever open that thing again....lol
 
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Hut said:
I just want to add that we recently purchased an inexpensive Dell Windows based laptop. The sole reason we purchased it was for a single piece of software, that programs a single digital sound processor.
I thought we might use it for other things but I hate it. I'd rather go back to compiling drivers on Linux than ever open that thing again....lol
Click to expand...
LOL, I hear ya! If I end up with the laptop route, I’d definitely go MacBook.
 
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I have found that it took too much time to backup my memory cards to another drive even with USB 3 ports on the netbook computer. Now I take more than enough memory cards to last me for the entire trip. I keep the memory card case on me or in the room safe and not in a camera bag so they are not going to be accidentally stolen with my camera gear.

My Lenovo X-250 12" netbook weighs less than 3 lbs and has an 18 hour battery life in use while reviewing images at night before heading out again in the morning.
 
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armchicago said:
Looking for options to back up my cards to external drives when on photo trips. I wouldn't mind the ability to do a some basic editing here and there and sharing some pics to social media but again, the primary goal is to back up. Light and small is important. Mac Book Air is attractive but I know I wouldn't use it when I'm not traveling (and I'll only be doing a few of these trips a year), so I'm not in love with spending a $1000 for it to collect dust most of the year. I'm pretty tech challenged so my question is...

Is anyone using an iPad to unload memory cards and then send them to an external ssd drive? Can that even be done with an iPad? If it can, is there a version of Lightroom that can be run on an iPad, so some sorting and editing can be do too? I would definitely use an iPad on a regular basis, so I like the idea a lot better, if it is an option from a technical standpoint. Thanks in advance!

Adam
Click to expand...
 
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Back in B.C. (Before Covid), I went to Alaska with just an iPad and 1 memory card per camera per day. (Total 22 cards!) The tablet in combination with an SD card reader was perfect. I was able to not only backup the card to the 256GB tablet but the basic iPhotos software allowed reading raw files and some basic editing. A word of caution - KEEP THE FILES on the SD Card after they imported to the iPad. Not just for the obvious reason of maintaining the 2 copies of each file (card/tablet) - but for the following: iPad will read raw files and retain, HOWEVER, if you do any editing, the file is converted to JPEG and the raw file is nowhere to be found (unless someone knows a trick). Other than this impact - it's a great solution. Depending on your situation, you might also enable cloud services to have a 3rd copy but I DISABLED Cloud functionality to (a) Minimize internet charges and (b) avoid impacting my cloud libraries.
 
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I have done it with a iPad and a PC laptop.

During a trip to Europe last fall I took my iPad and my Z6. The file utilities with iOS 13 allowed me to use an external card reader to copy the files from my XQD cards to my iPad and then copy them off to SD cards as a backup. I had the SD cards that I use in my D500 so I did not have to purchase additional cards. I had enough storage on my iPad to keep copies of the files, and I had copies on SD cards. You have to be certain that you use the correct USB adapters and card readers on the iPad and it was not necessarily fast but it served the purpose. I did do some simple editing on the iPad and then shared a few with family but I really didn't have or want to take much time to edit on that trip. I believe this process will also work with external SSD drives and some USB drives but be certain you test them first. I am not certain you can copy files directly from one external source to another on an iPad but it is worth looking into.

I travel a few times a year to Yellowstone and the Tetons and I also make regular trips to Nashville to visit family and I take a laptop on these trips. I have a fast desktop at home I use to do most of my editing so the travel laptop is a fairly small i5 PC laptop. The laptop runs Lightroom Classic well enough to do some editing if I want and it provides a platform to use to make copies onto remote drives if needed. I actually purchased the laptop to work some remotely while in Nashville so it serves double duty for me.
 
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