A must for digital camera users!!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Handy, small, an absolute boon when on vacation!

Cons: None really!

The Bottom Line: 
iPod and digital camera owner? Go out and buy it!

Author's Review
Have you ever been taking photos with your digital camera only to fill up your camera's memory card?

This handy little unit allows you to connect your digital camera to your iPod, so you can offload your photos, then wipe your card clean and carry on snapping!

This unit is small - with the supplied protective cap for iPod connector fitted it is almost the same size as three AAA batteries side-by-side. There's the proprietary Apple iPod connector at one end, and a single USB type-A connector at the other.

Using it is easy. Simply switch on the iPod, plug in the unit, the connect your camera (with the lead supplied with your camera) and away you go!

After a few seconds, the iPod helpfully tells you how many photos are about to be transferred, and how many megabytes of storage they will take. You cannot choose which photos to transfer, it just does them all.

I find the data transfer rate is not as fast as say, when connecting my memory card reader to my PC, but this little gadget can pay itself back very quickly when weighing up the cost of memory cards.

I have a Canon EOS 350D digital camera, and a 1GB CF card. Given that a 1GB CF retails at AU$190, the AU$48 I paid for this (to make use of the 10GB free space in my iPod for photos) does make it exceptional value.

My 8 megapixel camera takes photos of around 3MB each in .jpg format and each photo takes 7-10 seconds to transfer. Expect transfer times to be lower if your camera has fewer megapixels.

Once transferred, the iPod will offer to delete the photos off your camera. Personally, I prefer to manage this via the camera.

A couple of points to be wary of...

1) Make sure both your iPod and camera are fully charged prior to transferring. You certainly cannot charge the iPod whilst using this unit.

2) Photos loaded cannot be viewed on a TV via the iPod's AV cable - you need to load them off to your PC and transfer them back (fair enough, since iPod stores photos in a reduced size anyway).

3) I haven't yet tried photos in RAW format - I'm guessing the iPod won't understand them, but I'll give it a go when I have time.

4) This process seems to EAT the iPod's battery! My relatively new, fully charged 4G iPod dropped to 25% charge after transferring 80 photos. I guess the hard disk inside the iPod is overtasked for this type of operation. The battery restored to 70% power leaving the iPod switched off for a while though...

All up? Just buy one, drop it in your camera bag (with your camera's USB cable!). One day it WILL save your life!