One of the professional photographers that taught the course told us how he had to re-shoot an entire assignment because of this mistake. He learned his lesson the hard way and stressed the importance of using a card reader. Can you imagine taking pictures of a birthday party, wedding, etc. and erasing all of your shots? :(

Never use the USB cable unless it is your only option at the time. Card readers are extremely inexpensive and well worth the investment if you consider the downside risk of not using them.

Yes, some great advice indeed. Im going to pick up a nice reader next week on my stop in Hong Kong. Thanks!!

I recommend purchasing a reader that is USB 2.0 and not USB 1.1. The USB 2.0 readers are about 30-40 times faster at transferring data to your computer. Lexar makes these for CompactFlash cards and also has an excellent USB 2.0 Multi-Card reader that works on all of the formats. The Multi-Card reader is great if you own more than one digital camera and use different types of cards, or plan to add one with a different format in the future. Lexar has an excellent reputation for all of their products.

BTW, I only purchase Lexar CompactFlash cards for my two Nikons as they are one of the few brands that Nikon recommends extensively for their digital line along with SanDisk.

BTW, don't invest in a USB 2.0 card reader unless your computer supports USB 2.0.

My T30 does support 2.0 but only though a PCMCIA card option that I have. I think Im going to just get a 1.0 device. How much should one of these reads run... $15 or so...?

I recommend buying one on either Amazon.com or Buy.com. They are as inexpensive as $15 and as much as $45 depending on the model you select.

A good point. However:

1. Many camera's will not begin uploading unless there is enough power to finish

2. It is unlikely that the data would erase just because the power went off

3. Some cameras automatically rotate the images when you upload the photos, but would not do so if you used a card reader. THis saves ALOT of time!

Of course, for ultimate security, go with the card reader

First, I find it very hard to believe that a camera shutting itself down would erase your card. That sounds like urban legend to me. Perhaps it is a problem with one brand. I've run the batteries down like this on my Canon and Olympus cameras once or twice without incident. I generally use a card reader because it is MUCH faster, but using the software that comes with the camera additional data such as exposure settings comes across with the image. You don't get that data when using a card reader.

Also, with regard to memory cards, look for the prices to drop soon:

Yahoo story May 24, 2004
DigiTimes article June 2, 2004

Two instructors at the Nikon School warned us to only use card readers, so I must believe that there is some validity to what they were telling us. I do not believe that this is unique to Nikon. With Nikon View 6 software, all of the exposure readings and related data are transferred with a card reader due to the fact that it supports Exif 2.2. Most newer digital cameras support Exif 2.2.

EXIF 2.2 Principal tag information
Shooting Conditions
Flash
Exposure mode (auto, manual, bracket)
White balance
Exposure time
Light source
Subject distance
Subject area
Processing Information during Shooting
Captured scene type (portrait, landscape, night scene)
Digital zoom
Custom rendered (special effects)
Contrast
Saturation
Sharpness
Gain Control (ISO?)

"Erase" is kind of a general term. If the index of images disappears for some reason, why not use a standard hard drive recovery tool to try to get them back. Memory cards are just a FAT file system, right?

Whenever I travel with my Canon S230, I bring a USB CF reader. These can be had FREE after rebate at Fry's during sales. It it faster than the Canon and you do not have to waste battery power during CF off-loading. I got a 6 in 1 reader for free - its small and nice!!

Pcmcia
 

PCMCIA card readers for a ltptop are only about 6.00 from amazon. these works the best in my opinion, your CF card will show up as a additional storage drive.

Easy for transfer of photos back and forth.
this is better than a USB version, since it there is nothing more to carry, just leave it in the pc slot while traveling.

Picked up one of these readers in SIN... inexpensive and work great !!!!! Thanks to all for your help with this... ^

which one?
 

which one?