Help,Import photos on HD from CF Reader?

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I'm trying to import RAW pictures from CF card to my hard drive. I've tried going through iphoto and it is slow and I can't move them onto the HD so I can use a different program.
I've tried to drop and drag to the hard drive and rename, still not working for me.
I'm using a new MBP 17" upgraded to MB Ram.
Thanks for your help.
Regards, Jerry
 
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Why can't you move them to a folder in Finder? When you plug in your camera it will show up in the sidebar of Finder and then you can browse the contents of your camera and drag whatever you want over to Finder.
It will definitely take a long time with RAW photos, especially if you are connected via USB and if there are a ton of photos. I would recommend a card reader that can be connected to your MBP via Firewire. Or IF your particular MBP has an Express Card slot, purchase an adapter such as this one to plug your CF card into.
 
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How are you importing the images to your computer? Does iPhone automatically open up when you connect your card reader? If so then in iPhoto's preferences menu go to the General tab and near the bottom where it says "Connecting camera opens:" select no application.

Now you can just open up two Finder windows to drag and drop it onto your computer. One Finder window is the card reader files and the other Finder window will be the folder on your computer you want the images to copy to. That's the method I use rather than use some application to import my images from my card reader.
 
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I didn't know CF were still in use.
 
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I didn't know CF were still in use.
Almost all professional grade cameras use Compact Flash cards. It's usually the consumer grade cameras that use SD cards.

I prefer CF myself but I see why some people like SD.
 
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Almost all professional grade cameras use Compact Flash cards. It's usually the consumer grade cameras that use SD cards.

I prefer CF myself but I see why some people like SD.

Ah ha... makes sense. When size isn't an issue.
 
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I didn't know CF were still in use.

If SD cards were as durable and fast as CF cards, I'd not mind using them too much. The fastest SD card tops out with write speeds of 30MB/s which is 200x while the fastest CF card maxes out with write speeds of 600x which is between 87-90MB/s. Read speeds aren't as important, but CF cards also read at the same 90MB/s.

Write speeds are important when you're shooting multiple frames per second at a very fast rate. The faster your card writes, the faster your camera is ready to continue shooting. You can't keep shooting at your camera's maximum fps rate when your buffer is continually full..so the card needs to be able to write the data as quickly as the camera is spitting it out

CF cards also come in 64 gig variations, while SD maxes at 32 gigs. Personally speaking, I wouldn't get a card over 16 gigs, or perhaps even 8. If your data gets corrupted, that's a heck of a lot of images lost if the card was full !

Furthermore, I can't stand the size of SD cards. Too easy to lose. The only thing I like about SD cards is that there are no pins to mess up. Not that I ever have, but I've heard of people being careless in that way.

Now if only Stevo would be sensible and equip iMacs and MacBook Pros with multi card readers instead of just SD, I'd be a very contented man. Then again, using CF with an firewire card reader would still be much faster.

Doug
 
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I'm trying to import RAW pictures from CF card to my hard drive. I've tried going through iphoto and it is slow and I can't move them onto the HD so I can use a different program.
I've tried to drop and drag to the hard drive and rename, still not working for me.
I'm using a new MBP 17" upgraded to MB Ram.
Thanks for your help.
Regards, Jerry

First off, do yourself a favor and get a card reader. SanDisk makes a great multicard reader for about $20 It's a 12 in one reader and has served me well for a long time. If you want to do yourself a bigger favor, spend a bit more and get an Firewire 400/800 CF card reader for about $60: SanDisk | Extreme FireWire CompactFlash Card | SDDRX4-CF-901


Secondly, don't use iPhoto for that. OS X has a wonderful app built right in called "Image Capture". Make sure that iPhoto isn't associated with your camera when you plug it in. Your camera should simply mount as a drive. But you might need to go into your camera's menu system and set it to mount as "MSC" which is mass storage, and not MTP.

Then, hook up your camera (or card reader) and open up Image Capture. It's a very self explanatory program, so twiddle around in it for a bit and get familiar. You can set it to open every time you hook up a card reader or camera if you wish, and can tell it to put things in whatever directory you choose. I haven't used it in a long time because I use Lightroom, but it was very good for the times I needed to simply arrange photos and folders within Finder.

doug
 
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First off, do yourself a favor and get a card reader. SanDisk makes a great multicard reader for about $20 It's a 12 in one reader and has served me well for a long time. If you want to do yourself a bigger favor, spend a bit more and get an Firewire 400/800 CF card reader for about $60: SanDisk | Extreme FireWire CompactFlash Card | SDDRX4-CF-901


Secondly, don't use iPhoto for that. OS X has a wonderful app built right in called "Image Capture". Make sure that iPhoto isn't associated with your camera when you plug it in. Your camera should simply mount as a drive. But you might need to go into your camera's menu system and set it to mount as "MSC" which is mass storage, and not MTP.

Then, hook up your camera (or card reader) and open up Image Capture. It's a very self explanatory program, so twiddle around in it for a bit and get familiar. You can set it to open every time you hook up a card reader or camera if you wish, and can tell it to put things in whatever directory you choose. I haven't used it in a long time because I use Lightroom, but it was very good for the times I needed to simply arrange photos and folders within Finder.

doug

Image Capture!
I didn't know about that... I was showing my mom how to use iPhoto for her ebay stuff. Maybe Image capture wold work better.

Don't spend $60 on a card reader. Find one on eBay (make sure you specify US only) and you can get one for $10 - just as fast as that $60 one.

http://cgi.ebay.com/23-IN-1-USB-2-0-MEMORY-CARD-READER-CF-SD-MS-Pro-Duo-/110469492604?cmd=ViewItem&pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item19b87eaf7c
 
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Thanks for the help

I'm using a Sandisk "All In One" Card Reader and Sandisk Extreme lV 4GB Cards. My pictures are around 24mb each, so I'm trying to find a quick method to load on the HD.
I'll look into the Express CF card reader and try out Image Capture.
I've had the MBP for a couple weeks and so far I'm very impressed. There is a bit of a learning curve after so many years using Windows.
Now I'm trying to learn how to size photos for printing and posting on the web.I'm using Capture One 5 and need to resize after converting to jpeg files.

Thanks for all of your help and ideas.
Regards, Jerry
 
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I'm using a Sandisk "All In One" Card Reader and Sandisk Extreme lV 4GB Cards. My pictures are around 24mb each, so I'm trying to find a quick method to load on the HD.
It sounds like the transfer speed is your problem in which case it doesn't matter what program you use to transfer your images over. I'm guessing your card reader is either USB 1 or USB 2 speeds.

If you want faster transfer speeds then get a Firewire 800 card reader. I have a SanDisk Firewire 800 card reader and it's extremely fast.
 

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