I'm confused. USB rate disparity between Mac and Windows? Canon EOS 1Ds

[jammy_c]

So... this is a bit random,
I have an ancient relic of a EOS 1Ds (mk1) which I absolutely love but I've come across a weird quirk. It wont accept anything higher capacity than a 8GB CF card (mostly because it's old tech and file sizes are small) - I have a few, that's not a problem. The issue is...
a) I use a card reader plugged into my windows laptop and transfer, for example, 400 images straight into lightroom from the CF card. No issues. works perfectly. all good....but...
b) If I use a card reader plugged into my iMac and transfer, for example, 400 images straight into lightroom from the same CF card it only imports the first 5 or 6 images then hangs, complains of a corrupted card, or imports only thumbnail previews which can't be edited. If I try to copy/paste straight from the CF to a folder on the desktop (without Lightroom involved) it shows a pop-up that it can't access the card and hangs.
c) the card reader works fine with 16GB/32GB/64GB CF cards from my 5D and will always happily d/l several hundred images at a time.

So... My question is:
1) is the speed of the CF card the issue? (i'm guessing it's ok because the laptop copes alright)
2) is the transfer speed of the Mac faster than the laptop's and is it demanding too much of the CF card? (is that even a thing....? I dunno).
3) is there anything I can try to fix it on the mac?

Just seems odd to me that the laptop is happy with the card, but the Mac isn't.

TIA
James

(p.s. the card was formatted by the camera itself. It's a Lexar CF card, it shows 200x but there are no other markings on it. I have two others the same and have the same issue with them all) .

 

[inkiboo]

1Ds; there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while!

What type of Mac is it?

 

[jammy_c]

1Ds; there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while!

What type of Mac is it?

haha, yeah the 1Ds is pretty old. I bought it 2nd hand about 5 years ago and it was pretty ancient then. not many of them about anymore but still a half decent 2nd camera/backup.

The mac is a 27" iMac from 2012 with a new SSD and 32GB RAM upgrades

 

[inkiboo]

It sounds like a random quirk with the card reader. Do you have the option to swap for another?

From my time at Getty, nearly all CF issues we had were with the reader.

 

[petersmart]

1Ds; there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while!

I still have my 1DS MkII which I bought on here quite a few years ago now and it's still an excellent camera.
I also still have my Canon 350D which was my first digital camera and can still take excellent photos.

 

[ancient_mariner]

Apple's implementation of usb in that era isn't great, and in my experience both hardware (physical socket design) and software issues can cause storage devices to run slow or fail to work sometimes. The problem is with the Mac, but may be helped by using a different card reader.

 

[jammy_c]

thanks guys, it's one of these that i've got...
Kingston FCR-HS4 USB 3.0 Hi-Speed Media Reader, Grey/White: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

I think you must be right about it being the Mac that is the issue. It's odd that it works fine with the other cards but the 8GB ones it has an issue with. I thought it was probably something to do with the read/write speed of the card but maybe I could borrow a different card reader and see if that solves the problem.
In the meantime my work-around is to transfer them from the CF card to my windows laptop then onto a USB drive then plug it into the mac and load straight into LR which seems to work ok.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

I still have my 1DS MkII which I bought on here quite a few years ago now and it's still an excellent camera.

Enormous thing but very good at the time. I've sometimes wondered if Canon's intention was to make the 5D look smaller by placing it next to the 1Ds...

 

[petersmart]

Enormous thing but very good at the time. I've sometimes wondered if Canon's intention was to make the 5D look smaller by placing it next to the 1Ds...

View attachment 322610

Well after using the 1DS MkII all other cameras I have feel quite small - the good thing about the photo size (17MP) is that you don't need huge computing power to edit them.