Transfer from camera to PC/MAC?

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Danny133

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what do you use?

USB or Firewire?

I use a USB atm and find it VERY slow when copying to my mac ..

Should i use a firewire?
 
What card reader you using? my lexar usb one is pretty quick.
 
I use a USB 2.0 card reader, it's fast enough for me. Camera USB transfers are often slower.
 
USB2 (when it was introduced) was comparable to Firewire with regards to bandwidth. I think it was around 400Mbs (don't quote me on that)

Unless Firewire has moved on I don't think there will be such a big difference (USB1.1 was 12Mbs for reference)
 
I'm using a USB Card Reader on my Mac and I also find it slow-ish. Never found a firewire card reader yet, that wasn't a rip off price :(
 
i dont use card readers .. i just plug USB into the camera

dont know if its USB 1 or 2 lol

its the lead that came with the 7D
 
You cant use firewire direct from the camera anyway so to speed it up you need a fast card reader.
The 7d is usb2
 
get yourself a card reader, it'll speed things up no end.

i never used to supscribe to the more expensive card readers making a difference.. theyre all the same USB2 standard right? no, my generic USB2 reader got about 11mbps, my lexar pro USB2 gets 30mbps.

of course it'll depend on the speed of the memory cards too.
 
Danny133 said:
i dont use card readers .. i just plug USB into the camera

dont know if its USB 1 or 2 lol

its the lead that came with the 7D
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I would be very surprised if any USB1.1 interfaces were installed by default in the last 5-7yrs. I surrendered my hardware Geekhood around that time:lol:
 
i guess i could just buy a huge USB lead and shoot tethered when at home lol .. and when im not i could download while i make a cuppa ..
 
Danny133 said:
what do you use?

USB or Firewire?

I use a USB atm and find it VERY slow when copying to my mac ..

Should i use a firewire?
Click to expand...

I use my card reader and its fast! There's this one time when I lost my old card reader, I had to use my usb cable, it took me almost half hours to get 200 raw images transferred.
 
I find it takes less that 5 minutes to transfer about 200 shots (about 5GB) without using a card reader and it saves having to faff about removing the card from the camera.
 
Is this for 7D? I think they only support USB2. I use a cable from USB2 hard drive at the moment, and it is quite fast, like the Canon one. 1D mkIII 2gb data take only a couple minutes so not that long

1DsII is a pain in that respect, if you have anything from that generation. USB1 is snail slow, and FW400 fiddly cable can't match USB2 speeds.

USB3 is just round the corner, right?
 
daugirdas said:
Is this for 7D? and FW400 fiddly cable can't match USB2 speeds.
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I don't think this is a correct statement. USB is rarely likely to sustain its maximum throughput whereas Firewire can achieve close to its maximum stated. USB relies on the 2 hosts whereas Firewire does not, its a direct link, no CPU involved.

Video cameras are a typical example when transferring to the computer, firewire was designed into vid cams for the speed increase in transfers whereas USB was deemed to slow for a glitch free transfer.

Give me Firewire over USB anyday of the week.:thumbs:
 
Scotty Pro said:
I don't think this is a correct statement. USB is rarely likely to sustain its maximum throughput whereas Firewire can achieve close to its maximum stated. USB relies on the 2 hosts whereas Firewire does not, its a direct link, no CPU involved.

Video cameras are a typical example when transferring to the computer, firewire was designed into vid cams for the speed increase in transfers whereas USB was deemed to slow for a glitch free transfer.

Give me Firewire over USB anyday of the week.:thumbs:
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Let me correct this for you - firewire800 is really fast. 400 is quite old and outdated
 
daugirdas said:
Let me correct this for you - firewire800 is really fast. 400 is quite old and outdated
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Taken from Wiki:

" While USB 2.0 (introduced in 2001) is quoted as running at a higher signaling rate (480 Mbit/s) than legacy FireWire 400 (400 Mbit/s, available since 1995), data transfers over S400 FireWire interfaces generally outperform similar transfers over USB 2.0 interfaces in real world environments. Few if any USB 2.0 device implementations are capable of saturating the entire 480 Mbit/s, but this can be achieved with multiple devices on the same bus. In real world tests USB PC hosts rarely can sustain transfers exceeding 280 Mbit/s, with 240 Mbit/s being the norm. "

While I admit that Firewire 400 is older than USB 2, I find it still better at transfer rates, all the external hard drives at work use some form of Firewire rather than USB, even when the enclosures have both options, we tend to use the Firewire implementation.
 
I use a Sandisk USB card reader and it's very fast - huuuuuge amount faster than downloading from the camera directly.
 
on the subject on FW vs USB2 - firewire is better at sustained transfers, USB2 is better at burst transfers.

FW800 is another matter. eSATA is another matter again, so is USB3.

boliston said:
I find it takes less that 5 minutes to transfer about 200 shots (about 5GB) without using a card reader and it saves having to faff about removing the card from the camera.
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sorry i dont understand whats faffy? you have to open a flap to plug the cable in so you may as well open the other flap and press the button to eject the card :shrug:
 
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If you dont want to bother with all the fuss taking out cards / plugging in cables, you could always get yourself an SD Eye-Fi card ( if your camera uses SD cards). All you do is turn the camera on while near your wi-fi connected computer and all the images download. You can also use it as a tethered system as long as you have a wifi connection to the computer. The images appear wirelessly on the computer as you take photographs
On the subject of card readers, many are very iffy, especially the cheap or generic ebay ones. Eye-Fi supply their own card reader ( for set up or just old fashioned downloading from the card) because third party readers were so badly made.
Allan
 
allanm said:
If you dont want to bother with all the fuss taking out cards / plugging in cables, you could always get yourself an SD Eye-Fi card ( if your camera uses SD cards). All you do is turn the camera on while near your wi-fi connected computer and all the images download. You can also use it as a tethered system as long as you have a wifi connection to the computer. The images appear wirelessly on the computer as you take photographs
On the subject of card readers, many are very iffy, especially the cheap or generic ebay ones. Eye-Fi supply their own card reader ( for set up or just old fashioned downloading from the card) because third party readers were so badly made.
Allan
Click to expand...

thats awesome but my 7d takes cf's
 
and so does my 40D :bang::bang:
 
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