iPod and Belkin Card Reader reliability

[revenuee]

I just placed my order for the Nikon D70 and it is scheduled to be delivered to me in about 1 months time (stupid back order)

now i see this time as a perfect opportunity to do some research for storage devices.

Obviously 2 or 3 CF cards at 256MB are essential as they will allow for quick image storage solutions.

However, my concern is a Mass storage solution.

As i go on several week excursions and often take 50 - 75 pictures a day with my film camera i am concerned that i will easily fill my CF cards, and the purchase of several gigs of these cards is quite pricey.

I own a 3G iPod and i've been looking in the the Belkin Card Reader option as a viable solution to my image storage problem.

My question is, does anyone have an real world experience with it?
is it reliable, does it work as advertised -- i don't want to go on a trip and return with no pictures.

Any contributions would be appreciated.

 

[zim]

YES! I have both, Nikon D70 and a Belkin iPod media reader. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Ireland brought the media reader, iPod (20GB), and Nikon with two 256MB cards, 2 Nikon batteries and extra batteries for the media reader (our media reader is the one that takes the card not the one that plugs into the camera).

We loved the set up, came home with 1567 photos, all set at high quality and largest setting... roughly about 4.?GB worth of photos, we were there for 10 days.

The media reader worked great. We would fill up a card and while transferring it run with the other one. The 256MB cards seemed to work best, not large enough to drain the iPod battery but plenty large enough to get about 70 photos on, I would not recommend the 1GB cards with the media reader. The iPod's battery is good for about three transfers, maybe more, we carried an iPod car charger just in case but never needed it. We did about two cards worth a day, charging the iPod at night. I think while we were there we only charged the Nikon batteries twice each, we had two, those batteries rock.

The only time the media reader acted up is when the battery power died... you can tell by keeping an eye on the color of the activity light, ours lasted the trip + some time later, so about 25 or so transfers, did not keep track once we got back.

I read a lot of back and forth reviews on the topic of the media reader. It is not firewire fast, but it does not take forever, about the same speed as the USB cable that comes with the camera. I found the speed to be fine, but that was because I had the second card so no waiting.

The iPod works great with iPhoto too, just plug it in open iPhoto and hit import.

Simply put, we loved them, and the trip, the hardest thing was editing down the photos, so far we have picked out 500, trying to get it down to 200.

<edit>
Just wanted to add that the D70 is an incredible camera, the quality is beautiful.

 

[revenuee]

This is exactly the kinda of real world experience i was looking for ... thanks you very much zim

and you say that the image quality is outstanding? good to know ... i've been using consumer digital camera's for several years now and have been very impressed with the quality -- but i have always used 35mm for my serious work, but the cost of shooting and developing has been significant -- because of my nikon lens set i figured staying with nikon was the best choice -- and i am glad that the D70 is money well spent