Since I blew my gadget budget on a digital SLR a few weeks ago, I’m finding that I don’t have enough flash memory storage for my needs. I’m trying to use the new Canon XSi on a daily basis and since I’ve moved from JPG to RAW files, the ol’ 1- and 2GB SD cards are getting filled up very quickly. As a frame of reference, my typical RAW files are around 15 MB each, as opposed to the same image compressed down to under a megabyte for JPG.
That’s why the new Photo Safe II from Digital Foci caught my eye. It’s basically a 5400 RPM hard drive in a portable form factor with an integrated card reader. The .6-ounce Photo Safe II holds 80- or 160 GB depending on which model you buy and retails for $139 and $189 respectively. The card reader can handle a number of formats: Compact Flash, RS-MMC, miniSD, Memory Stick, MS PRO, MS Duo, xD, and the SD card that my Canon uses. The battery only lasts for around 80 minutes, but since the device only needs to be powered on to pull photos from my SD card while I’m out and about, that should be plenty. Digital Foci says that you can fully transfer a 1 GB compact flash card worth of files sixteen times on a charge. I’m taking a bunch of photos, but I won’t hit that limit in one journey. I could use the SD card reader in my UMPC for this purpose, but I don’t use that device for photo editing, so I’d prefer not to use that solution.
Once home, you can connect the Photo Safe II to a PC, Mac or Linux computer for photo transfer over USB 2.0. Until I decide if I want to buy one of these, I’m using the SanDisk SD cards that crack in half to expose a USB port. I think however, the Photo Safe II could fit nicely in my digital workflow… one that I’m patterning after Thomas Hawk, who generously shared his own workflow with the blogosphere earlier this year. Highly recommended reading for anyone that uses a digital camera.
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