Customer Reviews

Apple Camera Connector for iPod 5G, 5.5G (White)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Apple Ipod Camera Connector screams intelligence on the part of Apple, but falls far short. DO NOT think of using this for any real photography purposes or with pictures above 3MP in size. To transfer 1gb Sandisk II ultra CF card takes roughly 45 minutes, and kills almost all your Ipod's battery (not to mention the impact on your cameras battery for that 45 minutes).

Its a great idea, but the ipod battery is not originally engineered to support such a power supply, and does not stand up to heat...

Look elsewhere for a portable harddrive to store pictures, such as Epson P-2000.

I just bought a Sony DSC-T7 and a 30GB iPod Photo in preparation for a trip around the world. This connector is my dream come true! You just plug the connector into the iPod and plus in your camera via USB. The iPod just prompts you to import and takes it from there.

Your photos are imported and converted into a regular thumbnailed iPod photo album that you can browse and view. I was happy to discover that movies are copied over too! You can't view the movies, but at least you can store them. When you're ready, just connect the iPod to a computer via USB and copy over the folders with your original image and video files.

It takes awhile and does require you to run the iPod on its battery (since it occupies the power port). I considered the Epson P-2000, which is faster and has a bigger screen. However the iPod is less expensive, less than half the weight, a smaller form factor, capabable of more storage (30 or 60GB), and a way better music player that I will actually use on a regular basis for more than just temporary photo storage. If I was a photo professional out on shoots I might go with the Epson, but I'm more of an average joe that's just looking for a travel photo solution... and the iPod Photo is perfect for me!

Paired with my DSC-T7, we're talking super-small and ultra-portable. Everything I need for photos and music on this trip I can fit in 2 pockets.

I bought this product to connect my digital rebel xt camera. Although it was not on the approved list of cameras, this item worked fine at transferring pictures. The problem with this product is in the speed of the data transfer. If you are only transferring 100 MB of data then it will only take about 5 minutes to transfer your pictures and should work well for your purposes. The real problem comes for people with Digital SLR cameras who use the raw image format. The Raw and JPEG images will transfer fine to the Ipod, but if you use the JPEG+Raw image setting, on an 8 megapixel camera, each picture will take approximately 11-12 MB. You could easily fill a 1 GB card in a day and want to transfer them to the Ipod and clear your card for the next day on a vacation. The problem is that although the camera is a USB 2.0 - the transfer speeds of the pictures are only about .3 mb a second (well slower than the max of USB 1.0). This takes in the neighborhood of 45-60 minutes to empty a 1 gb card. Since the ipod drive is spinning for an hour straight, it seems to dimish the capacity to about 15-20%. If you tried to empty a 2 GB card, I'm not even sure it could handle that. In addition, the camera connector occupies the same space as the bottom connector so I have been unable to find a way to charge and transfer at the same time. The camera also suffers a drain when on continuously for 45-60 minutes.
I have used the digital drives with the hard drives and built in compactflash reader and they copy 1 GB of pictures in roughly 10 minutes depending on the speed of the card used. I thought I would be able to use the Ipod to store my pictures while on vacation, but the transfer speeds are just too slow to make that feasible with a Digital SLR. If you are shooting on a 4 megapixel camera and not taking too many pictures, it may work well for you. Overall, I cannot recommend this product for those with a 5 megapixel camera or greater.
I hope Apple will speed up the transfer speed in the next implementation of this product to true USB 2.0 speeds, then this would be a "killer tool" for those wanting to use the excess capacity of their Ipod to act as a digital photo library.

If you're like most people who are leery of being on a vacation and losing your photos - even if you have a massive media card in your camera - it's a little more re-assuring to be able to have a backup in case anything happens.

The ipod is a great backup choice as its small form not only has music, contacts, calendar and text notes - you can now load, view and backup your photos on it.

Like with most every Apple product product, it's amazingly easy. There is NO software to load! You turn on your ipod, you plug in the connector, connect it to your camera, turn on your camera and it AUTOMATICALLY loads a window that reads IMPORT or CANCEL. After you select IMPORT, it does the rest of the work. Afterwards you have a tiny thumbnail index of this import. Using the scroll wheel, you can view each photo in the ipod window. There's even an option to delete any photos if you choose. And you're done!

You can set up a slideshow, link it with a song - select transitions and you have a recap of your day right then & there!

You can also get the optional Apple video out dock or cables and view it on the TV (if you're on vacation) right in the hotel room or via your camcorder with "soundtrack." Pretty cool.

I would dock it half a star as it does seem to use up more battery power than just listening to music but unless you are absolutely out in the wilderness, personally I'd like a backup of my photos and am willing to trade a quick recharge of my ipod. (You can also buy 3rd party battery powered add-ons - I have the Belkin one - works nicely though bulky).

The only other thing is the connector is wider than normal. As many cases are designed to be snug to your ipod, leaving a small gap at the bottom for the exact size of normal power connector, this is wider so you might have to remove the ipod from your case but to me, that's a minor issue. The ease of use is fantastic and of course, it makes you feel safer knowing you have a backup in hand.

It works well, but it's not particularly speedy. The Ipod can upload comparably sized music files in a fraction of the time it takes to upload a photo file, which seems odd.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned, and it deserves to be: You can hook up a USB card reader to this device, just as you would your camera and it works just as well.

Considering the varied number of accessories from different manufacturers, it's probably a safe bet that other comparable devices will be available soon, and probably for less than Apple charges. I would prefer a "pass-thru" device, so that you could downoad photos while connected to an electric source other than the battery.

I got this device because it made more sense than spending a bit more on another 1gb memory card for my camera, plus I can also bring a few thousand songs with me in the bargain. I'm not sorry I bought it, but I might be when the first competing product emerges at half the price, better features and more speed.

ok, i'll admit it, this thing is a battery sucker on the part of your ipod.

now, we have that out of the way. let's talk about its merits. i recently went on a trip to india and took about 2000 pics. that's about 3 1/2 gb full of pics. i wouldn't be as liberal with my picture taking, if not for this little piece of gadget.

every night, i would come back to my hotel room and just hook up my digital camera with my ipod. the transfer time depends on how much you have on your card, but i would say that unless you want to transfer a gb full of content all at once, you won't have much issue with battery life and transfer time. i simply leave them on the desk while i do other things, and 20 minutes or so later, everything's transferred to my ipod.

if you have an ipod and a digital camera, then you owe it to yourself to get one of this thing for your next vacation. i am giving it a 5 stars rating, because the battery thing just isn't that big of an issue to me. in fact, you can almost blame it on apple. why can't they come up with a battery with higher capacity?

I now have two options for loading pics to my iPod 20gb Photo. Both methods work perfectly.

I can use the Nikon USB cable that came with the camera. Plug the USB cable from camera to connector plugged into iPod. d70 plug is located under rubber boot at base of camera.
(FYI - Remember to use the camera menu to change from USB Mass Storage to PTP. Change back when transfer is complete.)

I can also use my Sandisk USB Compact Flash card reader. Simply plug the reader into the connector and the Nikon CF memory card into the reader.

I use the NEF/jpeg option on the d70. The transfer to the iPod then contains both NEF and jpeg images allowing you to review the jpegs on the iPod screen.

I own a Canon Digital Rebel XT and transfered 124 photos, 8 Megapixels ea. to my iPod in around 10 minues. As others reviews comment it used a bit of the battery but it is worth it. No computer needed to do the transfer!

I'm hoping that whoever owns the iPod Camera Connector post their brands and models of digital cameras here that work with it. This is to help others decide if their digital camera is compatible with it. APPLE hasn't been updating their camera list at all!

Also, if you're not sure, visit your APPLE store with your iPod Video/Photo and digital camera and the Customer Services will be kind enough to let you do a trial before you actually buy it (I'm sure), just in case your camera doesn't work with it.

From the trend I see (not necessarily true), most digital cameras that have a USB cable that connects their camera to their computer's USB socket should be compatible. Also your camera should have a USB PTP function, so check your camera manuals, that should help.

I've not tried this gadget with any USB card readers so I can't say for sure.

4 stars because the transfer rate is slow, and it sucks the hell out of the iPod battery! It definitely could be much faster though. Perhaps APPLE will look into increasing the transfer speed through iPod software upgrades?

Here are the 2 digital cameras I've tested that work with the iPod Camera Connector:

Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 (5.1MP)
Nikon Coolpix 7900 (7.1MP)

Let the compatibility list grow.

I was hesitant to try this one based on the review. However, I did and I find it absolutely awesome. I traveled this summer with with my 12 Megapixel Camera and my ipod loading the days shots each night to the ipod. I found the transfer rate acceptable considering the large picture sizes and experienced NONE of the battery life problems mentioned by others. I must point out, however, that my ipod was fully charged each time I loaded the photos. I found it an excellent tool and a convenient way to share photos on the road. Next to the ipod itself, this is my favorite gadget! ...oh yeah, it worked with my digital video camera too!!!