Einreb92 Loc: Philadelphia

I am traveling this week and need some suggestions. Generally, I take my Mac laptop, a 2gig external drive (small USB) and a few SD cards. At the end of the day, I would download the files to the laptop and then transfer them over to the external, reformat the card and repeat. This time, to save space and weight, since I’m carrying a bunch of other gear, I am taking my iPad and am trying to figure out how to basically do the same thing. I DO have the iPad version of Lightroom, but don’t know if that would help. Much abliged for any solutions.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Einreb92, I tend to keep my photos stored on the memory cards and process them when I get home. It's a bit less stressful than managing all the extra equipment one needs to do edits on the road.
--Bob

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

I like to keep things uncomplicated when I travel, so I just keep the files on the SD cards, and leave the transferring and editing to when I return home. Unless you have job-related deadlines to fulfill, the images can wait.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

The iPad is useless when it comes to working with anything external. You can import photos into the Photo App, but you cannot use it as a transfer point between SD cards and an external HD. Apple's iPad OS's networking capabilities is non existent. You could sync with iCloud, but only JPEGs. On a recent European trip, I cold not get the Photos app to "see" Fuji RAW files, so the entire thing was useless. And if you are an active shooter, and have lets say 128 Gb of shots in 1 day, your tablet would fill up quickly.

The better solution would be to get a Western Digital Passport or LaCie Boss external drive with SD slot and back up everything to the drive daily. Both WD's and LaCie's iOS or Android app let you view stored RAW files from the external drive. I even use the LaCie's software to watch MP4 videos on the eternal drive while traveling.

Sylvias Loc: North Yorkshire England

I transfer my pics onto my ipad each night and also keep them on the cards until I get home. I usually take four 32gb cards with me and rotate what I use, just in case any fails.
I have PS and Snapseed apps and everything is done on the ipad which has 128MB storage, I don’t use a computer at all. If time permits while I’m away I will send posts to UHH on an evening. Not sure this helps Bernie.
Have a safe trip.

Jesu S

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

Besides my 13” laptop I use 2 WD had to provide 2 copies of each days images

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Ditto.
If I am able to have my laptop with me, I put a copy of the images on it daily. I still keep them on the card until I get home and back them up.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

My ipad workflow for travel:
I just got back from a 2 week trip where I shot a lot of photos, and managed using just my ipad and a little card reader that plugs into the charging port.

The raw files downloaded into Photos, which cannot display them, but then I could open them in LRCC which CAN display them. I didn't do a lot of editing while traveling except for those I wanted to post or email right away (and what I did to entertain myself on the long flights home). I did do a lot of culling. The raw files then uploaded via hotel wifi to my Adobe cloud that's included with my subscription. My "free" cloud was able to hold 12 days worth before running out of room. After that I just quit erasing the SD cards and saved them for my backup.

When I got home, all my pictures automatically copied themselves onto the external drive I'd preselected, and added themselves into LR Classic on my computer with the edits I'd done on the road. Once I made sure all the first batch was copied, safely added to LRClassic and backed up in my regular backup system, I deleted them from my Adobe Cloud and this allowed the others that were "waiting for space" to upload into Adobe cloud and then into my desktop LR Classic. By the time I got the laundry done everything was situated in my desktop with normal backup. Next step was deleting everything from Adobe Cloud, from Photos, and from the ipad to free up room for next time.

This depends on having the Adobe monthly plan so it wouldn't work if your version of LR is an older stand-alone version.

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

rmalar has the best idea, just take a stack of SD cards, the are cheap enough.

ncralph

I second the recommendation of the Lacie BOSS. I think it’s about $350 at B & H. A bit pricey but it solves your dilemma.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1381645-REG/seagate_stgu2000400_2tb_dji_copilot_drive.html

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I have a little Acer netbook, and I copy everything to that and a small hard drive. I also keep the pictures on the SD cards, so I arrive home with three copies of everything.

bikerguy

Our backup system consists of a Samsung tablet, Kingston Mobilite, 1 TB HDD, 3 128 GB flash drives and a handful of 32 GB microSD cards (the Samsung tablet has a microSD slot). Each night we perform a double back up. First to the HDD and then to a flash drive and/or microSD card. We only reformat the SD cards if we run out of room. We carry 9 32GB SD cards between us. Once we get home and teh images are on our home systems and backed up we then reformat the SD cards and clean up everything else. We have had SD cards go bad so we perform back ups each night.

cbeckett

If traveling with a laptop isn't an option, try the Rav Power file hub. (https://www.ravpower.com/filehub.html) Mirrorless Minutes podcast had a review of it. I bought it and tested it and it works as advertised. It takes the place of your laptop in the backup process and also doubles as a battery pack and a portable router. It uses your smart phone for the user interface to on-board backup software and you supply a USB-based drive. You can backup photos to the USB drive as well as uploading photos to your phone. They have a range of models; I got one that currently sells for $44. At that price its a no-brainer for situations where you can't/won't carry a laptop.

johnedfu

Second this. OP mentioned that they had the iPad version of LR. That and a $30 SD card reader from Apple is all you need. My thing when traveling is that I ALWAYS lose small items in hotel rooms, rental cars, busses, whatever. I'd hate to have all my shots on a stack of plastic cards and have them left behind in a hotel room. I've never lost anything in Apple or Adobe's cloud. One bit of caution though, spend the extra $$ and get the Apple branded SD card reader. I've had the knockoffs work for a few days and die, or take hours to move data or just suddenly ( and repeatedly) crash my device.

Of course, all of that is useless if you won't have any kind of network access. An unconnected iPad is just as vulnerable as a stack of SD cards, and a bit more attractive to thieves, So if you won't be able to upload to the cloud regularly, the advantage is moot.

-j