Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

I sometimes use the Picture POrter during heavy shoots, when I want to make sure that I have backup during the day, but mostly when away from home and need to download the cards at night. I have been using 16 GB CF cards, and don't need to donwload during the day anymore.
The good things about the Porter are that (1)the CF cards fit in easily (2) and it is quite fast to download (18 MB RAWs).
Less than perfect things are that (1)it is quite bulky (2)the image resolution is poor, and (3) the navigation is very old school.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

Functional and relatively easy to use, reasonable speed to shift images from SD card onto Hard Drive.
Dont purchase this to use primarily as a viewing source as the picture quality is marginal, screen small and loading time for larger images will drive you crazy.
Two pin plug obviously not suited internationally and USB charging speed too slow (for Aus users easy to give the pins a 45 degree bend with a pair of plyers)

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

As I go on many photo shoots I was looking for a unit that would store pictures from multiple input mediums, especially from an Xd card. The real positives of this unit include voice recording, renaming folders, great battery life, and the quality of playback. For the price this can't be beat.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

Very easy to use and figure out even without ReadingInstructions. Was stolen in Merida Mexico..

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

I am a retired professional photographer, and have no problem filling both
16 GB media cards in my camera in short time. This device, for around the
cost of one top end card is just the ticket. If you can operate an iPod or
similar device you should have no problem using it. Just remember, this is
a portable storage device, not to be confused with a 27 inch monitor screen.
The fact that you can visually confirm your images have transferred from the card
to the device is the greatest feature of this device. Digital photography sure has
made life so much easier, back in the day it was typical to lug a cooler with you, packed with 25 to 50 rolls of Kodachrome 25. I purchased an extra battery and get around three hours of download time from each.

I use it for travel and wildlife photography.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

Difficult to navigate on the first use. Basic instructions should assume most users will need to use a usb connection to download from a flash card--no decent photographer uses slow compact flash cards--which is the only item the device can handle directly. I only plan to use device as a backup storage medium on a trip to africa to save the weight of a laptop.
It is too difficult to navigate for viewing photos. Device also needs an enter button vs the push-in dial that also serves as a toggle.
If you can afford a mac air device,you will be happier.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

Easy to use but take too long to handle lots of data.
Need to be powered when you handle lots of data

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

I just got this product for my trip to Cordoba, Argentina where I had to do some photos of an ecological city up in the mountains and I knew there wasn`t going to be any electricity. So besides my cameras, lenses, back-pack, tent, sleeping bag, etc.; to carry my computer with me (which of course was not going to function there) or carring lots of memory cards and take the risk of loosing them, I brought with me this portable hard drive and it worked just as I expected.
I also do lots of wedding photography together with other two partners of mine, so at the middle of the event I collect their full cards and empty them in this device during the party so we can continue photographing. So by the end of the night I already have all the photos together from three different photographers.
The battery charge is fast and it lasts for quite some time.
The quality of the images are great and very clear.
Compared to other similar instruments that we have, This is far much better for the price paid for it.
The down side of this devise is that the side controls don`t respond quite fast, I have to press a couple of times the buttons for it to enter the program I need.
So far I am very happy with it.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

I'm so frustrated with this product. The first time I used it, it worked. Since then I have had nothing but problems. It crashes on me and completely locks up in the middle of importing photos. Not just once, but just about every time. I am a wedding photographer and I use this to pull images from my second shooters. It has not done its job and unfortunately I am out of my 30 day warrany through B&H. Very unhappy with this product and I would NOT recommend purchasing it.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

nice features

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

Turns out there are many issues with this unit and I discovered them too late. USB connection doesn't work/is unreliable, no IPTC info shows when chosen in menu and freezes unit, had multiple crashes when trying to download from 8GB suggested CF cards, unit freezes when viewing full-size images and then scrolling to next image.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

I found the Picture Porter fairly easy to use once you started it up and worked through the functions. It downloaded the pictures very quickly and I liked the way you could organise files. It is slightly larger than I expected, having only seen it on the internet.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

I use this along with a 500GB external USB harddrive to back up photos; as I'm sometimes away from a computer for weeks at a time.

Pros (for me):
- Folders and basic file management
- External USB support* (thumb drive and harddrive)
- Replaceable battery
- Supports external card readers (but has internal ones as well**)

Cons (for me):
- Standard resolution screen (not like high end DSLRs)
- Very awkward controls
- Scroll weel feels delicate
- Sometimes doesn't recognize external harddrives, and must be reset (turned off, then back on. You don't lose any photos... hopefully :) )

* External harddrives must be formated to fat32 to work with this drive. The device supports bus-powered harddrives.

** The manual says that the internal card readers might only support up to 30MB/s cards. My cards are all 30MB/s, so I can't confirm this. But it says that if you have a card that is faster, you can use an external USB card reader.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

I use this device for storing my photos after a long day of snaps. It's quick, it's easy, and effective. Wish it had a bigger screen to get more detail of the pictures, but I guess that's what a computer is for.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

Great storage for my pictures when i am on a field trip and takes pictures.
Allows me to take a better look at the photos.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

The Picture Porter does what it says. It can back up just about anything. The only knock on it is that the interface takes some getting used to. I'm constantly hitting the wrong button, because the buttons are on the side of the device, rather than on the front, where there's plenty of space for them.

But I can get used to it over time. The important thing is that I can back up pictures (jpeg and RAW) as well as all kinds of videos, and can review them on the screen. To then retrieve the data, I simply connect the drive to the computer via USB (and connect the power to the wall... it does NOT run off the PC's power) and click-and-drag to my hard drive.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

I am more or less an event photographer. When i return from a three hour outing, I want to ensure my shots are backed up as quickly as possible.

By the time my laptop is unpacked and boots up, I can have 250 12 MP images safely on its hard drive.

This device also lets me backup onto a Flash drive with an OTG cable adapter, so I've got two discrete copies, in different hardware packages.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

The first one of these I got was dead and had to be replaced. [...] The second one was fine. It's compact, good value, and does a good job. The screen isn't brilliant (its resolution is not as good as the screen on my Canon 5d II) but it's perfectly adequate. Battery life is very good. And it's survived a couple of drops from a metre onto a carpeted floor.The menu system is fairly basic. If you have, say, five hundred photos in a directory and want to look at the last one you have to scroll down through the whole 500. If there's a quicker way, I haven't found it.There's also an annoying bug when creating a new directory. After inputting the name of the directory (through a laborious process using the flywheel), about four times out of five it hangs and needs to be rebooted. When I mentioned this to Digital Foci they suggested it was a fault in my unit and suggested I send it back, but one product return to the US was enough, and I resolved to live with it.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

This device does provide a quick backup while you are away from your computer which is it's primary function but the small low resolution screen does not allow you to view your photos any better than on your camera's viewfinder. It is really not practical to view a slideshow or edit your photos on the screen. The controls are not very user friendly. It is a a good alternative to much pricer drives. I wouldn't recommed it for the professional, but for an the non-professions it does the job.

Comments about Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB Internal Hard Drive Portable Digital Photo Manager:

We got a Picture Porter right after it came out and are we glad we did. This device has more functions and capabilities than I will ever use. All I want to know is is: "did I get the shot?" and "is it stored in my initial back-up source?" Everything else is secondary. We also use another Digital Foci Photo Safe that is less expensive and works without an image of the capture. We have been using Digital Foci portable storage devices for several years and several thousand images and have never had a problem of losing an image.
The bottom line for us the fact we have duplicate images on image storage devices. The cost of both is less than the cost of other more expensive and more highly touted devices in this same category. You can buy duplication without having to overpay for security of your images