Portable Photo Storage and Viewer

[Jeff JTPhoto]

A fellow on SportsShooters highly recommended the Creative Labs ZEN Vision W and suggested I check out. Well finally after doing some research I bit the bullet and picked one up. This unit has a 30GB harddrive (60GB also available), a 4x3" LCD, and has a CF card slot. It plays MP3s and videos, has a clock/calendar function w/ alarm, and contact address book. The photo viewer is very cool as it allows you to select images and view the details (EXIF data), zoom in to check image quality, or run a slide show. Oh and comes with the AV cable to plug into your TV. It charges off USB but also comes with an AC charger. Takes only a few minutes to download a 2GB CF card. Only drawback for some is you cannot view RAW files (they are there on the drive though). Since I shoot smJPEGs with my RAW this is not an issue for me. File transfer from the ZEN to computer is effortless.

CONCLUSION: For $329. CDN I should have picked this up long ago. I took it out for a test run today and must say I am impressed. Certainly beats bringing the laptop along on weekend excursions...


Here is the product page on the website: http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=210&subcategory=211&product=15752

The user's manual can be downloaded here: http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/download2.asp?MainCategory=210&manualID=9782&Product=15752&regionID=1&Product_Name=ZEN+Vision+W

[Rudi]

These portable storage devices are the way to go is you shoot a LOT of frames. I checked them out not that long ago, and my choice would have been the Epson P-5000: http://www.epson.com.au/products/multimedia/p5000.asp. 80GB hard drive, you can view RAW, and it still has all that unimportant stuff like MP3 playback and stuff (I have an iPod for that :D).

That said, I am finding that CF cards are getting so cheap, that I would probably pick up more cards rather than buy one of these (the HDD inside these is still a fragile thing), especially since I tend to have a laptop with me on my travels.

But... if I had a big trip planned, where I needed to travel light (several weeks in the sticks), well, let's just say that I might still pick one of these up... one day. :)

[gluwater]

I've got a P-2000 and during the Merritt Island trip it decided to stop working the third day. I was able to read the data off of it when I got home but I could not transfer any more data to it after it stopped responding. So these portable viewers are nice but I would not count on them as your only mode of storage on long photo trips. Osprey Whisperer also had trouble with his portable HD at Merritt Island in 06. It did not report any issues but when he got home a lot of his files were corrupt. In the future I will have my images stored on two devices for any photo excursion that I will have to re-use CF cards on.

[Sheldon Bowles]

For my Galapagos trip last year and Antarctica this year, I took along my laptop (3.7 pounds) and a portable 80 gig hard drive that powers off the USB port for back up. I carried the laptop and the hard drive went in Penny's backpack. I also kept the CF cards ---- but, if I'd been shooting RAW I'd not have had enough cards to do that.

I note the new Canon will have a three inch screen on the back of it. Not much smaller than an Epson four inch screen --- nine squares to sixteen squares really is a lot, but I'm not sure it would be that much better. Anyways, as I get older, I need to find a lighter solution than a 3.7 pound lap top. And it would be nice to be able to view photos quickly to be sure the camera was working and what sort of shots looked good, and what didn't. I'll check out these ZENs Jeff, thanks!

Cheers

[Jeff JTPhoto]

Fellas, I agree 100% not to depend totally on these units. They are just another means of back-up. The reason i picked one up is the price and that the photo quality is good enough to make business contacts and sell photos on the spot rather then have to load them to the laptop to view. It certainly is nicer to carry around then the laptop and faster to download cards on the fly.

[stilllearning]

I have the P-2000 since summer of 2005. It's done well so far. it is convenient because of it's small size. Wish it could download faster but at least better then running out of room. I will probably pick up more CF's since the price has been coming down.

[Rudi]

Fellas, I agree 100% not to depend totally on these units. They are just another means of back-up. The reason i picked one up is the price and that the photo quality is good enough to make business contacts and sell photos on the spot rather then have to load them to the laptop to view. It certainly is nicer to carry around then the laptop and faster to download cards on the fly.

All good reasons, Jeff. :) The one thing the Zen wouldn't do for me is read RAW files - and I shoot RAW only (so I would have to go with the Epson).

Oh well, I'll cross that bridge when the time comes... :)

[Jeff JTPhoto]

Yes Rudi it is unfortunate that it doesn't read RAW, but if the ZEN becomes popular enough they may address that problem. I'm sure this issue can be handled with a firmware upgrade.

[Rudi]

Not an issue for you anyway, Jeff. You shoot RAW+JPEG... so this was a good buy for you. :)

[Keith]

sounds like a good buy Jeff............. I use the epson p2000 and works fine for me, if I need more than 40gb I will drag my laptop

[Mao]

Thanks for the info Jeff.

Not sure what I'm gonna do when the 1D MK3 arrives. Going to read up on the wireless transmitter and also stocking up on some 4G CF cards.

[viewfinder]

Sounds like a great gadget! Nice screen size too!

You will need to work out how many transfers before the battery runs dry, don't do what I did with my CoolWalker and losing a ton of images because the battery ran low.

What happened was I did a few transfers, and I usually let the unit shuts itself down on idle while I shoot with a different card. What I failed to confirm was whether all images were transferred successfully, I assumed they were since on power up I can still see at least one bar on the battery meter. But they weren't..., the unit powered down because of exhausted battery, but the single bar on subsequent power up was misleading!

So, I proceeded to reformat the card in camera and kept shooting. It wasn't until I looked at the images later that I realized I had lost a whole bunch. The most frustrating thing was I had a fully charged spare battery on hand...

But they are great tools to have when you on an extended shoot, much cheaper than CompactFlash cards too! Have fun!

Regards,
Jonathan

[Rudi]

But they are great tools to have when you on an extended shoot, much cheaper than CompactFlash cards too! Have fun!


I don't think that's quite the case anymore, Jonathan. You can now get 8GB Ridata 150x CF cards for $85 US plus postage ($20 US to Australia, even if you order several cards). I think these days it is a toss-up between reliability (solid-state CF cards) versus viewability (is that a word? :)) on a larger LCD than your camera provides. It is no longer the case where the HDD-based devices are vastly cheaper...