Travel Photography and The iPad
Last fall, I was packing my bag for a week in the Canadian Rockies. This is one of my favorite places on earth. It was just me going. My friends who were suppose to travel with me had something major come up and had to back out at the last minute, so rather than cancelling everything, I went ahead as planned. I figured I could travel light, energize my soul by being in these incredibly beautiful places, and grab some new images for my portfolio.
As I packed my bag, I picked up my 16” MacBook Pro. I slid it into the laptop pocked, and lifted the bag up. It was heavy and bulky. Confession: it always is. But I had the thought - do I really need to take this thing? Could I accomplish all I wanted to simply by taking my iPad? Earlier in the year, I had picked up an M1 iPad Pro. I also have the keyboard for it, making it nearly a laptop. But could it handle my workflow? Could it handle me shooting several thousand image over this week, culling them all, and even editing them.
The short answer: not really. For the longer answer, continue on.
My Workflow
Before going any further, let me explain my workflow so you can understand where the iPad fell short. When I’m shooting, I typically will shoot up to 1,000 images a day. That may sound insane… or maybe you’re like, that’s it? I’m always blown away when Jack Harding, one of my favorite photographers, posts things like “15,000 images from today to go through.” But me, you can count on around 1,000 a day. I shoot on the A7RIV, so each RAW file is around 62MB. Do the math and you come to around 62GB a day.
When I get to my Airbnb or Hotel after sunset, I dump my cards into Lightroom, and use the REJECT hotkey while quickly scrolling through. I can go through the entire day in under an hour typically. I only keep what sticks to my soul at first glance. I go with my gut. And at the end of this process, I typically cut 80%, leaving me with around 200 images to keep. I then select those images, and delete them. Done. Now I can edit and export as I want with the remainder.
Let me add that on my MacBook Pro, all of these images house on an External SSD. They aren’t really on my internal drive. Storage really isn’t an issue in this case. But with the iPad, it hit a major wall, and hit it fast.
The Big Problem
You may see where this is going, but the big problem with this process is storage on the iPad. When I bought my iPad Pro, I was evaluating my needs and went with a lower capacity - a mere 128GB. I was thinking about how everything I use it for, I stream. Rarely am I downloading anything. Even Lightroom is in the cloud, and I can work on my files through the cloud without needing them on my iPad unless I’m exporting from it.
As I shared my workflow above, let me tell you how it went on the iPad. First, to import my files to the iPad, I plugged my SD Card Reader into the USB-C port on the iPad. I use an adapter that gives me multiple inputs - like an SD card reader, USB-A, USB-C, and HDMI-out. My assumption is that I’d add the files to Lightroom, and similar to my MacBook Pro, I could actually house the files on my iPad. This simply was not the case. And yes, I should have tested this before traveling. But I didn’t. I learned the hard way.
All of my RAW files had to enter the iPad, and the files had to live on the iPad until they uploaded to the cloud. This meant at minimum, I’d need half of my entire iPad drive cleared everyday just to import all of my photos to go through. But I have large apps. I had a few movies downloaded for the flight to/from Calgary from San Francisco. I have Spotify Playlists. I had around 80GB used up. I just couldn’t import the entire day.
I ended up having to import 200-300 files, go through them, delete the standard 80%, and then clear the cache and do it all over again. This significantly slowed my process down, and turned what was usually under an hour into a process that took me all evening. Since it was just me, I didn’t mind. But I would never want to give that kind of time to something if I had my family or friends with me. But in the end, I made it work, and came back after a week with a very loaded iPad, and several days of cloud syncing, thanks to Adobe’s fairly slow sync process.
The Solution
Every trip I’ve taken since this one, I have to take my MacBook Pro. My iPad simply does not have the storage capacity to accommodate my workflow. But there is a solution, and I’d like to try this entire process again. The solution is this:
If you’re going to use your iPad for travel photography, get the largest capacity you can afford. If I had the 1TB iPad, this would be a very different blog. But that’s not what I bought at the time.
Editing on the iPad is a joy. The Lightroom app is nearly 90% of what it is on my desktop, with only a few things not being quite there yet. I’m hopeful Adobe will keep pushing what Lightroom on the iPad is. There’s something about touching the photograph with the Apple Pencil that feels so organic and natural. When I edit on my iPad, I always surprise myself at how much I enjoy it. As an elder-millennial, I have a hard time doing any work not on a laptop. But it feels like the iPad and photography (or art in general) is a great combination.
The iPad is a more than capable travel companion for a photographer. If storage isn’t an issue, I believe you could drop that 4-6lb laptop from your bag and toss in that 2lb iPad. If you’re like me (and my back), you may feel that weight and bulk difference immediately. Every pound matters in my bag, and I’m very selective about what I travel with because of it. I’m hopeful that in the future I’ll be able to grab a 1TB iPad Pro, and ditch the laptop when I travel every time. But until that day comes, I either have to man-up and carry the extra weight, or find a better workflow for travel photography & the iPad.
Want more travel tips on how to not travel correctly? Check this out.