A First Look at the Apple iPad’s Camera Connection Kit

The iPad itself may not have a camera attachment just yet but photographers could find the iPad quite handy as a shoot-connect-and-view device with Apple’s $29 camera connection kit. The kit consists of two adapters, one with a USB cable and one with an SD card slot. These adapters can be hooked up to any camera that support the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) or mass storage class protocol and other Apple devices like the iPhone, iPhone 3Gs, iPod Nano, and iPod touch. If you’ve notice the iPhone 3G has been left out, that’s not a typo. Apparently reviewers found that the 3G didn’t play too well with this set up and took an unusually long period of time before it was recognized. The kit is also not compatible with SDXC cards but worked fine with other varieties.

For now it converts RAW files into optimized JPEGs (2048-by-1360) but that’s about it. There’s no Photoshop for the iPad just yet so professionals will be able to just view images and nothing more. Smaller copies of videos are also created when transferred and all original files, pictures and videos are untouched. Transferring of media is more or less an automatic process after plugging in a device. You can choose to keep or delete files on the camera. To transfer these files you can either email them to yourself or just sync the device with your computer.
For more detailed information on the tests conducted head on here.
Business Week