In the early days of digital photography, the only way to transfer images from the camera to a computer was with a cable. The interface was usually USB, but some early digicams used SCSI or Firewire connections as well. As reusable memory cards became popular, card readers appeared, allowing users to quickly move images from the card to their hard drive.
Surprisingly, even today, many digital photographers still transfer their images to their computer via a USB cable. Card readers are inexpensive, faster and more reliable, yet many digital camera users still havent acquired one.
1: Card readers offer speedy transfers
Undoubtedly, the biggest advantage to a card reader is speed. Images transfer at a rate several times that of a camera USB connection. Obviously, It is advantageous anytime you can shorten the image acquisition period. As memory cards increase in capacity and cameras offer greater pixel density, however, transfer speed becomes a major issue. My first digital camera only had 8MB of storage memory, and I felt it took a long time to transfer the images to my hard drive by USB cable. Today a single raw image could be twice that size. A card with...