I was hoping for some kind of dongle that you could plug into your camera and it’d use Media Transfer Protocol to write it all to a portable HD…

Can’t find owt on Google though.

Yes, you wouldhave thought something would be available.This is all I could find after a few minutes:

USB copy thing

Or use a NAS type drive with built in smarts that will do it,

Buffalo drive.

Thanks, that first link does look decent.

It needs to be portable though – so if I am on a long trip say I can use a 1TB hard drive for my pics that can live in my camera bag, and not need oodles of CF cards.

You should have bought a decent camera! 😉

The highest capacity available in CF as of 2010 is 100GB5, and the maximum storage capacity of the current CF card format is 137GB. For photographers seeking greater storage capacity as well as lower storage costs per gigabyte, the EOS 5D Mark II offers the option of recording movies and/or still images directly to an external storage device, bypassing the CF card in the camera. Direct recording to a USB storage device is supported by the optional WFT-E4A Wireless File Transmitter, along with the EOS 5D Mark II camera. Direct recording to a compatible personal computer is also possible via Remote Live View.

The WFT-E4A acts as a USB host, which makes it possible to attach storage devices with far greater storage capacity than CF cards. Small devices such as most USB “keychains” and hard drives with 1.8-inch or smaller disk diameters can be powered by the WFT-E4A, but larger hard drives will require their own independent power supply. Set-up for external storage is fairly straightforward using the EOS 5D Mark II’s LCD menu screens, but there are a few rules to follow:

Something like this – enclosure with card reader

Does the Eos 5D then have the large style USB connector in it? For it to write to a HD it’d need to be the controller, would it not, and by the spec it would need the large style connector..? Or am I talking out of my camera bag?

Woody – needs to be portable, as in something I can carry in the camera bag.

EDIT: thinking about it, an iPod or similar might be my best bet actually… Ok so the capacity’s nothing like as big as a portable HD.

Hmm.. might as well use this, which Mrs Grips already owns:

WFT-E4 Wireless transmitter
Not a feature I’m looking for in a new camera, so I’ll let Julian Love tel you.

May I ask why you think you need more storage than the largest CF cards can offer you?

This any good? *

*Disclaimer. I have not tried this, nor do I know anyone who has. I just ‘googled’ a bit. Looks promising though.

Edit: More Here

and another here

May I ask why you think you need more storage than the largest CF cards can offer you?

I haven’t needed it yet. I was just wondering since shooting RAW I could conceivably fill a 16Gb card in a few days and it’d cost the same as a 640Gb portable drive.