Epson P-7000: Not Ready for Prime Time

[DeanNewman]

In preparation for the BAA Galapagos trip, I picked up an Epson P-7000, 160 GB portable digital storage unit for backing up each day's captures. I always travel with a laptop and 2-500GB external drives but thought I'd prevent a single-point failure episode in case my laptop died. I had read reviews by supposedly knowledgeable amatuer photographers on line that raved about the storage unit.

I must say I'm disappointed in the Epson's performance. First, as with anything that has a USB connection, I checked the website for updated firmware and discovered there was, in fact, a newer edition than that loaded on my machine. After downloading and following the directions to the letter numerous times, I was unable to load the new software. After spending an hour and a half on the phone with the tech dept and finally working my way up to a Level III technician, whatever that is, I was informed there was a critical omission in the directions that was well known among senior tech dept personnel. If anyone is interested in what that is, contact me off-list and I'll send you the instructions. I warn you, it will make you nervous as you gamble with the health and integrity of the $800 unit.

The real show-stopper is the inability of the unit to mark and delete more than one image at a time. Am I the only person that trashes most of the photos taken in any given session? That's the reason I play in the "Eager to Learn" Forum of BPN. It literally takes forever to go through 12-15 GB of photos and eliminating the non-keepers. I now edit my CF card in Breeze Browser before backing it up on the Epson unit.

Another serious deficiency in the unit is the battery dies after downloading three 4GB cards. While OK for a morning's shoot, I had visions of leaving my laptop at home for weekend outings. If I keep the Epson P-7000 I'll have to buy the extra lithium battery pack that's optional.

Another nit is Epson, even with the new firmware, didn't program the unit to recognize Photoshop CS4; only CS3 and below. I'll work around this if ever forced to edit from the storage unit but it'll just add to the time-sucking vortex which is my digital-editing workflow.

I only submit this post to say, if you're considering this unit as advertised by that "other Art" on TV, wait and let it grow up to something a serious photographer can use before investing your cash. The Epson P-7000 with its 4 inch viewing screen has serious potential. It's a shame the company didn't consult their customer before fielding the unitl.

[Roger Clark]

Dean,
I have a P5000 and in general, I would never use it for editing. For example, the unit only sees the half resolution embedded jpeg in raw files. You can't check critical focus. I consider the P5000 for backup and basic review only. I don't know if the 7000 is supposed to have more capability or not. I do take the 5000 on trips where weight is too limited, like riding on small planes.

Roger

Roger

[Ken Watkins]

I have just used a P7000 on my recent trip, I had no problems at all I just use it for backup, and a little "chimping". In my view the battery is Ok, I certainly I never had a back up machine that will back up endless gigs of images, most places in the world I have been have some form of power to recharge or of course you can use the cigar lighter in a vehicle. I will grant you that the spare batteries are expensive but then they are for everything else, especially cameras and videos.I prefer to delete when I am in the peace and quiet of home and fail to see why you would wish to delete more than one file at a time.

The screen is the best I have seen.

Roger as far as I am aware the 7000 is just an upgrade I have no idea whether it does more .

I just hope it proves to be a little more reliable than my Jobo.

[DeanNewman]

I probably should have explained my work flow in previous post on Epson P-7000 and only deleting one file at the time. My SOP is to burn through the downloaded images rapidly marking obvious discards which will be at least half of the images. After completing the marking phase, I select the marked images and hit the delete key once. My point about only deleting one file at the time with the P-7000 that it is much slower.

Agree the screen resolution for viewing images is good.
Dean Newman
California, MD

[Roger Clark]

I just hope it proves to be a little more reliable than my Jobo.

I've had my 5000 all over the world, Africa twice, Alaska, Australia (well, maybe the A-places;)) with no problems.
It just needs more disk space. In this day and age, for the cost of these things, they should have 500 GByte drives in them. (Note 1 TeraByte laptop drives are now out.)

Roger