Author note: every image here was taken on my Sony α7R II, edited on my Nexus 6 phone. I am writing this article on my phone on the flight back home.
One humongous reason I have shifted all my shooting to mirrorless cameras is because I wanted smaller devices that were still as fully featured (if not more so) than my larger SLT cameras. Saving weight is nice and all, but I did it so that I can actually fit more gear into my bag.
One thing I couldn't quite shed, though, was my computing system. I always had to bring a laptop (and it's large power supply), a mouse, and an external backup hard drive. That meant I had no choice but to also carry another bag that housed my computational needs.
This was inefficient. In the past five years, my photo gear has managed to shrink by about a third, but my laptop has remained the same size. When I discovered a wireless SDcard capable external drive that was compatible with my mobile phone, it dawned on me that I could leave the laptop at home and just use my smaller phone and tablet.
But I wanted to take it further. I wanted to see if I could leverage my android devices to not only backup my media every night, but to also edit the images to a degree near what I could do at home.
What did I learn?
I could definately do it. Barely making a change to my workflow (in fact, improving it slightly), I was able to take pictures with my camera like I normally would do, wirelessly transfer select jpeg images to my mobile device for editing and sharing, and archive my photos and videos at the end of the day at the hotel while I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed (the wireless hard drive can automatically backup my SD cards upon inserting the card in the hard drive slot).
The output of the imagery could even be printed and publishedit's that good. Now there are some things that I couldn't do. For instance, my desktop computer at home has some sophisticated software for editing RAW software. That way I can really leverage all my dynamic range and push my shadows and highlightsfar more than I can with the normal jpeg. But for the majority of my other images, this newly found mobile solution suited me fine.
No need to bring the proprietary charger for my laptop, I was able to charge my hard drives and mobile devices with the same ubiquitous micro usb charger I also use to charge my cameras!
Snapseed is one insanely sweet mobile application. I find myself using it like a simpler touchfriendly Adobe Lightroomlike program that can edit jpeg images that come out of my Sony α7R II and have a degree of latitude in editing thanks to the dynamic range of the camera. I could even clean up specks from a dirty sensor.
The word "impressed" was inadequate to describe how I felt.
Less cables, less power requirements, less baggage, lighter luggage, a simpler infrastructure, smoother traveling and the ability to edit images while waiting for my sandwich to arrive. Photo nirvana.
