[waffffffle]

Importing to iPhoto from my Cannon S200 camera is insanely slow. I have all sorts of problems that stem from the fact that it is so slow (the camera battery dies before finishing the transfer, the camera shuts off before finishing, etc). What I want to know is if I were to get a media reader (Compact Flash) would it make things any faster? How do media readers work in iPhoto. Do they import the same way or do they just show up as disks on the desktop in OS X?

Thanks.

[aaanorton]

Ya, get a reader. A firewire reader if you can. Lexar just came out with a new interesting looking one (the 2nd from the top).
Readers work just like cameras in iPhoto. When you stick a card in, iPhoto opens and goes to Import.

EDIT:
Whether or not it shows up on your desktop depends on how the camera you're using formats the card. Remember... if it does mount, you NEED to unmount it before ejecting the card.

[maxintosh]

Importing from my FinePix S5000 isn't terribly slow, but it seems like iPhoto is the bottleneck. Just dragging the files from the camera in the Finder is really quick.

God, iPhoto is such a slug.

[michaelb]

iPhoto does a lot of stuff while importing, like generating high quality thumbnails for its catalog.

You can always import photos later direct from the hard drive...

A media reader / card slot lets you copy images direct to hard drive in the Finder without the overhead, then import into iPhoto later. Personally, I wouldn't do it any other way.