If Affinity Photo is not there - Android OTG

[Henry Stahle]

Android OTG, on the go,

I have been experimenting the recent days on using my Android tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3, for my On The Go photography. Last year on vacations in Crete and in Croatia, I have used it by transfering photos via one of my cameras wifi, using the hotels wifi. It is OK to do so, but it takes some time. I even had to sit in the hotel lobby because of slow wifi in the flat. Nex time I will use the cheap OTG adapter, 10 € only, working just fine with my Trancend USB 3 SD card reader and my SanDisk USB 3 Ultra memory stick.

The Android tablet is easy to carry around. I do not use my Windows Surface tablet that much traveling abroad, is a bit big and a little clumsy, and also expensive.I lock it up in the safety box if there is one in the hotel flat. There was none in the flats we rented last times. So, that is why I carry around my Galaxy Tab. It is not cheap, but it is not expensive, like the Windows thing. And the size is just right.

I have this small OTG adapter, so i can read my camera RAWs picts from the SD card. I can transfer them to my external memory on the tablet, develop my Raw files in Photoshop Experss, Snapseed or VSCO, share them on my social media and even start up making the book.  My wife makes a great job each vacation, by designing a book every time we are abroad or at home on vacation. As we mostly are hiking and trekking, we meet some very nice people, see some interesting places, great scenery and so on. So, photography means a lot to me and us. A lot.

The Adobe Photoshop Express is a good RAW editor, it reads my RW2 or CR2 files without converting them to DNGs first. Lightroom another good app. Adobe wants me to pay a CC subscription to use all features in Lightroom, the one I need for using RAW files, I have to pay 49 Euro per month for that. I don’t know… that much? The Adobe stuff are the best there is on the Android, yes. I can pay if there is nothing like the Adobe stuff. There is. It is free and cheaper.

Snapseed is great and free. Really great. If the RAW files are in the right directory (Google Photo) there is no problem. Snapseed do not read any DNGs outside that folder. I can not do without Snapseed on my tablet or phone. I use it a LOT.

VSCO is another favourite, it also reads my RW2 or CR2 files without converting them to DNGs first. Good exposure is needed in VSCO, there is very little chance of rescuing deep shadows, dark or underexposured photos. VSCOX even filters and corrects videos (beta)…!

The raw2dng converter makes life easy for me OTG. If I want to use Snapseed, that I use most of the time, this app is a must. Snapseed likes DNG. I like Snapseed.

That’s it.

[Henry Stahle]

Just an example, a photo shot with my small Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II. Just to test VSCO using the Canon RAW file CR2, directly from the SD card reader. No problems.