THE EPSON P-5000

Multimedia Storage Viewer

"…anyone who gets their hands on one of these is unlikely to want to give it back!"

I first looked at a device such as this under the guise of the Epson P-2500 a couple of years back, but decided there were a number of shortcomings which significantly compromised its usefulness in a professional photographer’s eyes – the largest of these being its lack of viewing of the RAW format – this has now been addressed in the latest models from Epson, the P-3000 and P-5000. A full review of these devices with all the technical stuff can be found with a simple search on the web so there is no point in going into an in-depth technical review. Needless to say the P-5000 now meets my criteria for a photo viewer. I have now been using the Epson P-5000 device on assignment for a number of months and found it to be resilient, accurate and, as a bonus, a superb device for showing off to clients with! A number of clients have loved the fact that they can view the downloaded images from cards while I have continued shooting and have also been able to give the images which interest them a star rating 1 to 5 (in some ways similar to Bridge in Photoshop)

Ok, ‘so why not just use a laptop then?’ I hear you ask. Well it’s all down to portability, ease of use and speed. My P-5000 sits in my camera bag, next to my Nikon lenses and from initial start up, which takes you directly to the memory card section in six seconds, you insert your memory card (CF or SD) and ‘hey presto’ approximately two minutes later (for a 1GB card) your images are downloaded into a folder, with the date and card number starting at .001 for that day together with the total megabyte size of the images contained within. You can set the device to delete the images from the card after download, but personally I prefer to do this in the camera when I’m about to reuse the card, so I have this function set to 'off' – I usually carry enough cards to enable me to use fresh cards as I shoot during the day and therefore I have all of the images backed up on the P-5000 and all the images still on my cards at the end of a long days shoot. Because of this, it is possible to copy the same card across twice when it is given a consecutive number (for example 26062007.001 and then 26062007.002, etc.) What I am saying is that you should be very sure that you are consistent in your backup routine. Although I will take a laptop to a routine shoot, much of my work is either at inhospitable locations or up on rigs of various sorts, where a laptop is a liability.

It hasn’t happened to me yet, but how many of us have had a corrupt card or inadvertently deleted the images off the card before getting them on the computer? By downloading to the Epson you can quickly check for any problems – important for wedding photographers, but also for those of us shooting architecture, corporate reports , events, etc and it acts as a very important secondary backup device (with a hard drive capacity of 80gb you could leave the images on the Epson until the wedding album has been delivered and everybody is totally satisfied). With all the software pre-installed its actually just under 74GB capacity, but still plenty large enough.

Viewing the images is incredibly easy, just highlight the image, push OK and it appears, full-screen on the beautiful 4 inch, 640x480 resolution, 4- colour filter system LCD screen which can be set for Adobe RGB or sRGB colour spaces and then zoom at 25% 50% 100% up to 400%. Despite the advanced technology though, viewing in bright sunlight can be a problem.

Once viewing the image you can (in order) view the file name, then a screen with all relevant data such as shutter speed, aperture, white balance, date & time, ISO, as well as the all-important Histogram. Push display again and you arrive at the gamut warning screen which shows both areas of highlight and shadow where no information has been recorded, it’s a pity that Epson don’t have separate screens for highlights and shadows, however this may be a firmware upgrade in time.

What else will it do? Slide shows – you can import pod casts (MP4) and watch them at your leisure, you can put your entire music collection on it (OK it’s miles bigger in physical size than an Ipod video) but using the Epson software to import music, videos and the like is an absolute doddle and works like a dream. The built-in speaker is quite low in volume (but not quality) and therefore, a decent pair of headphones is a must.

I’d like to see a carrying pouch which fits on your belt and the unit could then be accessed easily, when needed. I have purchased an after market leather pouch from Hong Kong, which is much sturdier than the Epsonprovided, soft, slip-in pouch and I’ve also made a folder within the unit, named ‘IF FOUND’, which details my name and address and offers a reward for its return for that (hopefully unlikely) event when I leave it in the pub when reviewing the end of a hard day’s work with a client over a beer, and some kind soul picks it up. Though I suspect that anyone who gets their hands on one of these is unlikely to want to give it back!

Photo Quote: When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without. - Ansel Adams