Gadgetory

hey guys I'm Sharon Vaknin frissina and today we're getting started with a camera connection kit for the iPad as its name spells out this $30 accessory lets you connect your camera to your iPad and transfer photos on the go but after some testing I found out there's a lot more you can do with these little accessories let's take a look the kit comes with two adapters the one with the USB input lets you plug in your camera with the cable this is useful if your camera uses any memory card other than SD if your camera is compatible with SD you'll use this adapter and plug it in directly to the iPad either way here's how it works when you connect your camera or SD card to the iPad when you insert the adapter your photos will launch immediately it actually happens pretty fast then you can tap to select specific photos or videos you want to import or you can import all of them by tapping this button here at the bottom once the photos are imported you'll have a choice to keep them or delete them from the SD card so if you're traveling and your iPad has more storage than your full SD card you can use this kit to free up space for more photos and videos now your photos will show up in the imported album in the Photos app from here you can edit them in iPhoto by selecting them from that imported album or upload them to Facebook and share them with friends or even put them in your Dropbox with the Dropbox app videos you import can also be handled in the same way so you can upload high-def videos edit them in iMovie and upload them to YouTube all from your iPad and for the record I've tried this kit will not let you plug your SD card or camera into the iPhone but one fun thing is that if you have an iPhone you can plug it into your iPad and import photos on the fly so that's the primary use of the kit but this little adapter can also be used with other USB accessories like a keyboard lots of wireless keyboards created for the iPad or small and cramped so with this accessory you can just plug a normally sized keyboard into the iPad ignore this warning message and you can start using your keyboard to compose text immediately same goes for a USB microphone just plug it in and launch a voice recording app like GarageBand to get high-quality audio recordings on your ipad mini accessories also work with the ipad so you can plug in an actual keyboard and record music in GarageBand not all models will work so check online to see if yours is compatible I haven't tested every single USB device but many devices from these categories will work with the adapter as long as they don't require too much power after all it's the iPad that will be powering the accessory if you discover any cool tricks for these accessories let me know on Twitter and subscribe to my Facebook page for more tips like this for cnet.com I'm Sharon Vaknin