Originally posted by Lowell Goudge I never thought about the reliability of the card readers, just from my experience, when you download to the computer, the file date changes to the date and time the image was downloaded, if you use a card reader, and file explorer to copy the images, they retain the initial date and time. This makes management easier. Also if your date is set wrong, it can get confusing.
You are correct, if you download directly from the camera, the "File Properties:Created date" . . . aka "File Date" will change because that is a function of Windows. However, the "File Properties:Modified date" is left unchanged as are all of the actual Exif dates . . . "Image-Date/time Digitized", "Camera-Date/time" and "Image-Date/time Original". Therefore, I modified all of my file browsers to key on the "Exif" info rather than the "File Properties" info.
I find it a lot easier to just hook up my K10D to the 2.0 USB port and transfer . . . with a fast card, it is very quick.
Obviously, just seems to be a matter of personal preference.