I shoot almost exclusively with a digital SLR. I have a few different point-and-shoot cameras around at one time or another, mostly loaners for book or magazine projects, but I just can’t stand using an LCD screen as a viewfinder. Because they don’t show the full dynamic range in a scene, I find composition to be much more confusing to me, and more and more cameras lack optical viewfinders.

However, I do occasionally use a point-and-shoot when it’s completely impractical to carry an SLR, when I need to shoot something to put on ebay, or when I want to shoot video. The video capabilities found on most quality point-and-shoots these days is astonishing. Offering full-frame, full motion video, with sound - and usually better-quality compression than DV - point-and-shoot cameras are perfectly viable solutions for times when you need to capture something that just won’t work as a still frame.

Because I don’t spend a lot of time working with point-and-shoots, though, I was very surprised recently when I took the card out of a Canon PowerShot S80, stuck it in my card reader, and waited for Aperture’s Import dialog box to appear. As usual, Aperture showed me all of the images on the card. I selected my choices and hit the Import button, and Aperture presented me with the following dialog box:

When you click on Download Additional Files, Aperture will prompt you with a standard Save dialog, allowing you to select a location for the files. I created a new Folder on the desktop, finished the import, and when I was done, my still images had been imported into Aperture, as normal, but my movies had also been copied into my chosen folder, saving me the trouble of performing an additional copy somewhere else, after leaving Aperture.

If you regularly mix it up with your point-and-shoot, moving between stills and movies, Aperture will help you automatically move the files where they need to be when you import.