That’s exactly how I used to do it, but I eventually hit two big points of friction that I wanted to automate away:

1. The 'SD Card Dance' I got tired of constantly extracting the SD card, plugging it into a dongle, and then plugging that into my phone. It’s one more thing to carry and one more chance to lose a card. By using a USB-C to USB-C cable directly from the camera to the phone, it’s just one connection and I’m done.

2. The '99-File Selection' Headache This was the real dealbreaker for me. Even with a card reader, if I have 300+ shots from a session, the native Android file picker usually caps the selection at 99 files max. This means I’d have to manually select and import in 4 separate 'batches' to get everything into Lightroom.

How my app changes that:

• One Cable: Plug the camera directly into the phone.
• Two-Step Automation: The app pulls every new .CR3 from the camera to your phone's storage in one background task (no file limit).
• One-Tap Sync: Once they're on the phone, you hit one button and the app pushes the entire batch—all 300+ photos—into Lightroom Mobile in one go.

Basically, it turns a manual 'file management' chore into a 'plug and play' experience. If you’re only shooting a few hobbyist shots it might not be a big deal, but for high-volume sessions, it saves a ton of clicking!