You're correct that there's really no difference between working with an iPad and an iPad Mini. That's kind of the point of the iPad Mini, actually. :-)

Well, there is one difference for millions of people: The previous three generations of full size iPads have 30-pin connectors on the bottom, whereas the iPad Mini, like the very latest version of the iPad itself, has a smaller lightning connector. This means that if you bought the SDCard reader for the 30-pin iPad, well, you need a new gizmo. You need a Lightning to SD Card Reader for $29.99 (or less if you check eBay).

Armed with that, however, you should be able to just plug the adapter gizmo into the bottom of the iPad Mini, then slip the sdcard itself out of your digital camera and into the device.

After a moment or two, the iPad will detect the card and launch the Photos app in import mode, showing you every photo it's found:

If you've already imported some, you'll see them show up with a green "check" badge, as you can see is displayed in four of the photos in the screen capture above. That's quite handy because then you can tap "Import All" along the bottom (the blue button) and it'll only import the non-duplicate images (well, kinda. You'll see in a sec) and you're good to go.

You can also delete the photos off the sdcard if you're done with them all by tapping on the red "Delete All" button, but if you're shooting in the field, that's probably not advisable, redundant backups and all that...

To import a specific photo or subset of photos, simply tap on the selected images. They'll get a blue check badge, as you can see I've done with one of the images here:

Notice along the bottom the buttons have changed to a red "Delete Selected" and a blue "Import" button. Tap on "Import" to bring just the photo or photos you've selected onto the iPad Mini.

Not sure why this pops up, but it'll confirm that you want to just import the selected photo or photos rather than everything on the SD Card. Your choice!

Tap on "Import All", however, and since there are a few images already on the Mini, a warning pops up:

It's a bit hard to read, but the choices are "Import All", "Skip Duplicates" or "Cancel". The second choice is your best bet for speed.

Once it's done -- and it's pretty darn speedy! -- you'll have a confirmation pop up asking if you now want to delete the photos from the sdcard or not:

Keep copies of the imported images by tapping on "Keep", delete them by tapping on... you can guess... "Delete".

To now view them, tap on "Albums" along the top and among the many albums, you'll see both "Last Import" and "All Imported".

If you clear things after each location shoot, you can tap on "All Imported" and it'll be just the pictures you're working with. If not, tap on "Last Import". Either way, it's now a familiar photo display:

Tapping on a specific photo brings it up full screen:

And you can move from photo to photo with the familiar swiping gesture. Easy enough!