Photos from camera to iPad

I'm thinking about buying the Camera connection kit, and have a question in this regard for anyone who has used it already to load photos from his/her camera to iPad ...

I've noticed when syncing a bunch of photos from my computer to iPad that iTunes "optimizes" them for iPad. I'm assuming this means reducing the resolution to suit the iPad display.
Would it be the same with photos loaded from a camera, and what happens to them when you decide to import them into iPhoto again? In other words, ... is there a loss of resolution?