During the past year I was exposed to Eye-Fi advertising that looked worthy of further investigation. Like some many other ads I plan on looking into, this one went to end of my priority list until I was suddenly faced with a need to connect a camera wirelessly to my laptop at an event. I learned in the two months prior, that other event photographers had successfully incorporated the Eye-Fi cards into their workflow. Armed with that knowledge I purchased an Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB+Wi-Fi card from Amazon.
The Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB+Wi-Fi card arrived yesterday in a package about the same size as a DVD. The box contained an almost useless paper manual (software installation instructions) and the Eye-fi card pre-inserted into a sdhc to usb adapter.
Installation software for the Eye-Fi card came loaded on the Eye-Fi card. Installing the software went smoothly and requires an internet connection to configure the Wi-Fi to your network. This is one thing I would like to see change. Any program that can be run via the internet to update the settings on the Eye-Fi card should also be able to run locally.
When the software was through configuring the Eye-Fi card for my home network, it instructed me to remove the card from the laptop, put it in the camera and take a picture. The picture is supposed to show up in Eye-Fi Central, the software that Eye-Fi uses to let you upload photos and video quickly and easily to social networking sites.
Here was where I encountered my first problem. I loaded the Eye-Fi card into my 1DsmkII and took a photo…, a RAW photo. The images transferred to my laptop without any trouble, but that final window in the configuration software where I was supposed to be able to see my photo seemed to hang.., of course it seemed to hang, the RAW file I took was over 17mb’s in size… and I have a DSL connection to the internet. When it appeared I was never going to see the image in the Eye-Fi Central, I closed it and moved on.
Next, I walked around the house with camera in hand and took a series of jpeg images. When I returned to the laptop, all the images had transferred. Okay, this test was successful, but I was connecting to my home networks wireless router and my goal was to connect to connect directly to my laptop in ad-hoc mode.
Initially I though I couldn’t do it from the main network screen in Eye-Fi Central and ended up trying to configure the Eye-Fi card to look for my laptop that same way it would look for a Wi-Fi hotspot. After going through the software settings several times and changing my laptop to ad-hoc mode, I was I able to achieve a connection. Unfortunately after power cycling the laptop and the sdhc card, I was unable to connect again.
Ultimately, I did figure my connections out, although I didn’t know it because Zone Alarm was blocking the incoming signal from the Eye-Fi card. Once I closed Zone Alarm I was able to confirm my settings and restart Zone Alarm.
I have re-booted the laptop several times and also moved the card from the 1DsmkII to the 1DmkIII. Each time I turn the camera on and take a photo the image transfers to the laptop without a hitch. A raw file from the mkIII takes 38 seconds to transfer from the time the shutter is pressed. Jpeg’s are much quicker, with a M2 jpeg taking approximately four seconds.
The first time I ever tethered a camera to a computer I used Canons software. I also used Canons software at the first event I offered photos printed on location. In addition to that, I used Lightroom, which can be set to auto import files from a watched folder. LR3 offers the ability to tether a camera now, but with the Eye-Fi available, you can skip the tether and transfer your images.
According to Eye-Fi, only the Pro version is capable of ad-hoc connections and transferring RAW files. You can compare the X2 models here.
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