Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Got a wifi SD card of 16 Gb from a well known Japanese brand at US$30 through ebay. It price has dropped even before Black Friday
It works out really great indeed with my vintage Pentax K20D. I have a cellular phone with 64 Gb storage too pairing with the camera/card.
After taking images, it generates a wifi hot spot and anyone nearby including my phone can have access through wifi. Downloading it is fast too.
Now I can bring my DSLR even for social occasions such as dinners. I can tell anyone around me interested in getting my image (in my camera) to access my images by typing the code 12345678 in their cellular phone. That is it.
Points to note: (1) I need to make sure that the batt is charged.
(2) some cameras have problem (e.g. Nikon D90) as it saves energy by cutting off power to the SD card after a brief moment of usage. But that can be corrected via the menu.


Daniel, Toronto

Do you need to shoot in jpg? What happens if you shoot RAW + jpg (does it transfer both files, just the RAW, just the jpg)? What happens if you shoot just RAW - do the files make it to the mobile device as RAW? And what do you mean you have to make sure the battery is charged? There's a battery for the SD card? Or do you mean your camera battery (and if so, of course you need a charged battery for your camera to function...).

Nick,

I have an Eye-Fi Pro X2 card and can transfer RAW to my iPhone - the annoying thing is the files get renamed (might just be an Apple thing) as they come in the device. So an image named IMG_2341 becomes something like IMG_001, 002, etc... Kind of hard to reconcile images that way. I am sure it is an Apple lockdown of the camera roll. I can shoot RAW to my CF card and JPEG to the SD slot but I don't know that you can tell the Eye Fi app to only transfer the one file type or not.

Sounds like a cool novelty. Based on this thread, I just order the $30 Toshiba 16Gb one off eBay to play with. Thanks!

I had an eye-fi years ago that I could never really get to work properly -- but very happy with the Nikon wifi adapter for my camera's.... that's how I download content to my ipad if and when I need to.

Is the Nikon adapter built-in to your cameras or is it a separate card like the Eye-Fi?

Daniel, does sharing the pictures with the guests eats up your data plan?
I would assume, yes...

The wifi adapter is a separate dongle that plugs into the GPS port on my Nikon Df -- it also works with the D7100 which is why I got it originally. It's called the Nikon WU-1a

So my Toshiba FlashAir arrived today. Once I figured out how to set it up, configure it, get it to connect to a couple external devices, learned that I need to turn off the standby delay on the Nikon, and finally see the images through the device browser, I played with it for about 10 minutes until the novelty wore off. It'd be a neat party trick though.
Btw, although the RAW files can be transferred over to the device, the device can't read RAW files so no use in doing that. It's really only good if you're shooting jpg.

I've seen Wifi micro SD card adapter on ebay around 20$. Anybody have experience with them ?

Mark

No. The card generates a wifi hotspot and people around you can access to it with no wifi/data at all.
But you need to make sure it is powered up all the time when transferring images.
Sorry about the late reply because of the holidays




Make sure it is class 10 and of course size does matter. I would imagine 4/8 Gb are obviously cheaper than larger size card

Daniel

Thank you, Daniel.
Do you know if you can make a difference between RAW and JPEG?
What I mean is, for example, I shoot both RAW and JPEG, but I want the people to be able to only download the JPEGs from the card.

Can you have...I don't know, 100 people downloading the pics at the same time?

Would this set-up work?
You shoot a few pictures, then you place the wifi card in the laptop, to keep it powered, and the people download the pics, while you keep shooting with a second WiFi card?

Hi So,
The wifi card basically broadcasts what's on the card and users can connect to the card (if you give them the password) and "see" what's on it. Then they can choose to download and save a picture/file that they like from the card onto their own device. Devices generally can't even read RAW files, so although they could, technically, choose to download the RAW file, it would take up a whole lot of space on their device. So if they're smart, they'd probably choose to download the jpg instead.
I've only tested having 3 people connected to the card at the same time and it seems to work. Haven't tried 100. Additionally, I haven't tested using the card in a laptop, but in theory it should work. Great idea! If I get a chance I'll try that out and let you know.
Cheers,
Nick

You can see raw files (at least from my 5D3) on an Apple iPad coupled with my Eye-Fi card. Slow as molasses to transfer but it does work.

Of course. Typically raw is almost 4 times larger in size. That takes more time to transfer.



It should be confusing to the recipients some of whom may be confused to download 2 files of the same name



I believe it is viable for 100 recipients . A 16 Gb or 32 Gb card can accommodate quite a few jpg files already.


Daniel

You're right, it may be confusing for some users. However, the images are viewed by thumbnails. So unless the device can actually render RAW files (like Jamesy's iPad), then it's not likely they'd download the RAW file, since they can't "see" what it looks like. They can "see" what the image looks like as the jpg, they'd probably just download the jpg. But yes, nothing's stopping them from downloading the RAW file.

True.
But the main use of such card (to me ) is to use it for social occasions when I want people to access my DSLR. Set it up on the tripod for a group shot instead of the fiasco we see every time (when everybody takes out their smart phone to shoot).
If you shoot raw+jpg, the size is typically too big. I would have dumbed it to around 2-3 Mb an image (only jpg) which will not have any photographic or artistic significance regardless. That also cuts down download time as well. Nowadays, a 2-3 Mb image from a decent dslr is very good already
But if you want to share the image with another photo buddy that will be a different story.

Daniel

You can still do this with the card. Nothing's stopping you from using it for social occasions. I have used it at a social Christmas party and there were no issues, except for the novelty wearing off for everyone after about 7 minutes...