If you’re a prolific shutterbug you know what a hassle it is to
constantly pull the SD card from your camera, plug it into your
computer, and transfer the files to get to the snapshots you just took.
Read on as we show you how to add Wi-Fi based photo transfer to your
digital camera.
Why Do I Want To Do This?
This is one of those things that, if you’re the target audience, you’re already nodding your head and saying “Yes,
perfect,
no more swapping the SD card between the camera and the computer!” but
perhaps you’re right on the edge of the target audience and not aware
how downright convenient a wireless SD card is.
Introduced several years ago, Wi-Fi enabled SD cards take advantage
of the constant reduction and refinement of electronic components to
pack in both photo storage
and a tiny Wi-Fi radio into the form
factor of an SD memory card. Aside from the label they look absolutely
identical to their non-networked counterparts.
By replacing your standard SD card with a Wi-Fi enabled card you gain
a host of functionality like the ability to automatically transfer your
photos as they are taken to your computer without removing the SD card
from the camera, automatically (or selectively) uploading them to photo
sharing and social media sites, and sending them to nearby mobile
devices like your iPad for review.
The primary function and the one that will attract the majority of
people, however, is definitely the first one we mentioned: wireless
photo transfer to your computer. If you’re constantly taking photos and
transferring them to your computer you’ll love the automatic transfer
feature—between our work here at HTG and our frequent sharing of family
photos on Facebook and the like we easily pop the SD card out of our
DSLR a half dozen or more times a day to transfer files and absolutely
love how Wi-Fi cards have spared us this routine.
What’s the downside to Wi-FI enabled SD cards? First, the sticker
shock. A Wi-FI SD card will typically run you 3-4 times the price of a
similar size premium non-Wi-FI SD card. Second, you will need to
recharge your camera battery more frequently as the Wi-FI SD card steals
power from the battery to run the Wi-Fi radio and associated hardware.
If you’re doing heavy shooting and/or transferring large RAW files
you’ll definitely want to either power tether your camera (if you’re
working in a home studio setting) or keep a spare battery on hand as
continual file transfer and large file transfer are both taxing on
battery life.
That said, every generation of Wi-Fi enabled cards has improved upon
power management and newer models do an excellent job sipping the
battery. Expect to charge your battery more often, but the overall
impact on battery life is negligible in the face of the convenience of
the speedy wireless transfer.
What Do I Need?
Before all else, you need to check if you even need a Wi-Fi SD card.
Although it’s still a fairly uncommon feature a number of newer digital
cameras have built-in Wi-Fi. If you have a newer camera definitely
double check to ensure that’s not a feature you’ve overlooked!
Second, you need to determine if your camera will support a Wi-Fi SD
card. As a general rule if your camera supports SDHC memory cards it
will support a Wi-Fi SD card without a problem. For the purposes of this
tutorial we’re using an Eye-Fi brand card; you can
use the Eye-Fi camera check tool to see if your camera is compatible.
The tool is quite detailed and not only tells you whether or not a
camera is compatible in a broad sense but lists off any issues you might
have with a particular model because of hardware or firmware
limitations.
Even if you are considering a different brand of Wi-Fi SD card you
can still typically get away with using the Eye-Fi camera check tool
because the same general parameters apply across brands.
Note: There are last-gen Wi-Fi SD cards that from years back
that will work in non SDHC compliant cameras, but they are no longer in
production, and you’ll have to find them used or as old stock on places
like eBay.
Finally, after checking out your camera’s feature list and that it
supports SDHC cards, it’s time to pick out a Wi-Fi card. As we noted
above we’re using
an Eye-Fi card
but there are other popular models based on licensed Eye-Fi technology
from Toshiba and Transcend; look for Toshiba FlashAir and Transcend
Wi-Fi branded cards. Although the cards from other manufacturer’s are
well rated, Eye-Fi was the first game in town and to this day still has
the most mature hardware and software support.
Aside from selecting your card’s storage capacity also keep in mind
that other SD card purchasing factors come into play as well such as
speed rating. For more information on SD cards beyond the scope of this
Wi-Fi SD card article, check out
How to Buy an SD Card: Speed Classes, Sizes, and Capacities Explained.
Setting Up Your Wi-Fi SD Card
There are two phases to the setup process. The initialization process
that gets your Wi-Fi SD card on your local Wi-Fi network coupled with a
simple field test to ensure it is operational and then a more detailed
configuration of the SD card’s settings.
Getting the Wi-Fi Card Online
Although you can configure your Eye-Fi to ship images to an iOS or
Android device, the initial configuration requires a Windows or Mac
computer. Load the SD card in your card reader and navigate to the root
directly. Everything you need to get started is in the “START HERE”
folder.
Select the subdirectory based on your operating system and run the
installation file. After searching for and downloading software updates,
you’ll be prompted to run the full installation for the Eye-Fi Center
software.
During the installation you’ll be prompted to authorize the Eye-Fi
software to pass through your computer’s firewall and and to set up and
Eye-Fi account. Even if you don’t intend to use the Eye-Fi sharing tools
you still need to create an account to complete the installation. After
creating your account sit back and wait for your Eye-Fi card, if
necessary, to receive a firmware update.
The first important decision you’ll make during the setup process is
whether or not you want the files to be transferred to your computer or
mobile device. Our goal is to get the files to our computer for easy
sorting, processing, and archiving; select “My computer.”
In the next step, select the SSID of your wireless network and enter
the password. The receiving computer and the Eye-Fi card need to be on
the same network. It doesn’t matter, however, if your computer is
connected to your router via Ethernet though, it’s still considered part
of the same network as the Wi-Fi node attached to it.
The Eye-Fi will prompt you to select a social network you wish to
share your images with or you can select them later. We recommend
setting this feature up later, if you even want to use it, as there are a
host of little tweaks and options you may wish to adjust before
enabling it.
When you finish the initial configuration process you’ll be prompted
to eject the SD card, insert it in your camera, and take a photo.
This photo is your test shot that should be, assuming the
configuration went smoothly, be automatically transferred to your
computer. In the screenshot above you can see that our snapshot of a
little LEGO office worker placed on our office windowsill transferred
without a hitch.
The most common cause of transfer errors is aggressive power
management on behalf of the camera. Many cameras will immediately begin
conserving power within seconds of taking a photo; this doesn’t give the
SD card enough sustained power to finish transferring the files over
Wi-Fi. You can alleviate this issue with most cameras by adjusting the
timeout on the autometering or other features. Check out the
Eye-Fi power settings management tutorial for your camera if you run into this problem.
Configuring the Eye-Fi Card
Once you’ve completed the simple test to ensure your card can
communication with your home network, pop it back in your computer and
open up the Eye-Fi Center software. You can take a moment to look around
the software and familiarize yourself with the layout.
Before you continue using the Eye-Fi card, however, you’ll want to
take a close look at the settings. Do so by navigating to File ->
Settings -> Eye-Fi Card.
There is
a lot going on in the configuration menu here that
you should really take the time to look over. Let’s take a look at each
section and the settings found therein. Although the primary focus of
this tutorial is simply transferring files between your camera and
computer, the Eye-Fi is mature product that offers a range of tools that
are worth taking a peek at. Further, there are options you may wish to
toggle for privacy purposes (like the geotagging feature) so we’ll give a
quick overview of all the available configuration options.
Under the “Networks” tab you’ll find everything related to connecting
the Eye-Fi to the outside world. You can add and remove Wi-Fi networks
under the “Private Networks” tab, enable direct ad-hoc networks for
connections between devices on the camera (if your Eye-Fi model supports
this feature), and configure your Eye-Fi card to use public hotspots so
it will upload photos using public Wi-Fi connections while you’re out
and about.
Under the “Photos” tab you can change both the local and online
destinations for your photos. Under the “Computer” sub-tab you can
switch where the files are saved on your local computer as well as how
they are sorted and stored. Under the “Online” tab you can enable and
configure online sharing through services like Flickr, Facebook, and the
like.
The “RAW” tab is effectively identical to the “Photos” tab but is
concerned with how RAW camera files are transferred and stored. If you
work with RAW it’s really nice that you can decide how to deal with your
JPEG images separately from your RAW images. If, for example, you were
shooting an event where you wanted both the RAW images to work with at a
later date but you wanted to immediately upload the photos you were
taking to the event’s Facebook page or the like you could do so using
this dual workflow setup (send the RAW to your computer, send the JPEGs
to the social media platform).
“Videos,” if your camera can record video, allows for the same kind
of configuration outlined above but for videos instead of images.
Eye-Fi View is a service that’s easy to overlook as many people
assume it’s premium only and, as they don’t want to pay for a premium
service, they don’t use it. Eye-Fi View actually has two tiers, however,
the free (which allows you to store your photos for seven days in the
cloud for easy sharing and temporary backup if your card is lost while
traveling or the like) and the premium (which give you unlimited storage
for $49.99 a year).
The “Notifications” tab allows you to toggle email, SMS, Facebook,
and Twitter notification alerts that tell you when your Eye-Fi card has
shared media on your social network accounts.
Geotagging is an option the privacy conscious will surely want to
toggle off; every Eye-Fi photo is, by default, tagged with the location
the photo is taken. There’s only one option under the “Geotagging” tab:
it’s either on or off.
The final configuration tab, “Transfer Mode” two really useful
features. Under the “Selective Transfer” tab you can toggle between
different transfer modes. By default the Eye-Fi will transfer and/or
upload
every photo you take. If you’re firing off a bunch of
photos to get the perfect shot this creates a lot of waste power use and
transfer. You can switch from automatic uploading to selective
uploading using the “protect” function on your camera. Any photo you
protect will be flagged and uploaded. Everything else will remain on the
camera for manual transfer or deletion at a later date.
Under the “Endless Memory” tab you’ll find a rather novel (but
useful) feature. When “Endless Memory” is active the Eye-Fi will slowly
delete old files (that have been safely transferred to your computer or
online service). In this fashion you can essentially shoot forever on a
single SD card as it will perpetually make new room for new files.
With a little upfront investment and few minutes spent configuring
your settings you can easily convert your stand-alone digital camera
into a networked camera capable of wireless file transfer and sharing.
Have experience with Wi-Fi SD cards and want to share it with your
fellow readers? Follow the link below to our discussion forums and share
your knowledge.
