As you probably figured out, I'm always looking for new cool gadgets to play with. Anyway, a little while back, aphotographer friend of mine called to tell me about this new wireless SD card he heard about.
First, the back story. My friend and I do event photography, where he shoots the pictures, and I print them out on site, using professional photo printers. we always had to be connected (between the camera and the computer) with a USB cable, or we had to keep swapping memory cards, both of which are a pain it the neck. We had been looking at a wireless adaptor made by our camera manufacturer, but it costs around $1600.00! Way to much for us to want to spend to transfer images.
So, back to the present.
My friend told me about this "Eye-Fi" card, that is basically a 2gb Secure Digital memory card and WI-Fi adaptor combined. It looked like a cool idea, but i knew it couldn't be more than a toy that wouldn't work very well. There was no way that this could replace a $1600.00 professional camera interface. Boy, was I ever wrong!
We bought the card, set it up, and started to try to prove it wasn't going to work. To our surprise, it did everything that it claimed, and did it every time! This has got to be the greatest SD card ever!
The card has good range, (around 120 feet), but the cool thing is the pictures that you shoot when out of range start transferring as soon as you get back into range. and transfer times are fairly quick, about 6 seconds per image, even with large hi res images.
Nothing is perfect, but this card comes close. The only thing I would change is the fact that you need an internet connection for the initial setup. This is so that you can log into your account to make changes for uploading to photo sites such as Photobucket, etc. Once the card is set up, you no longer need to go online. Maybe the manufacturer can change the setup to allow you to change card settings that don't involve online services?
All in all, a great gadget, and one that I highly recommend to anyone that wants to transfer images without cables or card swaps!
Until next time,
Captain Video
