Eye-Fi wireless SD - product review

Its a wireless device! Its an SD card! Its my new 2GB Eye-Fi SD card!

MrM found this cool new toy for our photographic tinkerings. It is an SD card with built-in Wi-Fi access. You configure the manager on your desktop with the SSID (and password, if applicable) of your home wireless network, and it will automatically upload pictures you are taking at home on to your computer. Here is the opening configuration screen that explains in 4 easy pictures what happens.

The device is great for the times you have a shooting spree at home and want to see the pictures without having to stop shooting. No messy USB cables or card readers. As long as your camera is on (and not in standby) and your wireless hasn't crashed, it will keep uploading seamlessly.

What are the cons, you ask? It won't do RAW. No matter how much you beg or plead, it only does JPGs. Secondly, remember that this is not Bluetooth. It is operating off your wireless network. So if you are out in the booneys (sp?) taking awesome pictures, nothing will transfer to the cool laptop you carried along with you. But if you are doing this, chances are you shot in RAW and EyeFi wouldn't help you anyway. You do need good old USB then.

The screenshot below shows how it displays the last "film roll" it uploaded on your machine. The interface does not have a picture browser and will show you thumbnails of the last 5 pictures it uploaded.


What it does do:
Keep transferring pictures even as you are shooting.
Create dated sub folders in a directory of your choice, where it will upload pictures based on the date shot. For example, mine go to Pictures -> EyeFi -> [subfolder]

What it needs:
Wireless up & running
Camera not going into standby - I had to edit my power settings and am good about turning my camera off when shooting outside our house.

What it won't do:
RAW images

In summary: We've been using the card a LOT to take pictures around the house. We've switched default shooting mode to JPG and I only switch to RAW when I'm doing a shoot I care about being able to post process. It has removed the hassle of USB transfers. But when we do hook up USB (like when I shoot RAW), you need to decide whether to selectively upload only the ones that EyeFi didn't transfer, or copy everything (heavy duplication). We choose to copy because memory is cheap and it is a lot easier to delete files from a folder than to select which pictures to upload. This does create the complexity of two parallel directory structures. The Eye-Fi card is a handy little tool for those of us you who never end up transferring with any noticeable frequency and often discover pictures from trips taken in 2006. For the rest, it is a fun and easy way to not mess with cables and just enjoy taking pictures and being able to look at them right away.