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Eye-Fi cards....are they any good?

 

Sev

By Sev, 1362227370

I'm considering purchasing an Eye-Fi card to link my Canon (sorry Nikon lovers!) to my iPad. I've read a real bunch of mixed reviews about how good/ bad, stable/ unstable they are, and can't seem to get a definitive opinion as to whether they work ok. There's also varying opinions as to which make to go for. So I thought I'd ask the experts (that will be you guys!), are they any good, and which make would you recommend?

Thanks

Kaouthia said, 1362227607

Mine works for what I need it for.

Sandisk.  MyMemory.co.uk have the 8GB one for £28.

JaysBoudoir said, 1362227731

I bought one last month and am not that keen to be honest. It's very slow compared to a USB cable.

 

Simone Orsini said, 1362227866

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

The reception or transmission of radio waves, a form of electromagnetic radiation, to or from an antenna within a Faraday cage are heavily attenuated or blocked by a Faraday cage.

So they work in plastic bodies and not so good in pro bodies...

Edited by SimonFairclough

JaysBoudoir said, 1362228105

might explain why it was pants in my 5D;)

Kaouthia said, 1362228242

Were you trying to transfer massive full quality JPG files or RAW files Jay?

JaysBoudoir said, 1362228596

From memory I think I was sending lower res jpg's. 

Also to be fair I do prefer sending RAW to my mac as it then acts as an additional copy of the images should the SD fail. 

i bought the X2 eyefi which is supposed to be the fastest, but I'm not convinced.

Lord James said, 1362228838

I bought a Sandisk 4GB one recently for my Nikon D200.  I have a 3rd generation Extreme CF Adaptor that accepts up to SDXC Class 10 cards and it seems to work although I haven't had the chance to use it in earnest.  The firmware loaded on to the card from my desktop without any problems and then my desktop PC found the camera on the network via the WiFi router.   The transfer of images is slow, especially when you are shooting in RAW mode.   I have had problems trying to get it to link to my tablet, partly because the tablet (Android) also links to the network via WiFi and it seems to conflict with the two wireless links.  I shall have to try it again when I have the tablet out of range of the home network but I haven't had time to experiment.

Kaouthia said, 1362229236

JaysBoudoir said

From memory I think I was sending lower res jpg's. 

Shouldn't be that slow.  I usually send medium fine JPGs to the iPad.  I find the first one can take a little while, but once the connection's made, the rest go quite quick.  I go direct mode if there's no router available, but I've configured it to work with two routers.  One here at home, and one that I take out with me on jobs if power's available.  If neither router is available, it automatically goes into direct mode.  If one of the two networks is available, and both devices are logged onto it, they get transferred over that.

In direct mode, once the iPad gets onto my home network, it automatically transfers the JPGs to my main PC (I don't really do anything with the JPGs at this point, but they're quicker to just browse through than the RAW files).

I've got dual card slots in the D300s, so I just shoot RAW to the CF and JPG to the Eye-Fi in the SD slot.  I mostly just use the JPG to double check focus and overall composition.

I've used them in my Canon Powershots running CHDK firmware for timelapse too.  Works well, and handy being able to start previewing how your timelapse is gonna look while it's still shooting.

Edited by Kaouthia

Zaki said, 1362229166

I use one for sending low res jpegs to an iPad for preview in direct wireless mode, this works ok in a Olympus E-5 (which has a SD slot and a plastic cover). RAW files get written to card itself and are not transmitted. This works pretty quickly.

The biggest annoyance is when the card loses contact with the iPad I often get card errors and have to cycle the power on the camera. This I think is a known "feature", must get around to checking if there are any firmware updates!

Kaouthia said, 1362229437

Zaki said

The biggest annoyance is when the card loses contact with the iPad I often get card errors and have to cycle the power on the camera. This I think is a known "feature", must get around to checking if there are any firmware updates!

There's setting in the Eye-Fi software on the PC, to determine when the card times out.  By default it's set to 2 minutes, which goes by very quickly if you take a break in shooting to have a bit of a chat with your subject.  I've set mine to just stay on for 5 minutes after the last shot is taken, but you can configure it to stay on for as long as the camera's powered up.

Graham Stone said, 1362229557

Yes lots of different views i have been thinking about one to and cant deside which one would work best, Any body used one of these ? Toshiba Wireless SDHC 8GB Flash Air http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-Wireless-SDHC-8GB-Flash/dp/B008BKUQAA

Alan Fretten - i4apicture said, 1362230033

Mine works perfectly in both my Canon 1D cameras so the the poster who said they don't work well in Pro bodies is incorrect. I use mine for sending low res jpegs to my ASUS tablet for fast review during a shoot. RAW files stored on the CF cards.

Alan

Graham Stone said, 1362230166

Alan what make do you use in your 1D's??

 

Zaki said, 1362230264

Kaouthia said

Zaki said

The biggest annoyance is when the card loses contact with the iPad I often get card errors and have to cycle the power on the camera. This I think is a known "feature", must get around to checking if there are any firmware updates!

There's setting in the Eye-Fi software on the PC, to determine when the card times out.  By default it's set to 2 minutes, which goes by very quickly if you take a break in shooting to have a bit of a chat with your subject.  I've set mine to just stay on for 5 minutes after the last shot is taken, but you can configure it to stay on for as long as the camera's powered up.


Ah, thanks - didn't know that, I'll look into it.

Sev said, 1362230363

Is there any preference on make? I usually use Sandisk Extreme cards, and see Sandisk do an Eye-fi card. I vaguely recall Sandisk partnering up with Eye-Fi, so are they the same product now?