apple ipad and photography

[Birma]

Thanks for the update Scott.

I am surprised that the Camera manufacturers are not all over this WiFi connectivity, especially Sony, Samsung and Panasonic. Untethered liveview to your phone/pad would be great as well.

[DrScottNicol]

Using an Eye Fi card in the new direct mode with a wireless tablet device (e.g. an ipad - there's software available for Android too but I don't have access to a device to test it)

OK, after a few hours testing and reading some angry comments on the support forum, I've got things up and running. If you can't wait for Eye Fi to sort out their installation process (or it takes longer than they suggest), here's a workaround to get this going today - it worked for me but your mileage may vary... For this to work you need the following;

A PC or Mac with the latest Eye Fi centre software (comes on the new X2 Mobile card or can be downloaded off their website - on older cards it need to perform an update to the latest version).

An Eye card from the X2 range (they've just changed the range / names of the cards), this includes the X2 Pro, X2 Explore (discontinued), X2 GEO (discontinued), X2 Connect and the new X2 Mobile - the Explore and GEO added software subs (for wireless hotspots and geotagging as part of the purchase price but were physically the same as the Connect and Pro cards). I'm not sure, but I don't think older cards can be updated with the new firmware but this may change.

An ipad or iphone with a paid app called Shuttersnitch.

1) Install / Update the Eye Fi Centre configuration software on the pc to the latest version released Sunday.
2) Make sure you've registered for an Eye Fi account (only available to card owners but once you have, additional cards can be added to the same account).
3) Insert your X2 card. If its New go to step 4. If you've previously registered the card on your PC, make sure all your photos are backed up first, then right click on the X2 card icon and select unregister - follow on screen instructions. Eject the card then reinsert it.
4) Register the card with you Eye Fi account in the software.
5) Click on settings go to Networks and select the 'Direct Mode' tab. At this point, a warning saying you need to download a firmware update should appear click OK to do this. It should download new firmware, install it and then ask you to eject / reinsert the card. I had lots of problems with this as they haven't implement the update properly for old cards (coming 'later this week they say') - step 3 makes the software think its a new card and it then all works. If you followed step 3 and it still gives an error, consult their support forums .
6) Once that's all sorted, go back to direct mode settings and tick the box to turn on direct mode. Move the sliders for Wait for connection and wait after transfer to 1 minute (or longer if you want).
7) Click Save.
On the same screen, click on Start Direct Mode Network and make a note of the Eye Fi SSID and password. Click Save.
9) On the Ipad, go into settings and go to wi fi. The Eye Fi card should be present in the list of networks. Select it then enter the password (CAPS Sensitive). You Ipad should now connect and remember these settings for the future.
10) Go to the Private Networks Tab in the eye fi centre. If you have previously set up your home network on the card, select remove! The eyefi card can get very confused as to what network its connecting to when your are setting up devices - this is the best way to stop that problem - you can add your network settings back if need be at a later date.
11) Eject the Eye Fi card from the software and take out the card and insert it into your camera (in my case a NEX3). Don't turn it on yet.
12) Connect your ipad to your internet wifi and launch the Shuttersnitch app. In the options, select Set Up EyeFi access and enter your account details. Your Registered card should appear on a 'receive from screen'. Slide this card to 'On' and click done.
13) Click the plus sign to create a new Collection in shutter snitch - an Ip address should come up with 'Eye Fi Supported' next to it.
14)Switch on your camera - on the nex display, a little WiFi signal icon should appear next to the number of photos available on the lcd. Go into the menu and on the setup tab, if you scroll down you should see Eye Fi Setup and make sure Upload settings is On (this works for newer Sony cameras, certainly Nex and a33 / a55 - check their website for a list of tested cameras, not all of which will directly recongnise the Eye Fi card but shoul still work as by default this will be on). Unless you've bought the top of the range X2 Pro, the connection will only support JPG transfer so make sure the camera is in JPG mode (or RAW+JPG).
15) Take a test picture picture. A little upload arrow should appear next to the eyefi icon on your lcd - you now have about a minute (see above to go into you ipad Wifi settings - turn off the wifi, then turn it back on - if all has gone well, the Eye Fi card will appear in your network list - select it and the ipad should connect directly to the card with out your home network sitting in the middle.
16) Go back into shuttersnitch and open the collection again. If necessary, take another picture to keep the connection alive. The first time you do this the connection may take a little time (upto about 2 mins as the two devices 'speak to each other'. If you have trouble at this stage, its often because the eye fi card is connected to your home network / PC - turning off the PC can help!
17) A message saying 'receiving JPEG DSCxxxxx should appear with a little timer on the righthand side... and after 10-30 seconds, the image will magically appear.
18) At this point the two should talk to each other until the card goes into sleep mode. If you are at home, this means the ipad will then connect to your home network as the strongest recognised wifi signal. To stop this happening, increase the Wait times in step 6, but at the expense of battery life. Alternatively, wake up the card with a test shot and repeat step 16 - shuttersnitch should connect back to the camera almost instantly after the initial set up hassle.

Phew... if there's one thing holding back the Eye Fi / ipad union, its the initial set up hassle. Once you've done that, the two work together rather well and (for me) the magic of seeing your photos appear on the larger screen for review never wears off. Eye Fi claim to be working on this and listening to customers feedback so hopefully this will get better (certainly the issues over the firmware update are within their control to fix). Also, they claim the new free ipad app will be out soon and should work seamlessly with the X2 cards (shuttersnitch is an unofficial but friendly sort of supported by eye fi 3rd party app -they helped the author smooth things out a bit in any event).

Scott

[David Kilpatrick]

Scott, as one of the few here with an X2 Pro EyeFi card I can only thank you for this exhaustive descrition of the process. I will try it and see whether I end up updating. Problem for me is the card has not been used for months, I never could live with the speed of transfer for my raw files!

David

[DrScottNicol]

They are getting a bit of flack on their support forum over the set up process so hopefully they will respond and smooth things out - releasing the firware update for exisiting registered cards at the same time as for the new (physically identical) x2 cards at the same time would certainly help, meaning you could then skip several of my workaround steps.

The iphone and ipad (free) eye fi app is now up on itunes - it looks fairly basic but straightforward and tidy - I'll give them a try when I get home from work to see how they work but at first glance, they may be easier to set up than shuttersnitch. One advantage is that they allow you to cut and past the wifi password into the settings menu on the iphone / ipad, one less opportunity to mess up via using lowercase rather than upper case letters when you type it in. Oh, and whilst I'm using ios devices, the above instructions for ad hoc direct connections should hold generally true for the android and modern laptops (certainly windows vista and windows 7 support adhoc connections via wifi, and XP probably does too with the latest service packs - I'll see if I can get this up and running on my old xp laptop in the cupboard).

RE Raw files David, I was all set to buy the PRO card for the raw transfer functionality (a bit of a con really given the card is physically identical to the cheaper non raw transfer cards) but two separate stores in 2 different locations sold me a dummy display box rather than the actual card - on each occasion it turned out they didn't have the PRO in stock and had never realised it / labelled the box as display only (the clear display box has a rather convincing cardboard mock up of an sd card rather than the real thing . On the 3rd attempt, I went with the cheaper GEO as they had that in stock and insisted they open it for me before I left the store . For me raw was only a nice to have - i see this as a mobile composition review tool, rather than a quick transfer then edit on site tool and for that, the smaller jpeg transfers are quicker and easier - its the only reason I shoot RAW Jpeg rather than just RAW.. but yes, based on my jpeg transfer time of 10 secs, you are probably looking at 30 secs per shot with (NEX sized) Raw files.

Scott.