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Now this is cool – Eye-Fi wireless memory card ends cables to your digital camera
How many times has this happened to you? You get to a wedding or little league game only to find that your digital camera memory card is full. You then spend the next 10 minutes making choices on which photos to delete. Or this: You sync your SD memory card at home and forget the card in the reader. The next time you take your camera out you realize how worthless a digital camera is without any memory.
The Eye-Fi SD Card is definitely something dads need. 1000 to one, you’re the chief IT support in your house. And, if you have multiple laptops and desktops, mom probably expects you to download pix onto her computer before you empty the memory card. Along with all the other hassles of daily life, it’s never fun being the manager of the SD memory card.
This cool little gadget, $99.99 at Amazon, ends at least one of the minor annoyances of life. The Wi-Fi feature AUTOMATICALLY uploads the pictures in your digital camera to your Mac or PC, or GET THIS, to a photo sharing, blogging, or social networking site. And $99.99 covers a 2GB card – seems like I paid that much for a non-WIFI 512MB card just last year!
Post-post-post script: We loved the idea of the Eye-Fi. Experience though has pointed out multiple issues that make this a dog, until future upgrades. Some of these are Mac-related, but not all:
1. uploading is not as simple as just waving the camera in front of the computer, or multiple computers. The eye-fi works on only one machine at a time. It can't find my computer off my wireless network, so I have to turn on airport to find the Eye-Fi. The time it takes each makes me wonder why I bother.
2. The card is slow. This means that shooting video with my point and shoot Panasonic Lumix is impossible. The movies almost always just stop after a few seconds. And, of course, the Eye-Fi does not transfer movies to the computer. You have to do that in a second physical step anyway
3. Transferring photos to iPhoto creates a folder for each new photo, mucking up my photo storage. There must be a workaround for this, but life is too short to bother finding a solution
4. Eye-Fi on-line Q&A is horrible, though telehphone support was excellent.
For these reasons, I'm ripping it out of my point and shoot camera and going back to a wired solution. Sometimes newer isn't better.
Post-post script:
After the laudatory post-script above, even as I watched all my photos flowing effortlessly into my iPhoto, I realized that it was not importing the QuickTime movies my digital camera takes. ALERT ALERT ALERT! Don't buy this product if you take movies with your digital camera that you actually want to save. You'll have to plug the camera in later to move these onto your computer, kind of negating the product's benefits in the first place. I guess I just paid $99 for a traditional SD card (vs. about $19.99 for one without wireless capabilities).
Occassionally, I actually take my own advice and buy things I find and recommend...
This product was so compelling, and I felt, such a timesaver, that got one for our family camera.
First, the packaging is really cool, and the application interface is very easy to use. It does take a few steps, but if you're already the techie photo guy in the family, y you probably won't be too uneasy with the directions.
However, there is one big warning: the SD chips being sent today require a firmware update, a simple updating of the software that occurs with just a click of the mouse. HOWEVER, and this is big, the update disables the wi-fi settings in the chip you just enabled, making it unusable until you remove AND re-add your home network (just minutes after having added it). This is a problem you will encounter each time there is a firmware update (not uncommon with new technology that is meant to be upgradeable). There is nothing on the website to help you understand that this might be an issue.
Luckily, Eye-Fi's telephone tech support is very good (waiting time: 5 seconds) and walked me through the simplest of "user errors" until we figured out the issue. Hooray for great customer service.
Ten minutes ago I was prepared to write a post-script on the product saying it's a piece of junk, but now my opinion is "pretty cool, and definitely a time-saver."
2 other points I discovered though:
1. One card per computer so 2G better be enough for you. This may not be great solution if you're a pro photographer.
2. Only one computer per card so you can't upload to your 'puter and then go to the family computer and hope to see photos magically appear. A second computer can "see" the SD card, but only after you change settings and enable it, at which time you might as well have stuck it into a reader.