Tech Blog

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I recently was given the chance to work with a very cool device, one that I'd never imagined anyone would ever make, yet one that I've come to appreciate.

It's the Eye-Fi Share 2GB wireless photography memory card and it's a gizmo, for sure, but what a neat gizmo, one of a few in the Eye-Fi family of Wi-Fi enabled cards.

What it is

All the Eye-Fi cards are basically SD photo cards, with a little custom internet application and some Wi-Fi hardware built into it. You also receive a USB / SD card reader used to configure the on-card settings.

What it does
Basically, Eye-Fi cards let you move photos (and video in some cases) from your camera to your computer (or online photo/video sharing sites), without having to hook the camera or memory card up to the computer.

The Eye-Fi Share works just like your regular photo memory card does; you can format it, delete photos, even record video to it - though to upload and manage video, you'll need the Eye-Fi Share Video card.

Once you've taken your photos, leave your camera on for a few minutes if you're within Wi-Fi range of your pre-configured network or a partner hotspot (US). When your camera is inactive, the Eye-Fi card will wirelessly uploads your photos to a drive on your computer and/or upload your photos to online photo services, such as Flickr.

If your computer is off, and you're within range of your configured Wi-Fi network, your images will be uploaded to Eye-Fi servers until you turn your computer on -- then they'll be downloaded to your computer automatically.

A pretty slick setup
Though a neat gadget, I wasn't quite sure how I'd use this with my photography work. My usual photography workflow is this:

1) take photos
2) hook camera up to computer and import photos into Adobe Lightroom 2
3) edit, delete, tweak photos
4) upload 'good' photos to flickr to share

With the Eye-Fi card, it looks like this:

1) take photos
2) delete bad photos on flickr
3) change privacy setting on 'good' photos to public

As you can see, there is no Edit step, though if I used something like Photoshop.com the online editing features would obviously work. But I feel if I'm going to spend time editing, then I'll use a more powerful tool on my desktop.

Here's some photos I'd taken with my Panasonic FZ-30 and my wife's Canon Powershot SD-300. As you can see if you visit the flickr pages, the Eye-Fi can do automatic tagging and insert descriptions. Other units not yet available in Canada allow Geo-tagging and hotspot access.

Why use Eye-Fi
It's really great for fire and forget photo sharing. Not everyone is willing to spend a huge amount of time tweaking images before they share them, and not every image should be tweaked.

For example, after getting back from a festive evening, just turn your camera on and the evening's photos will be uploaded to your Facebook gallery. Private or shared, depending on the setting you select in the configuration.

You didn't have to:

• turn on your computer,
• connect the camera or plug in the card,
• transfer the photos to your hard drive,
• log into the sharing service,
• upload the photos manually.

You likely went to bed and the Eye-Fi did the work for you.

Developer, Stop bath, Fixer
So this little card is cool, but obviously not for every occasion. I *would* recommend it to photographers who aren't really interested in the image processing side of photography. It's a very slick little unit that eases the process of getting the photos off your camera and online or on to your hard drive.

In summary:
Pros

• I don't have to power up my desktop and launch Lightroom2 to get my snapshots up to my flickr account
• It works wirelessly
• No additional weight, batteries, antennas or wires to worry about...just plug it into the camera
• It has a web based interface  and configuration that's very easy to use

Cons

• Kinda slow uploading large files
• Base level units don't transfer RAW photos or videos
• It's slightly slower than Ultra SD cards -- the effect can be noticable in burst mode
• Not all functionality is available in Canada currently (Public hotspots, Geo-locating)

And if you're of the more technical mind, here's a great in-depth feature on the technology.