5D3 wireless photo transfer options...

[ahsanford]

Hey all,

I am a 5D3 user who (gasp) prefers SD cards to CF as I don't shoot video or high-burst sports stills. SD cards are super useful for sharing on-camera JPGs for friends and family, and my MacBook Pro has a built-in reader. So, SD is overwhelmingly a convenience for me.

But sometimes I want to share things when I am away from my laptop. So I was wondering what options I have to (a) use wifi to share files to friend's computers who may lack a card reader, or (b) use wifi, bluetooth, etc. to swap photos to my phone so that I can broadcast to Flickr, Facebook, etc.

So what options do I have? Must I switch to capturing large-capacity still work on CF to free up my SD slot for Eye-Fi? (I don't see a CF-based Eye-Fi offering.) Must it be Eye-Fi -- is there other tech I am overlooking?

Background that may guide your advice:

1) Once transferred, all my photos are entirely in the Apple ecosystem -- iPhoto, MacBook, iPhone, iCloud, all that. Facebook and Flickr are the odd need that I am referring to.
2) I never shoot tethered, nor do I need the 6D's apparently pretty cool app LiveView thing.
3) I am not a pro. These are family / fun / sightseeing snaps. No need for DRM / watermarking / etc.
4) I wouldn't want or need to swap everything I am shooting, of course. This would be the 1-3 keepers from a day out.

But if it does turn out to be Eye-Fi, can I use CF as the large storage option and then selectively pipe the few photos I want to share to a very small capacity Eye-Fi card in the SD slot? Or must I capture the photos originally on the Eye-Fi card?

Thanks!

- A

 

[samthefish]

I might be wrong but I don't think the 5D3 firmware has a way to selectively copy photos to the SD card, if so your method would work with eye-fi. When eye-fi is powered on and within range of the wireless lan you have it configured with it will attempt to copy any .jpg that hasn't been synced yet. What I did for a while was have a low-rez copy of my photos put on the SD eye-fi and then use the CF for RAW capture. After a month or so I just went back to copying photos via CF and a USB reader - my workflow is to copy all photos and then delete the "non-keepers". Eye-fi in my case didn't fit my workflow but the tech did work. Eye fi has a tiny little OS (eCos I think) and is a pretty neat idea.

If you subscribe to a service like Smugmug you can have eye-fi upload the photos there as well.

 

[GmwDarkroom]

Page 280 of the current manual says that files can be selectively or bulk copied from one card to the other.

I was interested in this for managing CF cards on a long trip if I decide to get a 5Diii. That is, I wanted to be able to copy files from my relatively fewer high speed CF cards to the mountain of cheap SD cards I have lying around. I can buy a TON of 32gb SD cards instead of a dedicated photo backup device or lugging around a laptop.

While the SD card slot in the 5Diii has been hobbled for speed (not sure if it could have hit CF speeds), it does make a convenient backup option while on the road.

 

[Swphoto]

I'm looking for something similar, but I don't even use the SD slot in the 5D3. I considered Eye-Fi, but I think I've settled on the CamRanger at this point, given that the remote control/live view functionality will come in handy from time to time. I believe it satisfies all of your requirements, but at a much higher cost than the Eye-Fi options. I realize you're not interested in a lot of the functionality it provides, but just wanted to throw it out there since you mentioned "other tech".

 

[MARKOE PHOTOE]

I've got a 5D3 also and shoot with wi-fi cards on occasion so a client or 'other' can view the images on an IOS device within seconds after they are shot. It works well but has limitations. I shoot small JPG's to the wifi SD card that load up to an Ipad for the client and shoot RAW to the CF card for post processing later.

Another great option is the CamRanger that was mentioned above. I picked up one a few weeks ago and it works great for remote shooting from an IOS device. The best feature is the Live View shooting where you can make all adjustments on the screen before taking the shot. You can shoot HDR and focus-stacking with the free app.

Best of luck!