Camera Labs

After reading the excellent review of the Canon PowerShot S110 http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon_PowerShot_S110/, specifically about its less than ideal Wi-Fi feature, it spurred me to consider the Eye-Fi card alternative.

The specific issue here is that the limitations Canon put on their S110 camera where it comes to online sharing. They limit social websites to just Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and then only a thumbnail link to the full-sized image on Canon's imageGateway website; which is difficult to setup and has a poor up-time record. If it wasn't for Ken McMahon's in-depth review, photographers would wrongly assume that the Canon S110's stand-out feature, built-in Wi-Fi, was the reason to purchase the camera.

After visiting Eye-Fi's website http://www.eye.fi/features and examining the features of their new Eye-Fi Pro X2 16GB class 10 Wi-Fi SD card, it seams like a no-brainer to purchase this card and use it with any Eye-Fi compatible camera instead of buying the S110. It's my understanding that these cameras have a stronger signal due to an internal antenna.

From what I understand, Eye-Fi will upload the full photo image to any of 25 online sharing sites http://www.eye.fi/styles/corp/features/online_sharing_sites.jpg including Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Shutterfly, SnapFish, and YouTube. One glaring omission is Twitter. Personally, I prefer any of those other websites (Flickr in particular) to Facebook since there's no limitation to public access as there is with Facebook (you have to be a logged-in member to view photos).

McMahon says that several Wi-Fi enabled cameras suffer from the same limitation as the S110. So, given that there's always been the Eye-Fi alternative, why would camera manufactures offer a more limited wireless feature on their camera? Do they think photographers are stupid?

Most importantly, since I don't own an Eye-Fi card, what is your experience with these cards? Any model will do, since they've dropped the price on earlier models $20. How do you use this card? Do you depend on immediately uploading to online sharing websites? Have you ever been saved by this feature after experiencing a destroyed or stolen camera? Your opinions and experience are valuable.

Sincerely,

_________________
-=- PalaDolphin
http://www.PalaDolphin.com
My equipment are:
Canon AE-1 Programmable w/55mm, 200mm, & 24mm lenses
Canon PowerShot G12
Canon Rebel T4i / EOS 650D
lens: EF-S 18-135mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS STM
lens: EF-S 55-250mm 1:4-5.6 IS II
lens: Quantaray Tech-10 CN AF 24mm 1:2.8 fixed
Canon Speedlite 199A flash
tripod: Targus® TG-5060TR
bag: Lowepro® SlingShot 202AW

Why would you accuse manufacturers of thinking their customers are stupid? Things such as licensing and development costs can deter a manufacturer from including certain feature sets but that doesn't conclusively say they think so little of photographers.

_________________
Bodies: Canon EOS 550D w/ Magic Lantern
Lenses: Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX f/2.8, Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
Accessories: YongNuo Speedlite YN-468 Flash, Neewer Macro LED Ring Light, Meike Battery Grip, YongNuo RF-602 Wireless Flash Trigger & Receiver YongNuo WR-128 Wireless Remote Control

I agree with Rorschach, I don't think camera manufactures think photographers are stupid; I do think camera manufactures think that photographers have different budgets and different needs. i.e. for someone on a limited budget who only wants to share to Facebook or Twitter, the S110 may suit them just fine.


I also don't think an Eye-Fi card uses a camera's antenna, if that's what you meant.


Personally, I don't care for the fact that you have to sign up for an account with them, which is one of the reasons why I went with a Toshiba FlashAir instead. (The other reason being that there was a promo with my Oly E-PL5. If there hadn't been such a promo, I would've gone with a Transcend Wi-Fi SD card.)

But that's just me - Mark

Maybe, 'stupid', is a strong word. Should I have said, 'technically ignorant'? My question is this: Would Canon rather have S110 buyers not be aware of the Eye-Fi alternative or is there some advantage here I'm not aware of?

I doubt there's a price advantage. With the S110 at $450 and the previous model S100 at $250 that leaves enough room ($200 difference) for the high-end Eye-Fi Pro X2 16GB class 10 at $100. Other options include the $40 Eye-Fi Connect X2.

As far as the Toshiba FlashAir is concerned; It doesn't appear to have a smartphone client app to immediately upload images to any shared networks. Again, the thrust is to get the photos immediately onto a public shared website before the camera is stolen, damaged, or confiscated by a controlling government.

I wasn't sure if Eye-Fi enabled cameras have an internal antenna; again other of my questions about the Eye-Fi card.

Still, I haven't heard from anyone here that has direct experience with any model of Eye-Fi card; especially in respect to uploading photos and/or video to shared networks.

Sincerely,

_________________
-=- PalaDolphin
http://www.PalaDolphin.com
My equipment are:
Canon AE-1 Programmable w/55mm, 200mm, & 24mm lenses
Canon PowerShot G12
Canon Rebel T4i / EOS 650D
lens: EF-S 18-135mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS STM
lens: EF-S 55-250mm 1:4-5.6 IS II
lens: Quantaray Tech-10 CN AF 24mm 1:2.8 fixed
Canon Speedlite 199A flash
tripod: Targus® TG-5060TR
bag: Lowepro® SlingShot 202AW

I think "technically ignorant" could be appropriate. (Although I would phrase it "less tech savvy", but same difference.) Apple's been catering to this market segment for some time, now. (No offense to Apple users, but part of the appeal of their products is the perceived "ease of use", as opposed to Linux, for example.) And I think this shows that some people are willing to pay more for a product that they perceive is simpler. So no, I don't think you're missing anything. You're just not one of the people for which this has much appeal.


I just checked Amazon and B&H, and the S110 is currently on sale for $379. Yes, that's still more than the cost of an S100 + Eye-Fi card, but don't forget that the S110 also has a touch screen (which again, some people--e.g. iPhone users--might perceive to be easier to use), whereas the S100 does not. And even if the S110 did cost more, see my previous paragraph--"some people are willing to pay more for a product that they perceive is simpler".


1) You don't necessarily need a separate/dedicated app for that. If you're tech savvy enough, you can setup monitoring on a directory that will auto-upload anything placed in it.

2) This may not be desirable since you may not want to share/archive every single image you take. e.g. this is one of the complaints that a friend of mine has with the Eye-Fi, which is why I choose another alternative after trying his and listening to his experiences/critique. Yes, it's possible to change this behavior of the Eye-Fi, but a) doing so requires you sign up for an account (which I would prefer not to), especially since b) there are other alternatives that don't do this out of the box.


That didn't appear to be the thrust of your previous post to me (or to Rorschach, apparently). Be that as it may, no, neither I nor my friend have been saved by this feature after experiencing a destroyed or stolen camera (more accurately, memory card), much less one that was confiscated by a controlling government.


Although they may, that is not a requirement of being listed as "compatible" (e.g. the Nikon D7000 does not, but is listed as Eye-Fi compatible), and to the best of my knowledge, the Eye-Fi card has no way to connect to the camera's antenna to use it, even if an antenna is present.


Yes, you have. I tried my friend's 16GB Pro X2 class 10 card, and after doing so and listening to his experiences/critique, I decided another alternative would suit me better.

YMMV - Mark

@ Maestro, thank you for that detailed response. You can tell I'm not an Apple consumer.

_________________
-=- PalaDolphin
http://www.PalaDolphin.com
My equipment are:
Canon AE-1 Programmable w/55mm, 200mm, & 24mm lenses
Canon PowerShot G12
Canon Rebel T4i / EOS 650D
lens: EF-S 18-135mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS STM
lens: EF-S 55-250mm 1:4-5.6 IS II
lens: Quantaray Tech-10 CN AF 24mm 1:2.8 fixed
Canon Speedlite 199A flash
tripod: Targus® TG-5060TR
bag: Lowepro® SlingShot 202AW

No problem. I'm not a big Apple fan, either. I only bought an iPad because I got tired of waiting for an LTE version of the Asus Transformer 700.

And as long as I'm posting, to sum up: I found the Eye-Fi card performed well enough, but since my personal "keep rate" is usually around 30-50%, and most of those can be helped by some post processing (because I do a lot of low-light concert photography), it didn't suit my particular work flow as well as some other alternatives. But for someone who wants to share/archive everything immediately, it could be fine for them.

One caveat: if you also transfer everything to smartphone or tablet (in addition to, or as a step in, uploading to the cloud), depending on the resolution of the images (much less video), the phone/tablet may fill up pretty quickly (especially since many of them no longer support additional/removable (microSD) storage).

Although, Apple did just come out with a 128GB iPad - Mark