After posting about the ShutterSnitch/Eye-Fi combo on Monday, which lets you beams photographs direct from your camera to an iPhone or iPad, I was sold, and I bought both. After using them for a couple days, it turns out that the Eye-Fi, in its Pro form at least, pretty much sucks.
I went for the Pro as it is the only one that works with RAW files. It is latest Class 6 (X2 in Eye-Fi terms) fast-transfer version, with 8GB memory, Wi-Fi and geo-tagging. It’s the best card Eye-Fi makes, and cost me €131, or a ridiculous $171. On top of this I bought the ShutterSnitch App for $8. I was now in for almost 180 bucks. What did I get for it? Not much.
Geo-Tagging
While the Eye-Fi Pro will geo-tag JPG images, it won’t tag RAW. This is because RAW files, although they use standard EXIF metadata (the information about the photo such as shutter speed and ISO), they put it in non-standard places. That’s fine. You can just shoot RAW+JPG in-camera and then use the desktop software to copy it across on import, right? No. There is no way to do this without resorting to third-party apps.
And if you use this (or any other) Eye-Fi card for geo-tagging, be prepared for slow imports. The way the Eye-Fi works is to gather data about the surrounding Wi-Fi networks as you shoot. Back at the computer, when you import, this data is sent up to the Eye-Fi servers and converted to location data. It’s how the iPod Touch works out your position in the Maps app, only done on Eye-Fi’s servers.
The problem is that to get this to work, you need to let your photos import over Wi-Fi. Even though the cards come with their own (pretty good) SD-card reader, you have to import over the network to get the geo-data, even if the card is in the card-reader. This, if you are shooting RAW and have more than a few photos, takes forever. Worse, if all your machines aren’t on a fast 802.11n network, you’re looking at hours to pull in the photos from a full card.
Compare this to the cheaper alternative, a GPS tracker. For around $50, you can hang a keychain-sized dongle on your bag, get real (and more accurate) GPS data and then combine with the photos later, in seconds.
Could I just import the photos with a regular card reader and drag them all into the Eye-Fi Center software? Nope. Done this way, it mysteriously stops recognizing the RAW format of the files.
Tethered Shooting
Done straight to the computer, transfers are rock solid, and fast if you have a fast network. Using ShutterSnitch, though, things are less reliable, and that’s being generous. I managed to get direct transfers working just twice over the past days, and even then not all the photos would make it to the iPad. And yes, I followed the instructions, and read the forum threads and did what I was supposed to do. But really, this should just work, and it doesn’t, making it useless as anything more than a novelty.
Direct Uploading
The other functions, like direct uploading to the web, work great. But as I would never send a photo to Flickr without at least some tweaking, it’s moot for me at least. It’s also speed-limited by your internet connection, which means that large files will take a while to upload and therefore drain the battery. Which brings me to…
Battery Life
In short, using the Eye-Fi for wireless transfer drains the battery fast. Geo-tagging doesn’t appear to cause a problem, but the strain of beaming images across the network sucks at the battery life. If you thought the days of removing the card from your camera to transfer photos were over, you’re dead wrong. It’s a good thing the card comes with its own reader.
More
There are more niggles. The Eye-Fi Center software, used for configuring the card, is clunky and annoying. For example, it pops up a dialog box every time you save a setting (and you have to save before you can move to a different tab). This needs to be clicked to dismiss it, every single time, and that gets old, fast.
The application also runs on Adobe Air and inexcusably installs the runtime on your computer without asking. The first thing you’ll know about it is when Air starts contacting Adobe’s servers and trying to update itself.
The conclusion seems to be that if you don’t shoot many images, or if you take crappy, low-res snapshots and send them straight up to Facebook, then one of the cheaper Eye-Fi cards might be for you. On the other hand, you can do all that with the cellphone you already have. If you’re a pro, or an enthusiastic amateur like me, the frustrations and limitations are so numerous you should probably look elsewhere. For wireless transfer, suck it up and use a USB cable. For geo-tagging, buy a cheap GPS-logger. Right now, the “Pro” version of the Eye-Fi line is half-baked at best.
Eye-Fi Pro [Eye-Fi]
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