Eye-Fi card

[dc197]

Hi all
Has anyone used these cards yet? If so perhaps you could answer these two questions, which have not been answered for me when I looked at the maker's and vendors' websites.
1. Can you tell it to send the images directly from the camera to the computer, via your local wireless router, without having to first send them over the internet to some external server? Seems a bit crap if you take a burst of half a dozen 25-meg photos and then have to wait for them to go all the way out over your (potentially rubbish) internet connection only to come all the way back.
2. The cards also quote a capacity as part of their specs, like an ordinary SD card. Is this simply local storage for when no wifi is possible?
Thanks
Daniel

[inkista]

1. Can you tell it to send the images directly from the camera to the computer, via your local wireless router, without having to first send them over the internet to some external server?

Yes.

2. The cards also quote a capacity as part of their specs, like an ordinary SD card. Is this simply local storage for when no wifi is possible?

It's storage, period. The image is stored on the card before it's sent. You can tell the software to automatically delete images from the card when a certain capacity is reached to make more room. You can also select specific images be sent, using the camera's "protect" capability, if it has one.

[RockNGoalStar]

I have one of these, got it for Christmas. It's pretty good, although the transfer, especially of RAW files, is quite slow

[Manfred M]

You need the Pro X2 card if you want to connect directly to your home or other WiFi network (and technically directly to a tablet or computer, although I haven't tried that lately) without connecting to the internet (this is the version I have; the 8GB version). Yes it does work, but is very painfully slow, especially with large files.

The other major downside is that depending on the camera (it is certainly true for my D800), the data transmission continues even when you turn the camera off, and your battery life does take a hit.

The way it works is that your card is the memory buffer for the images and you can set it up to work in a number of different ways.

[RustBeltRaw]

I've been thinking about trying one of these for a while. I like the idea of instantly creating a redundant backup. Dual memory card slots would be ideal, but that's not in the cards at the moment. Is it possible to link an Eye-Fi card to a mobile phone and back up to its SD card?

[Manfred M]

Not in the way you think. If you can set the phone up as an access point, then it might be possible with one of the Pro X2 cards (not the others), but that will be dependent on the software running on the phone. The internet function on the Eye-Fi does that and offloads your shots to the "cloud", but depending on what / how you are shooting, it comes with the "baggage".

The cards are a lot less capable than I had hoped for.

[dc197]

Thank you, all.