• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

WiFi or Bluetooth for Canon

Trevor Connell

New member
Has anyone had any experience with the wireless download attachment for Canon digitals?
And wouldn't it be nice to have it built into the 40D or 6D...
 

John Stitt

New member
I am really interested in the replies to this one too. I had a discussion just today about using Blue Tooth to connect between camera and computer for remote shooting. I already have the Bluetooth on the computer. All it would take is a receiver that I could plug the USB cord from the camera into. This would be better than Canon's wireless remote with more range and not IR line of site and without interference.

Anybody found a wireless receiver that would give the bluetooth end of the 5D?
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Personally, bluetooth would not be my primary choice if I could have Wi-Fi after all. BT is limited to some 10 meters, mostly it malfunctions beyond 5 meters. Wi-Fi OTOH can cover distances up to 20-100 meters and is much faster. It also works using the standard TCP/IP protocols, which makes it a bit less proprietary compared to BT. Just my $ 0.02.

Regards,
 
Personally, bluetooth would not be my primary choice if I could have Wi-Fi after all. BT is limited to some 10 meters, mostly it malfunctions beyond 5 meters. Wi-Fi OTOH can cover distances up to 20-100 meters and is much faster. It also works using the standard TCP/IP protocols, which makes it a bit less proprietary compared to BT. Just my $ 0.02.

I agree with Cem. Bluetooth is mainly intended for short distance wireless connectivity, think about a couple of metres max., by design. For much better range and reliability, WiFi is currently the way to go. There are also more mature alternative solutions based on WiFi. In fact I am typing this on a laptop with WiFi connection via the home power supply grid to my Router, and the connection rate exceeds the 56 Mbps WiFi bandwidth because I can use a strategically placed transmitter in a wall socket away from the computer and closer to me.

Bart
 
BT vs. WiFi is academic until there is something actually available. As far as I can tell, the only AVAILABLE wireless solution is Canon's $1,000 WiFi transmitter WFT-E1a.

Does anyone know of a more economically priced wireless solution that is not vapor ware?
 

Trevor Connell

New member
the expense of the Canon option

After spending a few grand on a Canon camera it is a bit rich to then have to spend well over $1000 for a the WiFi attachment - especially when you consider that Nikon have a consumer point n shoot with WiFi built in.
Now if Canon could just build it in to the 40D or 6D.......
 

Steve Saunders

New member
After spending a few grand on a Canon camera it is a bit rich to then have to spend well over $1000 for a the WiFi attachment - especially when you consider that Nikon have a consumer point n shoot with WiFi built in.
Yes, but at least Canon supply the MkIII (maybe other DSLR's as well) with an AC adapter. Nikon never did this, and the Canon charger takes two batteries at the same time. After 20 years using Nikons, all of a sudden I feel spoilt!
 
Just thought I'd post a heads up that the WFT-E3a for the Canon 40D and 50D is starting to show up at fairly reasonable prices on the used market lately. keh.com had a couple of them for $450, and I just picked one up on eBay for about $350. If you find an older one and have a 50D, it just needs a firmware upgrade that is available for download on the Canon website. There isn't much to wear out on these things, so there isn't much downside to buying a used one and taking advantage of the depreciation.

Setting up the network to get the camera to talk to the computer was about a day long headache, but now that it's working, it seems like a very handy thing. I use the 40D mainly for copy work, so it's convenient to be able to see the image in real time on my screen and to fire the shutter from the laptop without need for a remote release to keep my hands out of the way of the lighting, and the images are stored directly on my hard drive.

It's also possible to do this via USB cable without the WFT-E3a, and USB is faster than wireless, but it is nice to have one less cable to get tangled or trip over, and to be able to change the setup or do a quick shot somewhere else in the apartment and have all the incoming images going to the same place.

It can also do other tricks like dumping images to a USB hard drive or flash drive, connecting to a wired network, and connecting to a GPS device and adding GPS data to EXIF, plus it's a vertical grip. I know some people are using these things with their iPhones as well.

I tell you, though, I'm such a habituated film shooter that when I opened the battery compartment on the WFT-E3a, by reflex I had a moment of panic, because I couldn't remember rewinding the film.
 
So now that I have this thing set up, it's really a convenience. I was shooting mainly snapshots today--family and friends kinds of things--and I edited in camera down to 40 shots. At home, I just turn on the camera, it connects automatically to the laptop, one click, and it's downloading all my files to the hard drive while I do other things.

I also figured out how to connect using http. This mode doesn't offer as much control as a PTP connection--just viewing and downloading files from the camera's CF card and triggering the shutter from the browser, but it works with any web browser, so it's simple to hook up to an unfamiliar computer or something like an iPhone. A PTP connection lets you use EOS utility, just like a USB connection, so you get Live View from the computer screen and have more extensive control over the camera settings than with an HTTP connection.
 
Top