Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Eye Fi with my little eye

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I've lamented before that the only real drawback of the Lumix camera is that it won't get full use out of Dragon because you can't upload the large images to the hard drive while also having the live feed attached. I think Mysterious Ron may have solved the problem. He emailed me tonight about this amazing new device called the Eye-Fi wireless SD card. You just stick it in the SD card slot and it automatically uploads your pictures to a folder on your hard drive ~ WIRELESSLY!!! How freakin' cool is THAT!!??!

Here's the website for the product...www.eye.fi.com/products/. Actually they now have 3 different cards.... the original (now called the Eye-Fi Share) uploads to both your computer and to the internet for sharing images on sites like Flickr or Picasa. That one costs $99. The Eye-Fi Home (the one we want) only uploads to your computer, and costs $79. Then there's some complicated one called the Explore that does crazy stuff like make toast and eggs. We don't need to do any Exploring while we're immersed in our studios.

It took me a while to find a store that carries the brand new versions... everyplace seems to carry only the original card. But finally Google turned up this site: Eyefi Home card at Buydig.com and I couldn't resist the temptation. Soon I'll know... though of course I guess I need to buy Dragon first!!! Come to think of it, my 10 day trial version will expire before it comes in. Though maybe I can get another trial to test it out.

Anywho, just thought I'd share. This could be revolutionary folks!!

12 comments:

Tennessee Reid said...

WOW !!

Dude thanks so much for sharing this - can't wait to see how it works!

Then I gotta sell something on ebay so I can buy one!!!!

AWESOME

Anonymous said...

I don't think the new ones are actually available until June 1, that's why they are hard to find :-)

The thing I want to find out about the Home card is if they automatically upload to the computer everytime you capture an image. If that's the case, I am further wondering how that could be put to use in software in a manner analogous to frame capturing software -- so you can get instant feedback.

Regardless, I think these little wireless SD cards rock.

Darkmatters said...

Hey iDragasani - I doubt it could be used for something like a live feed.... though some framegrabbers will monitor a folder with your large images in it and use them as a sort of after-the-fact semi-live feed, and if you don't like the way a frame turned out you can just delete it and move things around again.

Suddenly though, I'm wondering about something.... my computer has Bluetooth and Airport... is that the same thing as Wi-Fi? I assumed it was, but now I'm wondering. Would you have to buy some kind of Wi-Fi base station for this to work?

Darkmatters said...

Tennessee.... Heh, sounds like you're as excited about this as I am!!! I know it's not necessary, you can just save all the frames to an SDHC card and import them to the hard drive later..... but this is so much COOLER!!!!

Darkmatters said...

And DAMN!!! You're right... not available till June 15th!!! I thought it was the 15th of this month! *SIGH*

Man, could I screw this up any more??!!??!?

Darkmatters said...

Ok. looked around the web a bit, and it sounds like Airport will accept the signals, no need to buy any more hardware or install anything. Whew!! Too many different protocols/interfaces etc these days.... confoundingly bewildering, I tell ya!!

Anonymous said...

Strider, this seems to be very... interesting... :)
*wanttohaveittoo* I'm very excited about your experiences and your results with it. For the SD card industry it's just a small step, but it's a huge one for us Stop Motion Artists... ;)

Darkmatters said...

Hah! What I want to know is....

How'd they get all that in that tiny little card?

80

R.S.Cole said...

Idragosani, I did some searching for the answer to that same question and the cool/good news is, the card automatically uploads your pics every time you shoot a picture! You don't need to do anything other than keep in range of your wireless signal, it uploads whatever is on your card as long as your cam is on. And it's smart enough NOT to upload pics more than once so, even if you have pics on the card and shoot more, it will only upload the new ones! VERY COOL.

Shelley Noble said...

VIVA LA REVOLUCîON!!!!!!

Man o man, this is a new day dawning.

I'll be watching and waiting for your experiments, Stridee.

I still haven't decided on a camera... if you like your set up, I'll copy your formidable brain work.

jriggity said...

WOW!! ThE FUTURE IS HERE !!!

Crazy new toys for all of us stop mo dorks!...

great news man.....enjoy the no wire transfers.

jriggity

Anonymous said...

WOW WOW WOW!!!!

That was the last thing that was holding me back from updating my workflow to a DSC setup.

YOU RULE, STRIDER!