Lot’s of ‘i’s

The original Eye-Fi card was underwhelming, even if it was a piece of technological serendipity. This SDHC card included a wireless transmitter which could send your pictures to a nearby computer using wifi. I say underwhelming as the card was slow to transmit data and could not send out RAW files.

Now the newest Eye-Fi card looks much more promising, but it is quite expensive.

RAW is now supported but you should check their compatibility list for your camera – not all work. Wifi speed is 802.11n. They claim the sending speed has doubled.

Why is this relevant?

Well, owing to what can only be described as a monumental procurement cock-up in Cupertino, the SDHC card reader for the iPad will not be available until late April. So if you want to use an iPad as an on-the-road photo storage and culling tool, tough luck until then. I mean, what is so difficult about making a low tech plug-in card reader when they have been around for the best part of a decade and the technology of the iPhone/iPad connector is now 3 years old?

Reviews of the 4gB ($100) Eye-Fi Pro X2 at Amazon suggest an upload speed of 1-2 mb/s, so your 12 mb RAW file will take some 9 seconds to make it to the iPad – not stellar, but maybe a worthwhile workaround?

Eye-Fi’s site also has some disclosures concerning use of these with SDHC to CF adapters in cameras like the Canon 5D/40D which do not accept SDHC cards. It seems there are workarounds but few guarantees. so caveat emptor is the order of the day.