I have always liked the Eye-Fi cards, but never saw enough justification to buy them.
In case you are unaware, the Eye-Fi cards are an SD memory card that can automatically send pictures you take on your SD Card equipped camera to your computer directly over your home Wi-Fi network, as you take them. It can even send them straight to flickr, myspace, facebook, or other sites directly from the camera if you have WiFi available.
It’s a very cool idea but for me, being an advid photographer but focused on fine art photography, non of my pics get sent anywhere before I process them in Aperture and other programs, so for me this didn’t make sense… until now.
Introducing the Eye-Fi Geo. A 2gb SD card that not only has WiFi built in, but GPS too*. So now it will log your GPS location (latitude and longitude*) on every picture you take. It’s geotagging* made dead simple.
I have experimented with Geotagging on my own photos before but it has never been a simple process. You have to have a GPS receiver tracking your movement to a log file, then you have to have a separate program mash up the photos with the GPS log by time stamp. Then you can import the photos into Aperture, iPhoto 09, or whatever image organization and voila the photos location can show up on a map in your software or on Flickr, Zooomr, Picasa or whatever geotag supporting software or web service you have. The end result is very cool, but the set up is a pain in the arse.
The Eye-Fi Geo makes it dead simple, as it automatically tags the photo’s meta data with the lat and long info* when you click the shutter. Very Very cool.
Now what’s interesting is this is being sold exclusively through the Apple Store. “Why?” you may ask. Well because one of the best features in Apple’s iPhoto 09 is the built in geotagging software, and although it’s simple to go and place you photo on a map from with-in the program, it’s still an extra step, so I doubt many people are using it.
Which explains why Apple hasn’t put it’s normal high mark-up on the product. Yes this miracle Wi-Fi, GPS*, 2GB SD Card is being sold for a very reasonable $60.
Eye-Fi Geo + iPhoto 09 is a heck of a cool combination.
The only down side I can see for this is that it’s only available in a 2GB storage option. My Canon XSi luckily uses SD cards but I shoot RAW so 2GB of storage is only about 100 pics. (on a good day out shooting I can easily fill a couple of 4GB cards.)
I realize that size may be the limiting factor here, this tiny SD Card has a WiFi chip, and a GPS chip in it* in addition to flash storage. There just may not be room for more than 2GB of storage, but man I’d pay more in a heartbeat for a 4GB version.
_None the less, I will be testing this card out as soon as the local Apple Store gets them in stock. Look for a review here shortly.* _
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- Update: It looks like I was lead astray on this info. The Eye-Fi Geo does NOT have a GPS chip in it. What it does is use the location info (if available) from the WiFi hot spot it’s connected too. So this requires the chip to be connected to WiFi to work. Boo!!!!
_This is completely useless for field work especially involving nature photography.
I suppose if you are a casual shooter and are always around WiFi like on college campuses or etc, then this could be useful. But it’s certainly not the solution I was looking for. :( _
_Sorry for misleading you all… _
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amazon.com: Eye-Fi Home Wireless 2 GB Secure Digital Card (non gps version)
