I picked up a WT-2A at B&H the other day to see if I could finally "cut the cord" on tethered shooting.
The good news: it's really easy to configure if you have a wireless access point in place and a computer somewhere on your network running FTP. Took less than five minutes out of the box to have it working. File transfer is fairly fast on an 802.11g network - around 13 seconds to transfer a 10meg compressed NEF from shutter release until the file is completely transferred.
Now the bad news. If you want to take this setup off-site and maintain decent transfer speeds, you'd better be prepared to take that access point with you - and find power for it! In ad-hoc mode (direct camera-to-computer), the wireless connection reverts to 802.11b, and transferring that same 10meg file takes a little over 30 seconds. Not sure why you can't do ad-hoc 802.11g (Tom?) but there on page 27 of the manual it does say 802.11b only for this type of setup. Kind of disappointing, as I was hoping to go directly from camera to laptop using "g" mode.
I'll be testing the wireless camera control when I get some more spare time, but if the setup goes as smoothly as the file transfer then it shouldn't be a problem to get that working as well.
Geoff
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I got the WT-2A and so far it is a great buy. But you really don't need to take the the access point with you. You nedd a Powerbook with a Airport card and make it create a network, you dont't need power because of the battery on your laptop. I create 2 differnt banks in the camera one for my G5 in the studio and other for my PowerBook. So Im able to change in the fly where I want my files to go.
The other thing that I think will work for me is the ability to send a basic JPG to the laptop so my client can see the pictures while I'm shooting, erease them from the card to free memory and the keep the Raw files in the card, to burn them after the photoshoot, all this is done automatically. Then I Can burn a CD with the basic JPGs to give it to my client so later on they can pick and let me know what are the Files that they need and then proccess them from Raw. Sending such a small file doen't take that much time to upload, arround 2 secs. And also to review lighting is a lot faster to do it with this JPGs.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I just received my WT-2a today and can't get it to complete a connection in FTP mode. It stops at the point where it asks for a "server name" and prompts for a "server address." I entered every IP address in the network, including the router, and all computer names--but it returned the error "Unable to locate server." I never got beyond that point.
Working in PTP/IP mode and downloading D2X NEF's is very, very slow in NC 4.2.1 on my not-so-current PC hardware that I'm using for Capture Control. OTOH, my P4 photo editing computer with 2gb RAM and RAID0 (Raptors) runs very smooth. I would like to set up in FTP mode and download JPG's while retaining the NEF's on the camera's CF card.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
If you're connecting directly from your camera to the laptop in ad-hoc mode, you're still limited to 802.11b (10mbs) speed, unless there's a way to get the airport to look like an access point. If there is, that's a cool feature, one I haven't found a way to do yet with my Windows laptop.
As for transferring jpegs only, I agree, the speed is much, much faster. But I really like not having to do the card transfer thing so I transfer the NEFs as well, and that's where you notice the big difference between .b and .g transfer speeds.
Battery life has gone way down with the WT-2A too, but that's to be expected. Still trying to get a feel for how many NEFs I can transfer on a single battery. How many jpegs are you able to shoot/send on one battery?
Geoff
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
What type of computer are you trying to connect to? If it's a Windows XP box make sure the FTP service is installed and running. If it's XP with SP2, you have to explicity allow it through Windows Firewall by creating an exception for port 21. (Firewall config is available from Control Panel).
Geoff
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
If you're connecting directly from your camera to the laptop in ad-hoc mode, you're still limited to 802.11b (10mbs) speed, unless there's a way to get the airport to look like an access point.
Geoff
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I don't have the WT-2A to go with my D2x, but I do own a Powerbook and I know that you can configure the wifi card (airport) to act as an access point. To do this, click on the airport icon on the tool bar and select "Create a network...". Select a name for your access point and a Wifi Channel (1-11) (and optionally any WEP encryption) and any nearby Windows or Apple laptop will pick it up.
As an added bonus, if your Powerbook has a broadband connection over a cat-5 cable, you can broadcast that connection as a WAP.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Hmmm... sounds exactly lot like the way Windows creates an ad-hoc network.
It's important to note the differences between the two wireless modes - ad-hoc and infrastructure. In ad-hoc mode the WT-2A is limited to 802.11b.
Is there a way in the airport configuration to see the mode you're in? It really sounds like it has to be ad-hoc because in infrastucture mode you don't need to set the channel. The other way to tell would be to look at the connection speed to the WT-2A. If it's 10Mbs then you're connected in .b mode; 54Mbs means it's a .g connection and you know you're in infrastructure mode.
Geoff
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Linear Mode
