Transfer photos wireless to iMac

Hello,

I've been out of photography for a while and trying to catch up with the new stuff out there. I'm planning on buying a new camera, maybe a D800 and would like to know if there is a way to transfer photos wirelessly from the camera to the computer while I'm shooting them. I'm going to work on a food photography project very soon and I would like the client to see the photos in my iMac while I'm taking them... could this be done wirelessly?... what do I need in the computer and the camera?

Is the Nikon UT-1 Communication Unit what I need?

You would need the UT-1 along with the WT-5A, unfortunately, but that's a very pricey combo. Or you could get something like this:

HyperDrive iUSBportCAMERA

or this

CamRanger | Wireless DSLR Remote Control | iPad Mac Android PC

Or if you get a D610, then you just need the WU-1b:

Nikon WU-1b Wireless Mobile Adapter 13186 B&H Photo Video

There are ways to do it, from the methods mentioned to an EyeFi card (works well when you can get the connection to stay up) to a system I'm rather intrigued by called a Weye Feye that will also work as a trigger with a smartphone or tablet.

That said, if you're shooting RAW all I can say is that I'm running a 16GB Macbook Pro and when I stick the card in the slot and transfer anything over 50 shots into LR, I get up and go do something else. I suppose it would be much quicker to simply copy the photos over first and then ingest into LR as there is processing and conversion going on, but regardless, those are big files and wireless transfer will definitely take a while.

Can I use a cable instead?...

You'll need a USB 3.0 cable, but yes you can use one. In my experience, the D800 is very finicky with cable signals, and until I purchased a specific tether cable for it anything over 3ft. didn't want to work, including Amazon Basic cables of 4-6 feet.

My recommendation would be to get a USB card reader that handles SD and CF and just pull the card out.

I would actually suggest the cable, most of the wireless stuff is really slow and not very reliable. I hear good things about CamRanger, but its a lot more expensive than a cable.

Well I guess that I would use the classic method for now... take out the CF card I download the photos to the computer.. thanks guys!!!

You could use an Eye-Fi card and CF card in the D800, so if you have your RAW going to CF, and JPEG going going to Eye-Fi the transmission time would be much quicker. For a quick review, a JPEG medium or basic would pretty reliable I would think?

SteveH said:

You could use an Eye-Fi card and CF card in the D800, so if you have your RAW going to CF, and JPEG going going to Eye-Fi the transmission time would be much quicker. For a quick review, a JPEG medium or basic would pretty reliable I would think?

Click to expand...

That's a good idea... because I only need to send a jpeg photo so my client can see a preview of it.. the raw file can stay in the camera... thanks!