Heard about Eye-Fi?

Have you heard about the Eye-fi SD cards?  It was shown in CES 2008 and comes in four types and supports over 700 cameras of major brands (unfortunately, no Ricohs), but the note at the end of this post* should be read.  It is a cool idea for photographers regularly uploading photos to computers and blogs.  I have made a gist from the information provided in the official site.

The Eye-Fi Card stores photos & videos like a normal memory card. When you turn your camera on within range of a configured Wi-Fi network, it wirelessly transfers your photos & videos. To your computer. Or to your favorite photo sharing web site. Or both.  There are four types of Eye-fi SD cards, namely:

2GB Home	Wireless JPEG photo uploads to computer Works on over 700 SD and SDHC compatible cameras
2GB Share	WebShare for upload to online sharing sites Wireless JPEG photo uploads to computer Works on over 700 SD and SDHC compatible cameras
4GB Share Video	WebShare for upload to online sharing sites Wireless JPEG photo & video uploads to computer Works on SDHC compatible cameras
4GB Explore Video (2GB avail-able)	WebShare for upload to online sharing sites Wireless JPEG photo & video uploads to computer Unlimited Geotagging Hotspot Access for 1 year Works on SDHC compatible cameras

The Eye-Fi Card will only connect to Wi-Fi networks, computers and sharing sites (like Flickr, Picasa, Smugmug and more, plus even Youtube) that you specify. You can choose the privacy levels that your sharing web site supports and even setup notifications so you know when your photos and videos are uploaded. For setting up, you can do it in a blink:

1. Register your Eye-Fi card
2. Pair the Eye-Fi Card to your Wi-Fi network
3. Choose a sharing web site (if you want)

For FAQs, read here.  For the fact sheet, read here.

Please note that 4GB Eye-Fi Cards (4GB Share Video, 4GB Explore Video and the Eye-Fi Anniversary Cards) are all SDHC format cards. Because SDHC works differently then standard SD cards, this new format is not backwards compatible with legacy SD format cameras. 4GB and above SDHC cards can only be read by SDHC-compatiable cameras (i.e. any cameras acccepting 4GB SD card or above). Please refer to your camera owners manual or your camera manufacturer’s website to check to see if your camera supports SDHC memory cards.