Wireless photography

I shoot with a D2h and a D2x, I am going wireless, I want to shoot NEFs with the D2h and send them to

the computer, with the D2x I want to shoot NEFs and small jpegs-sending the jpegs to the computer

for an art director to review. I am going to purchase a WT-2A or a WT-1A. From what I understand the

2A will only work with the D2x, the 1A will work with either camera and is not any slower. I did find a

place with the 1A in stock. What is the disadvantage to buying the 1A? I know its the older model and I

am always skeptical about buying older technology.

thanks for any help. Dave

You've pretty much got it.

The 1A works with everything, D2H, D2Hs, D2X, and D2Xs.

The 2A works with D2Hs, D2X, and D2Xs, but not original D2H. It has THS (theoretically higher speed) that works in near ideal conditions, but will be pretty much the same as 1A under real world conditions. It supports PTP over WiFi, and that's the biggest difference for your application.

The 1A sends pictures to your computer via FTP, which means that they will appear in a file browser as they upload, but someone then has to notice the thumbnails appearing and click on each new arrival to view it full screen. The 2A can do FTP, but it also has PTP over WiFi, which means that Nikon Capture Control can control the camera, so you can have each picture pop up in NCC as you shoot it.

The D2X and WT-2A definitely offer the "shoot raw+JPEG, but only send the JPEG to the PC" option. Not sure if D2H and WT-1A can do that. They may insist on sending both the raw and JPEG.

We are portrait photographers,based in the UK, working exclusively from a studio and have recently upgraded to a D2x with WT-2 wireless.

We shoot only RAW and we find this excellent system will download a 20Mb file in less than 30 secs. As I understand it, this would be significantly quicker than the WT-1.

The key is good signal strength from your router and for this reason we use a Belkin Pre-N MIMO at a max distance of 20ft and always in line-of-site.

That said, we did 'play' when we first installed everything, and found that we could get flawless downloads from well over 50ft away through either brick or stud-partioned walls - effectively anywhere in the building or out in the car park!

However, there are a couple of points to consider:

1) The WT-2 does have a reputation to be difficult to set up initially unless your are network savvy or know someone who is.

Alternatively, check out Pixagent at http://www.pixagent.com/.

For about $60, this is a truly superb piece of server software that takes all the hassle out of the set-up and is very easy to use. Also, Thomas Sapiano, the designer, is very friendly and always on hand to answer any questions you may have.

2) Battery power. Because the camera battery also powers the WT-2, it is not wise to allow it to run down too much. Drop below 3 bars on the battery indicator and you will sometimes find that the wireless connection drops and all the images remain on the card which will start to fill it up quickly!

I really cannot speak too highly of wireless. It has so reduced the stress levels shooting in our busy studio. Instead of having to track which cards have been downloaded or not,keep clients waiting as we complete downloads etc etc, we just look round at the end of the session and there they all are sitting in your designated folder on the PC - WONDERFUL!

<p>If you want shoot wirelessly, I have tooled up a wireless USB box that leverages ultra wide band technology to provide tethered/wireless USB shooting. Instructions on how to build one is on my website. If you don't want to go through the hassle, you can purchase a pre-assembled one that I've listed on ebay. Proceeds will go to fund my other projects. The website is:<br>

www.homebrewusb.com<br>

On the website, there is a quick video demo to show the advantages of having the image pop up on your computer screen within a few seconds. Also, it is much cheaper than Nikon's WT system if you should build your own or buy a pre-assembled unit.<br>

Chiko</p>