Going Totally Wireless with Canon 1D Mk4

I had planned to continue my post on the “suicide of the print”, but due to some change of circums­tances I save that for a later day. I just have to add that thank God I made my presen­tation that day and not later: the photo­graphers I was addressing just swept the table in our POY two days later. Seven out of possible ten to HS: my sincerest congra­tu­la­tions to each and everyone of them. Amazing work.

But instead I thought I continue on the theme I briefly touched in Vancouver: wireless trans­mission from my Canon 1D mk4’s directly to the server. A friend and a colleague Sami Kero showed me in Whistler “a box” he was using to transmit his images directly out of the camera to the server. I promised to come back to this and now I do. See that post on details — and a big thanks to Mika Ranta of HS for commenting that post — and congrats to him on the best news image of the year.

I was not familiar with this “gadget” earlier, but I did some research once I got home. Also, I had constructed a workflow based on the same idea prior to the Vancouver games, but my client had shown no intrest so I had decided not to pursue it any further. But now I decided to finish it.

The piece of hardware is Novatel Wireless router MiFi 2352; basically the same “box” used in Vancouver, but physically a bit smaller (shown in the image next to my iPhone) and slightly lighter. Price c. 250€ in Finland.

What it does is that it creates a wifi hotspot which it then links thru 3G/HSPA/EDGE connection to the internet. Once you have it confi­gured, it is basically a one button operation. A crucial diffe­rence to some other techno­logies available (such as JOIKU for symbian platform) is that it creates an infra­structure network instead of an ad hoc one — as Canon wireless WFT2 trans­mitter cannot operate thru ad hoc’s to the net.

You configure it using any browser, insert a SIM-card which supports data package trans­mission and you are good to go. Not very difficult — and it comes with a link to a PDF-operating instruc­tions, should you need them, but I found the confi­gu­ration very straight forward. One problem I encoun­tered was that as I wanted to create a hotspot instead of an ad hoc connection, I could not set the security parameters for a secure login. But I decided to use approved MAC-addresses instead, which works as a solid worka­round. (MAC-address is a “physical” address of a piece of hardware and it does not change when you turn your devices on and off. Thus, my router now accepts connec­tions only from my two laptops and my two WFT2-trans­mitters- and nothing else. You can connect up to five devices simultaneously.

iPhone?

I had thought that I could do the same set up using an iPhone and actually, it is totally possible. But it requires jailbreaking your iPhone and then inserting some third­party software. Jailbreaking is not illegal (well, Apple says it is…) nor it is not very hard (just google it if you are interested) and it seems pretty safe — but I decided against it for two reasons: first of all it voids the warranty but more impor­tantly, I agree with what Mika said in his comment mentioned earlier: it is better have dedicated hardware if you really want them to use them as tools.

Just like my iPhone does have a camera, it does not render my DSLR’s useless… The same goes here: phone is one thing, profes­sional use of trans­mission hardware is another. Another example: yes, my phone has navigation, but I would not dream of navigating my sailboat relying on that… If for nothing else, you are bound to run out of batteries when you really need them.…

Two workflows

Presently I use this router two ways: as a wireless modem to accessing the internet with a computer when nothing else is available and as a wireless hotspot connecting my cameras directly to a server, so I can transmit directly out of the camera to the client in situa­tions where time is of the essence. Been testing it now for a week, and it has shown no hiccups. Switch it on and you are good to go.

You should be able to set it up also so that an editor sitting in a computer anywhere in the world could have access to the camera (maybe a remote?) and he’d be able to download the selected images without me even noticing — but I have not set this up for two reasons: one wrong push of a button (from his side) and my camera would jam (because you can also remotely fire the camera). And maybe even more impor­tantly: I still want to be consi­dered as a photo­grapher and not a technician who just places the “photo­graphic hardware” to appropriate positions…

Taking it further

And just to show off some innovative spirit, I decided to take it a bit further: I set up a website which shows an embedded “live” slideshow as soon as I start trans­mitting the images from the camera. In this workflow, the images start showing after the first image trans­mitted and the slideshow keeps looping ’til I stop it. There is no limit to the number of images.

They can be displayed with a “generic” caption — as I do not caption images with the camera — and you can stop the slideshow if you want to or choose an image from the thumb­nails visible. Images are displayed with a watermark. Delay from the “send” command in the camera to the page is typically less than 30 sec.

I had this set up earlier to work with a computer in between, but now it works without the computer as well. The only things required are the router in my pocket and the WFT2 on the camera. Both of those can be preset, so it is basically an idiot-proof solution.

And before you have time to say it: yes, I do know: each time somebody comes with an idiot-proof solution, somebody else comes with an updated version of an idiot… :-)

The website has to be set up (sort of “armed”: starting image, a small story to put the slideshow into perspective), but that can be done in advance. And it does not have to be a single website, but it can be a series of them, all armed and ready to go with just a click of a button. Think about a sports event, it is almost like live coverage with stills — or a photo­grapher working in Afganistan, Haiti…

Lots of possi­bi­lities there, don’t you think?