ANYway, after BlogHer, I heard a few people talking about Eye-Fi cards. Apparently, some people got some SD cards for their digital cameras that automatically uploaded your pictures to your computer. Or the Internet. Or something.

I take way more pictures than I share and am perfectly adept at getting them off my camera and on to my computer and up on the Internet if I want, so I thought nothing of it at the time.

And then Nikon invited me to join their “COOLPIX Circle” – which meant they were going to loan me a camera and I had to upload pictures to their COOLPIX circle Flickr group from time to time.  And I, um, forgot.  A lot.  Like, for weeks and weeks and weeks I would get a new email with the weekly “prompt” and think “crap!  I didn’t add anything to the group for last week’s prompt!”  I was kind of starting to feel bad, what with the $200+ camera I was getting to use for free and all.

And then (longest product review intro ever) I saw one of CityMama’s pictures in the group, and saw that she’d tagged it as being “effortless uploaded by Eye-Fi.”

I decided I had to have one.

Their PR people told me that was great – and that I’d have to buy one myself.  Because #eyefihatesMissBritt.  Apparently.

I started to research all of the different types of Eye-Fi cards that were available and weighing the pros and cons between the expensive versions and the really, really expensive versions.

Let me first say that their web site kind of sucks and it took me hours and a lot of googling to find out exactly what was available, what card did what, and what card would be the best card for me.  Seriously.  Hours.

I ended up purchasing the Eye-Fi Share 2 GB Memory Card.  Here’s why:

• I wanted to be able to put them on my computer AND on the Internet.  You have to buy one of the “share” versions to do that.
• A lot of googling suggested that “hotspot access” that came with the Eye-Fi Explore Cards or Eye-Fi Pro Cards would be limited. Meaning that while in theory I could upload wherever there was internet available, that “available internet” wouldn’t exactly be global.
• I needed a version that would work with my Nikon D50.  My Nikon D50 will only work with 2G versions, because the technology on the 4G versions is different.
• I don’t give two craps about the geotagging feature that comes on the higher priced cards.

None of that will make sense unless you end up reading the comparison chart, but I tell you all that to say, I ended up with the 2G share – which means, my 2G Eye-Fi card can upload to the Internet and/or to my computer over my home wireless network.

I used the card for the first time on Halloween.  I used it first in my (borrowed) Nikon Coolpix S630 point and shoot camera and then in the D50.  I just took pictures the same way I normally would while we went trick or treating.  I came home and settled the kids into their candy sorting, and went to hang out with my husband and my girlfriend for a while.

I left my D50 on, but noticed that it didn’t appear that the pictures were automatically uploading the same way they had earlier when I had my point and shoot on.  I stuck the card into my laptop’s card reader and went on hanging out with my husband and friend.  About 20 minutes later, I had an email that my pictures had been uploaded.  I went to FlickR via their iPhone app and saw that I now had 99 new photos in my photostream, all marked private (because that’s how I set the card up initially).  I quickly changed the permissions on one or two photos using my iPhone – and voila!  Picture available on Flickr and safely stored on my computer.

About 15 minutes later my friend took a bathroom break so I quickly opened the laptop, went to Flickr, and did a batch edit to all the pictures I’d just uploaded via the eye-fi card, making them public.  I sent my mom and dad a text message letting them know the kids’ Halloween pictures were online.

Done.

My parents back in Iowa had pictures of their grandchildren by 11:00pm on Halloween night, and all it required was 2 minutes of work on my part.

I later took another 30 seconds to open the card on my computer and delete all the pictures that were already stored online and on my hard drive.  Super fast, super efficient.

I love this card.

It would have normally taken me days to get those pictures live online to share.  I would have had to transfer them to my computer, and then go through and batch upload them to FlickR.  While I still needed to go back in and edit a few pictures and delete some of them, the bulk of my pictures from that night were available for me to share with my family quickly and easily.

I highly recommend this card if you share your pictures frequently.  If you end up with hundreds of pictures on a memory card that only get transferred or uploaded once every few months, you’ll love that this does it automatically for you.

However, if you’re the type of person who carefully edits each and every picture you take before ever sharing it with anyone, this card might not make sense for you – except that you will automatically have your pictures on your hard drive and/or online as storage, at the very least.

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Post tags: Coolpix, digital camera, eye-fi card, Nikon, Nikon D50, point and shoot camera, SD card, wireless memory card

Point and Shoot Camera from Casio

Full disclosure:

I did not buy a new point and shoot camera recently.

I have a Nikon Coolpix digital point and shoot that I carry in my purse and a Nikon D50 that I haul out when I actually care how the pictures turn out.  I love both of them and am extremely happy with the way they do their respective jobs.

However, a friend of mine recently was searching for a digital camera that was more compact than his existing point and shoot.  A friend of his recommended the Casio Exilim.

He bought it.  I played with it.

That’s the best kind of shopping (or at least it will be when I convince him to give it to me).

The specific camera we’re looking at is a Casio Exilim EX-FC100.

It’s about 5 inches wide and only weighs 1 pound, which makes it extremely easy to carry around in a pocket or small purse.  If you’re someone who likes to take pictures at parties, restaurants or just everyday outings, than portability is an important factor to consider when shopping for a digital point and shoot camera.  If it’s too much of a hassle to take with you, you’ll never use it to take pictures – no matter how great of a camera it is.

Of course, at almost $300, it better damn well take a good picture, too.

This is a picture of my insanely gorgeous friend Samantha.  It’s SOOC – or “straight out of camera” – meaning I haven’t touched it in Photoshop or anything.  There’s plenty of sun and she was basically standing still.  The picture isn’t SLR quality, but it’s pretty good for the auto setting of a point and shoot camera.

This is a difficult setting for any camera.  We were inside a screened porch with crazy sunlight streaming in from outside.  This picture was taken with the flash, and it actually does a pretty good job of not washing her out completely and leveling out the foreground with the background.  It’s not a great picture – but that’s not really the camera’s fault.

I’m much happier with the lighting in this – or rather, I’m much more confident in the camera’s ability to take a decent picture in low light.  It’s not grainy and the blow out isn’t near as bad as I would have expected in these conditions.

All three of these pictures were taken with the camera’s automatic setting.  Honestly, I think that is the most important setting on a digital point and shoot because – again – you’re not going to use it if you have to fiddle with all the settings every time you want to take a picture of you and the cute bartender.  Or something.

However, for $300, it’s nice to have the option of doing a little more with your digital camera.

The Casio Exilim has a really cool menu function that lets you easily see various “presets” for different kind of photography (like night photos, portrait, macro, etc.)

It also has a very large LCD screen, which is useful when you’re trying to see how the picture you just took is going to turn out on your computer or photo paper.

Another cool feature of the Casio Exilim is the slow down feature.  You push the slow down button and it gives you a slowed down, delayed picture of what you’re looking at on the LCD screen.  This lets you take the exact action shots that you want, or get a picture of someone smiling instead of talking.  I have never seen this feature on a camera before (digital, point and shoot or otherwsie) and I can imagine using it a lot.

Like most digital point and shoot cameras, the Casio Exilim has a video camera option.  However, this one shoots in HD video – which I’m not entirely sure I need, but can appreciate just the same.

The camera loads extremely quickly when you turn it on and has no perceptible delay when shooting pictures.  That is a common concern with digital cameras – especially if you’re used to pulling out a camera quickly to capture your kids doing something cute that they will never do again in life if you miss that 3 second window.

Overall, Adam is happy with his purchase.  The difference between the Coolpix and the Casio Exilim isn’t significant enough to make me go out and plunk down $300 for a new camera, but the features are unique enough that I will think about a Casio the next time I’m in need of a digital point and shoot camera.

Buy the Casio High-Speed Exilim EX-FC100 on Amazon

OR

Buy the comparable Nikon Coolpix S560 Camera on Amazon for about 50 less.

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Post tags: amazon, camera, Casio, Coolpix, digital camera, Nikon, Nikon D50, point and shoot camera