Wireless upload feature for a school camera

MarcLister · 4 Nov 2015 at 23:02

I work as the ICT Manager in a school. A colleague asked me today about making it so that photos taken on a camera could be transferred wirelessly and automatically to the school network. My colleague believes that some fairly cheap bridge cameras can do this. From my very basic initial research it seems they more allow for images to be uploaded to photo sharing sites rather than a local network. I'm of the impression that something like this would need a fairly expensive pro, or semi-pro, camera with either in-built wireless functionality or a pluggable in addon.

I have also found Eye-Fi SD cards but they seem to be exceedingly expensive compared to their identically sized standard SD card cousins. It might be that my colleague's departmental Nikon bridge camera is compatible with Eye-Fi cards but I need to find the pesky critter first to confirm the model.

What would be the best way to achieve a system whereby a camera (stills not camcorder) could automatically send photos to the school network via the wireless APs? What kind of costs would we be talking for the best solutions?

Andy90 · 4 Nov 2015 at 23:44

Never really done this, but a quick Google, reveals that Eyefi wifi SD cards aren't the only player in town.

Toshiba make Flash Air SD cards, their 32gb ones seem to be around £25

Transcend also do wifi cards

Eyefi have a compatibility checker on their website, so you could check to see if the Bridge camera your School has works with the Eyefi cards, it can be found at

http://www.eyefi.com/cameras

The other solution would be to purchase a new Wifi capable camera, but that might be above the budget of the school.

D.P. · 4 Nov 2015 at 23:54

I have a transcend wifi sd card for my Olympus epm2 and it works well to transfer images to my iPad, but it isn't automatic obviously.

For Nikon DSLRs you can buy expensive wireless dongles and have automatic file transfer.

MarcLister · 5 Nov 2015 at 08:33

Andy90 said:
Never really done this, but a quick Google, reveals that Eyefi wifi SD cards aren't the only player in town.

Toshiba make Flash Air SD cards, their 32gb ones seem to be around £25

Transcend also do wifi cards

Eyefi have a compatibility checker on their website, so you could check to see if the Bridge camera your School has works with the Eyefi cards, it can be found at

http://www.eyefi.com/cameras

The other solution would be to purchase a new Wifi capable camera, but that might be above the budget of the school.

Hi Andy. Thanks for the info about Toshiba. Never thought there might be more than one manufacturer doing these. I found that Eye-fi site but can't be sure my colleague's Nikon bridge camera is compatible as we don't know where it is to get the model number!

You hit the nail on the head with your last sentence. We're not a rich school and I've told both my colleagues that a Wi-Fi enabled or compatible camera is likely to be a pro or semi-pro SLR costing a few grand.

D.P. said:
I have a transcend wifi sd card for my Olympus epm2 and it works well to transfer images to my iPad, but it isn't automatic obviously.

For Nikon DSLRs you can buy expensive wireless dongles and have automatic file transfer.

Hey D.P. Are any of the Wi-Fi enabled SD cards automatic in terms of transferring images? The two requirements are to a) wirelessly transfer images and b) do this automatically without my colleagues having to manually send each photo. If the automation is not possible then the project is dead in the water as we can't afford a Wi-Fi camera and the lack of automation from the SD cards would make them useless to us.

I did look at the Toshiba site this morning before work and found a manual for one of them. It seemed very basic with no setup instructions and therefore I couldn't confirm whether or not it was automatic.

MichaelAwkward · 5 Nov 2015 at 10:26

It may not be an option for you, but Sony alpha (and formally NEX) cameras that can install the PlayMemories Camera apps can do this automatically with the Sync to Smartphone app.

Obviously that only works with a smartphone/tablet, but once setup it does it on it's own after you turn the camera off.

https://www.playmemoriescameraapps.com/portal/usbdetail.php?eid=IS9104-NPIA09014_00-F00013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1xIHLt7ys

K.C. Leblanc · 5 Nov 2015 at 11:35

I would have a look on the Edugeek forums, because there will be someone on there who's already done this.

A few things that imediatly jump out at me are.

Do you use RADIUS authentication on your wireless, because if you do then you won't get the cameras playing ball.
Do you have full wifi coverage.
You're talking about uploading to your 'network'. I'm guessing the idea is to have a shared folder on a server where the photos will appear. Now if any client software is required you will need to check if this can be ran on servers and you will need to satisfy your self that it's stable and won't cause issues.

MarcLister · 5 Nov 2015 at 12:10

MichaelAwkward said:
It may not be an option for you, but Sony alpha (and formally NEX) cameras that can install the PlayMemories Camera apps can do this automatically with the Sync to Smartphone app.

Obviously that only works with a smartphone/tablet, but once setup it does it on it's own after you turn the camera off.

https://www.playmemoriescameraapps.com/portal/usbdetail.php?eid=IS9104-NPIA09014_00-F00013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1xIHLt7ys

Thanks for that.

I'll check it out. Was discussing with a colleague this morning that I thought most cameras would need a smartphone to control this which we both agreed wasn't suitable for us.

K.C. Leblanc said:
I would have a look on the Edugeek forums, because there will be someone on there who's already done this.

I do need to join up to Edugeek anyway. Will do that tonight.

K.C. Leblanc said:
A few things that imediatly jump out at me are.

Do you use RADIUS authentication on your wireless, because if you do then you won't get the cameras playing ball.

Do you have full wifi coverage.

You're talking about uploading to your 'network'. I'm guessing the idea is to have a shared folder on a server where the photos will appear. Now if any client software is required you will need to check if this can be ran on servers and you will need to satisfy your self that it's stable and won't cause issues.

No to RADIUS. We're nowhere near that advanced.

Wi-Fi coverage isn't too bad but we do suffer from issues due to the school's construction with metal beams that interfere with the signals. The building is quite old so we circumvent this issue by having a wireless access point in each room. This then potentially causes us other issues as our wireless network is dumb and not smart/managed in any way so there's nothing to stop a wireless access point getting overloaded whilst others immediately around it have nothing to do.

Yeah, the photos would be sent to a shared folder that can be easily accessed. If we have to install software on the servers then I'll just cancel the whole deal there and then. I'm not prepared to gamble with the stability and availability of the server just to allow two colleagues to upload photos wirelessly.

D.P. · 5 Nov 2015 at 12:20

You have to install software to get the wifi cards to work, and it typically is not automatic in my experience.

MarcLister · 6 Nov 2015 at 09:21

D.P. said:
You have to install software to get the wifi cards to work, and it typically is not automatic in my experience.

This makes it sound less and less suitable for our network. Thanks for the info.

I joined up to Edugeek last night and had a look around. I'm sure I saw a thread talking about exactly this, but then it was late and I was tired. I'll double check over the weekend.