Transfer Photos from Camera to iPhone On Location (i.e. Not Home)

I found myself yesterday wanting to share a photo I had just took with a Nikon DSLR via Messenger, FB, etc. So, I was wondering how to get the photo from my camera to my iPhone while on location. I googled this from my iPhone, and came across a few options:

1. Eye-Fi: An SD Card that transfers photos from camera to iPhone through a built-in adhoc wi-fi network. Not bad, some neat features such as geotagging, but reading some reviews that the transfer rate is slow especially for high megapixel photos is concerning. Also, it draws its power from your camera battery. I already use up two camera batteries while shooting with standard SD cards. I'll still strongly consider this one.

2. AirStash: This multi-use device is essentially a USB flash drive with an SD card reader which becomes a wi-fi hotspot. This would solve my need, but it's another device to carry around and it has a non-replacable rechargeable battery, therefore its lifespan is limited by its battery life. Seems like the transfer rate is pretty quick though, and you can use it as a wi-fi hotspot for streaming media from the sd card to multiple devices. Nifty, but the limited lifespan and having to maintain a third device throws me off.

2. Zoomit: An SD Card Reader that connects to the iPhone's Dock Connector. Perfect, it's small, no maintance, and just what I had in mind! BUT it seems that this product is obsolete and no longer works with the latest iOS. Why???

3. Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit: This would also be perfect for my situation, but this product is only compatible with iPads NOT iPhones! Why not??? There's a JB that may make this work for iPhones- I would strongly consider JB'ing my iPhone just for this ability!

I am at a loss as to why Apple does not let this Camera Connection Kit work with other iOS devices beyond iPads, and why this ability- Camera's SD Card to iPhone- doesn't get much attention. Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.

VirtualRain said:

I just purchased an Eye-Fi for my 5D3 which has a slot for SD cards (which I use to store 6Mpix JPEGs). It's very cool and a great way to transfer images in the field. Setup is not trivial but if you can setup a wifi router, I'm sure you could handle this. The key issue I had was understanding what all the options are with the Eye-Fi to get it working just the way I wanted... as it works in a mind boggling number of different ways.

I have mine setup to establish it's own ad-hoc wifi network so my iPhone or iPad can connect to it. At first, it was dumping every image on the card to the iPhone or iPad which was not what I wanted, so I turned on a selective upload option where you can use the "protect" feature on your camera to lock an image which also flags it for uploading from the Eye-Fi. That way if you want to just review a few recent shots, no problem... "protect" them in-camera, turn on the Eye-Fi in your camera menu, run the Eye-Fi app, and within a few seconds you are looking at your photos on your device.

BTW, I also have the camera connection kit for the iPad which was useful when I had a 7D with CF only. But as you say, that only works with the iPad and is another piece of kit to get lost along the way somewhere.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's pretty much how I'd want to use the Eye-Fi for selective transfers only. I just ordered the 8GB Pro X2 from B&H for $81 ttl. Thanks all!