Nikon's WiFi Digicams
Category: Photography...
Posted Monday, September 12, 2005 at 05:35 AM [GMT-6]

This is a couple of weeks old but I'm just now stumbling across it. Nikon has unveiled a couple of digital cameras with built-in support for WiFi (802.11b/g).

The CoolPix P1 is an 8 megapixel camera priced around $550 and the P2 has a resolution of 5 mp; it's priced by Nikon at $400. According to the MacWorld article linked above, it takes about eight seconds to wirelessly transfer a photo from the P1 to a WiFi device like a notebook computer and about four seconds for a transfer from the P2. These times are presumably for an 802.11g connection.

The cameras permit the wireless transmission of photos in batch mode after several have been accumulated, or the camera can be configured to automatically transfer each photo immediately after it's captured. This would be a real boon to anyone taking large numbers of photos in a controlled environment where a wireless connection to a storage device could be easily maintained. I've done product photo shoots where I've filled up all my storage cards and had to break until I could transfer them to my laptop and clear the cards. This capability would have eliminated that problem.

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Comments

Dang....what will they think of next. That's pretty cool. Just hope all this WiFi stuff doesn't start frying brain cells. I don't have any extra to spare.

Posted by: Wallace-Midland Texas at September 12, 2005 11:12 AM

Cool idea. The pros should love that.

Posted by: shannon at September 12, 2005 12:53 PM

Shannon, it may still be a little slow for someone shooting massive numbers of photos. Eight seconds per photo adds a lot of time to the process. And neither of these cameras is pro-quality.

However, I fully expect that WiFi capability will eventually find its way into digital SLRs and other pro and "prosumer" cameras because it's an undeniably useful feature, even if you don't use it all the time.

Posted by: Eric at September 12, 2005 01:02 PM
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