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I feel the same with my Nikon D5300. I bought it and saw "wi-fi" as a feature, so I assumed I can at least transfer photos over wi-fi from the camera to my comp

by bemmu 10y ago

I feel the same with my Nikon D5300. I bought it and saw "wi-fi" as a feature, so I assumed I can at least transfer photos over wi-fi from the camera to my computer, see each shot on the screen after taking it and perhaps use the camera as my computer webcam over wi-fi. Turns out you can do none of these things, at least with the default software. You can transfer photos to your phone. You can also use your phone as a remote shutter, which is kind of neat at first. You don't really end up using it though, as a dedicated 1 dollar remote shutter button is faster than fiddling with your phone wi-fi settings and launching a dedicated app.

totalZero 10y ago
You're 99% correct as far as I'm concerned, but.... how long does it take you to turn on wifi and start an app?
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  I don't have that camera but I assume it's the same as one I have. First I have to enable wifi on the camera, then wait maybe 10 seconds for the phone to connect to that network. Then find the camera app and open it, then it takes maybe 5 seconds to connect. The quickest I could probably do all this is maybe 15 seconds or so, but it's usually about 30 I'd say for me when I'm not racing or concentrating. 30 seconds is long enough for me to not bother using it most of the time. If the phone is already connected to a wifi network, you have to manually go into the wifi settings and change to the camera network. This is the part that I find most painful because usually when I'm outside, my tablet is tethered to the wifi network of my phone which I have to disable to be able to have the phone connect to the camera's wifi. My camera won't allow you to do any operations on the camera when you're connected to it's wifi though, maybe a highend SLR would allow you to have it's wifi network always available? The whole thing is pretty clunky, it is pretty cool to have a wireless (unfortunately low-res) remote viewfinder though, much better than using a timer and you can get the framing better.
  - totalZero 10y ago
    Yeah I agree it's definitely a pain in the ass if you're switching networks and you have a bunch of devices already connected. Side anecdote: It took two of my friends, a CS guy and a PhD student in MechE -- both at MIT -- thirty minutes to figure out how to set up the connection on the PhD guy's Canon so that they could send photos to a phone. I feel like they could hire two people with UI experience and drastically improve the whole system for less than a half million dollars.
    - brokenmachine 10y ago
      100% this! I work with some super-intelligent people (Professors, Doctors, etc), and it's amazing the things you find that they are unable to do, mostly because of crappy UI in software. There should be a lot more thought put into UI design. If the enduser can't work out how to use your software, your software is essentially useless (or possibly even dangerous). With apps/webpages all having so many options for flexible UIs now, there's too many options for programmers to create their own cryptic UI that nobody understands but them. I feel like in the old days things were much more predictable. Not that I'd like to go back to those days, but we've certainly taken two steps forward, one step back. One thing that especially irritates me is the trend for everything to be an icon, especially on phones. I do understand why this happens, but it has the effect that if you can't remember or don't know what a particular icon signifies, there's (usually) no way to hover to get a tooltip to tell you before you press it. I say "usually" because my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has what could have been a great feature that it senses when you finger comes near to the screen without pressing it, but unfortunately it only works in the stock browser and SMS app (both of which I don't use!). I guess Samsung has not released the API for it to work in other apps? It really could have changed how phone UIs work for the better. Edit: the hovering feature is called Air view. It's slightly creepy how it can sense your finger even when you're not physically touching the screen. I've read some webpages that said it should work in Chrome, but for me it only ever worked in the stock browser, but I just tested that and now that doesn't even work, although it still works in the stock SMS app. I think it may have broken since the Android 5.0 update. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Android 5.0.

by bemmu 10y ago

totalZero 10y ago

You're 99% correct as far as I'm concerned, but.... how long does it take you to turn on wifi and start an app?

brokenmachine 10y ago
I don't have that camera but I assume it's the same as one I have. First I have to enable wifi on the camera, then wait maybe 10 seconds for the phone to connect to that network. Then find the camera app and open it, then it takes maybe 5 seconds to connect. The quickest I could probably do all this is maybe 15 seconds or so, but it's usually about 30 I'd say for me when I'm not racing or concentrating. 30 seconds is long enough for me to not bother using it most of the time. If the phone is already connected to a wifi network, you have to manually go into the wifi settings and change to the camera network. This is the part that I find most painful because usually when I'm outside, my tablet is tethered to the wifi network of my phone which I have to disable to be able to have the phone connect to the camera's wifi. My camera won't allow you to do any operations on the camera when you're connected to it's wifi though, maybe a highend SLR would allow you to have it's wifi network always available? The whole thing is pretty clunky, it is pretty cool to have a wireless (unfortunately low-res) remote viewfinder though, much better than using a timer and you can get the framing better.
- totalZero 10y ago
  Yeah I agree it's definitely a pain in the ass if you're switching networks and you have a bunch of devices already connected. Side anecdote: It took two of my friends, a CS guy and a PhD student in MechE -- both at MIT -- thirty minutes to figure out how to set up the connection on the PhD guy's Canon so that they could send photos to a phone. I feel like they could hire two people with UI experience and drastically improve the whole system for less than a half million dollars.
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    100% this! I work with some super-intelligent people (Professors, Doctors, etc), and it's amazing the things you find that they are unable to do, mostly because of crappy UI in software. There should be a lot more thought put into UI design. If the enduser can't work out how to use your software, your software is essentially useless (or possibly even dangerous). With apps/webpages all having so many options for flexible UIs now, there's too many options for programmers to create their own cryptic UI that nobody understands but them. I feel like in the old days things were much more predictable. Not that I'd like to go back to those days, but we've certainly taken two steps forward, one step back. One thing that especially irritates me is the trend for everything to be an icon, especially on phones. I do understand why this happens, but it has the effect that if you can't remember or don't know what a particular icon signifies, there's (usually) no way to hover to get a tooltip to tell you before you press it. I say "usually" because my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has what could have been a great feature that it senses when you finger comes near to the screen without pressing it, but unfortunately it only works in the stock browser and SMS app (both of which I don't use!). I guess Samsung has not released the API for it to work in other apps? It really could have changed how phone UIs work for the better. Edit: the hovering feature is called Air view. It's slightly creepy how it can sense your finger even when you're not physically touching the screen. I've read some webpages that said it should work in Chrome, but for me it only ever worked in the stock browser, but I just tested that and now that doesn't even work, although it still works in the stock SMS app. I think it may have broken since the Android 5.0 update. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Android 5.0.