I have been using it since a year with a Canon R5. I'm a Real Estate photographer and it's very handy to place my tripod closed to a wall to maximize the angle of view. Impossible if I have to be behind the camera to setup the shoot. The live view is very responsive on my Ipad Pro. The transfert of a 45Mpx RAW file is about 2 or 3s with a 5Ghz wifi. My clients can easily check the shoot on my Ipad. No complain with this product at the moment.
For slow moving tasks like real estate, no doubt this is a great product. However, transfer speeds and refresh make it impossible to use for things like a portrait photo booth or my location work with Volvo CE. It has its place, for sure, but certainly not for anything faster than what you describe.
@@DylanGoldbyPhotographer I'm perplexed. If Olivier TORRES is transferring a 45 megapixel file within 2 to 3 seconds, then how does it take so much longer for you to transfer a 102mp file? Based on his numbers, you should still be able to transfer these files within 10 seconds, max. Especially if you do compressed RAW files. Explain this for me since I have a GFX100S and need to make a decision on buying this device soon. The only thing I could come up with is that you might be pretty distant from the computer? Maybe the GFX100S isn't as compatible?
@@JonathanAcinity Hi Jonathan, I do wonder if it's not simply a case of perceived time versus measured. I did my tests using 5Ghz wifi at short range, 2.4Ghz at longer range, adhoc, and via a router. I timed each on a stopwatch and got nothing close to a few seconds. Even CamRanger themselves (camranger.com/knowledge-base/wifi-connection-speed/) state that throughput it 20-30Mbps (that's megabits, not megabytes). That equates to a maximum of 3.75MB/s and a compressed raw from the GFX is around 70-80MB. Simple mathematics should show you that it's not the fastest method on the planet. Perhaps contacting CamRanger to see if they've improved things? I'm back to using cabled transfers.
Thank you for your review Dylan. Your clear and concise video, tests and analysis was very helpful! Your dialoguie and pace were excellent. Happy there was no screeching soundtrack or music bed to distract from what you were saying. I have the original or first Cam Ranger purchased a few years ago, and though I liked the remote control facility for use with my Nikon cams, I found the transfer rate for raw files was the pits. And it used proprietory non-standard rechargeable batteries that did not last! So it mostly sat on the shelf. With the release of the Cam Ranger 2, I wanted to see if they had improved the transfer speeds, especially as my D850 creates large 45mb raw files. From your experience, and my similar applications, it seems the improvements have been marginal. And as you pointed out, rather than use industry-standard rechargeable batteries, they insist on selling proprietary batteries (2:29), with an unknown time before they expire. It seems this would not be the best use of my hard-earned money. How does that saying go - if it's not broken, don't fix it! Guess I will stay with my hard-wired tether solution. Cheers and thanks from Montréal.
Cheers, Frederic. That has certainly been my experience. I had high hopes for this being a freeing way to work for some of the times I need tethering, but it was very much a "one step forward, two steps back situation." I'll also be sticking with cables for now. Hopefully, there will be some genuine improvements in a future device.
Hi, Fred. I have the same kit you have (CamRanger 1 and a D850) and use it mostly on Real Estate photography. I has been difficult, specially in a HDR mode, to use this kit as it takes to long to show the files on my tablet (Amazon Fire). I have a iPad on the way and was thinking of buying the CamRanger 2, to try to fix this delay. Have you ever tried your kit (D850 + CanRanger 2) for HDRs (5 to 7 images)? Any advices would be very welcome! Thanks!
Always enjoyed your Fujifilm related content as they're practical and on-point. I'm looking at similar wireless solution too but haven't found one yet. Tether tool's Air Direct might be another alternative worth checking out but I've not looked into it in-depth. Keep up these great and practical videos!
Thanks, Jeff. I actually hadn't seen the TT Air Direct until after I got the CamRanger. Actually, it looks like the perfect solution. Thanks for the reminder.
@@DylanGoldbyPhotographer Was going to suggest the Tethertools AirDirect solution too, but had a quick look at the transfer speeds specs before commenting and it suggests that you are, in real life, only likely to get about 5.5MB/s transfer speeds using that system, though it does work with Fujifilm’s RAW files, both uncompressed and lossless compressed and it presents to the computer as if the camera is physically tethered via a cable (and works with all the Capture One functionality you would need it to. This did make me question whether transfer speeds of about 18-19 seconds for a GFX100S uncompressed RAW or about half that for a lossless compressed would still be quick enough for you? It does say on the site that for ‘larger files’ a cable tether is of course much better, though it is designed to be compatible with PhaseOne cameras etc so I guess it depends on your time pressure/patience. The problem is that most computers (say a MacBook Pro other than the very latest) even with 802.11AC WiFi that can give sometimes give you almost Gb/s speed will still take a while for files from the GFX100S at over 100MB - to 8x this figure to convert to bits from bytes. To get the very best transfer speeds on site you might be better of taking with you a high speed WiFi router with 802.11AC (or faster) to set up the link between your computer and the TT Air Direct (or CamRanger) device to give you the max possible transfer speed. You could even run a cable from your computer to place this router outside these reinforced concrete doors to give you line of sight connection? However at the end of the day, WiFi is still always going to be way, way slower than a cable method until technology in most routers and computers moves on quite a bit further
Hi, just for your info, the Tether Tools AIr Direct system has recently been discontinued. I used it for a while but eventually switched back to using cables as the transfer speeds were unreliable. One frame would transfer in 4-5 seconds while the next would take 20 secs...not particularly good when stood with a client.
Great review. I was considering purchasing one, but after several reviews I have to agree it isn’t ready for prime time. I don’t think I would like how bulky it is. Attaching to the hot shoe during a portrait shoot would take away my light trigger. Thanks for the thoughtful review
Thanks for the information. I can totally understand how it does not work for your work flow. This video did give me a good bit of great information that allowed me to see it would work for my workflow.
@@DylanGoldbyPhotographer I am strictly using it for real estate photography. I link up to ipad. I basically just need to control camera and be view high definition shots to make sure they are good to go. Pretty easy to control manual camera settings and use as a camera trigger. For that purpose alone it's been great. I am sure the better I become at my workflow the less need I would have for it, but for now it does save me some time and frustration during the edit process and helps seeing high resolution photos on a 12.9 inch screen. Little things pop out more than on a small camera screen.
Another good video, thanks! I just checked on my X100V, and that also has an option to turn USB power supply setting to off (setup menu - connection settings)
Nice! Too bad it's not on the supported list of cameras. Hopefully we can see this in other models and hopefully Fujifilm can find a way to move that menu item into the power options rather than connection options. ;)
It would interest me for long time timelapses (such as construction site monitoring). The LRT Timelapsepro Timer 3 works very well but unfortunately it is not controllable via a smartphone. This camranger 2 would allow me via a 4G LTE router to retrieve the images to check the exposure and eventually intervene to change settings without having to go each time on the site to make changes. Do you think that in this particular case it would be really useful?
Wow! That's quite a niche use! I'd actually recommend reaching out to Camranger themselves and running through your exact proposed use. I'm sure they'll be able to give you some recommendations on how to make it happen.
How did you get it to connect with your xt4? I can’t even get it to pair and camrangers instructions only seem to go up to xt2. They say to turn off WiFi connections but that is not even an option with the latest firmware…
I have the same problem with xt3. Tried all the connection settings. If I can get it to work at all it usually fails at some point. And battery life is a no go.
I have one. I don't think it is amazing for the gfx100s given the massive file size. It's still really sluggish to use the phone/ipad touch screen to AF when shooting remotely. but overall, I still like it.
Couldn't agree more. I'd love to see good wifi support in cameras. My guess is that battery life is affected too much at this point. Perhaps when graphene and other technologies make their way into our cameras, we'll start to see more robust wifi.
Still nothing unfortunately. Canon seems to have figured it out. Hopefully some of the third party manufacturers of these devices can get on the program.
Any time, brother! Yeah... one of the commenters here suggested the TetherTools wireless option. Looks like it would fit our uses much better if it can keep up.
