Wirelessly transmitting images from camera through wifi to computer

Projects General Guidance
1

Dear Arduino people,
I'm very new to this subject, and I'd like to find out if my idea is doable, or if I'm wishing for too much.

I'm a photographer, and I am shooting events, mainly. On these events, we are shooting onto memory cards, and then download the cards afterwards to the post processing person, and she does the selects from all the photographers, and then it gets given to the photoshoppers, and then they get printed. This whole process happens the same night as the event usually, so i'm trying to do everything possible to speed the whole process up. Let's say we are doing an event in a hotel, and by the morning all the hotel guests will have their pictures, in a nice photo folder slid under their door. They love this.

Now, one way that it could be faster, if all the photographer's pictures would download straight to the selecter's computer, and she would do the selects as they come in and pass them over to the photoshoppers. This would save us HOURS each event.

There is a simple solution, and it is to get insanely rich, and buy this: Nikon releases the Communication Unit UT-1, which supports more efficient image transfer over Ethernet and wireless networks for digital-SLR cameras | News | Nikon About Us for each photographer (there is 6 of us, as of right now).
Now, unfortunately, this device is $1,200 with wifi functionality, and we would not utilise it properly, and all we need to do is to reliably transmit all the photos to a folder on a computer via wifi as we shoot. we don't need live view streaming, and remote control, and all that jazz. we just need image transfer, fast and reliable. And cheap, if possible. Actually, cheap is the biggest thing here.

Now, my question is, if this would be possible to do DIY?
I mean, if the camera is connected to an USB shield, which is connected to an arduino board, which is connected to a wifi shield... but that's about what I can come up with.

I have a total willingness to learn everything I need to, to make this work, as long as it is possible to do. But if you guys, who have lots of experience on this subject, tell me that this is not a workable route, then I'd rather not start learning it intensively, but look for another solution. That's why, I'm asking you.

Please help me figure out if it's possible, or if I'm just dreaming big.

Thank you!

2

The big issue with this kind of setting is that arduino etc are poor little 8-bit chip, which means your solution is feasible but would be terribly slow.

Since you talk about high quality photographs, I presume you have Megabytes for each picture. Disregarding the need for some error correction mechanism on serial, you'd need 4 hours to transmit a 200MB file over a 115k serial line...

A wild idea from my side is to contact the people at http://electricimp.com/ and ask them if they could do what you want. Not sure if it is feasible, but that would be a smarter 32-bit chip in an SD form factor fitting directly inside your camera, and sending bluetooth. No ugly wires, power supplies etc. The imp is still in preprod AFAIK, but should be the best solution.

3

What about something like this http://www.eye.fi/

4

Thank you both for the replies.

Yes, the files would be big. From the Nikon D800 it's 75 MB for each RAW file. And the other cameras are approx. 12-15 MB each, so yes, it would take a little too long.

I just checked out the electricimp and it sounds interesting. I'll try to contact them to find out further details on this. It would work with every camera that has an SD slot, and as for the cameras with CF only, maybe I can use an adapter.

The eye-fi is unfortunately lacking the range that I need and it doesn't work with the CF adapter, I already tested this option, but thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks for the valuable info, and I'll continue my research.