Canon Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E8A

I use it every day and am very pleased with its performance

The canon software that you must use with this leaves a lot to be desired. I wanted to use it for a larger preview of my photos as I shoot them instead of trying to see if everything is in focus on the tiny screen on the back of the camera. Problem is, you can't use the viewfinder on the camera while in use. You are forced to shoot in "live mode" which is not how I prefer to shoot. Seems as if this was only intended for use as a glorified remote trigger. If that's what you intend to use it for, it's rather expensive for that.

Would give 5 stars but the price is absolutely beyond ridiculous. But, it works as advertised.

This is the dedicated wireless transmitter for Canon EOS 1Dx Mark II. There are several variations of WFT-E8 (A, B, C, D, E), due to difference in Wi-Fi channels allowed in various parts of the world. I have been watching this item for a couple of years, but the price tag was intimidating and I was not able to find reviews with details on its network performance. For a while I used a home-made solution, utilizing a Raspberry Pi, which has a Wi-Fi radio and a wired Ethernet port, to bridge my Android phone and the camera (Canon’s Camera Connect app as well as any 3rd party apps that supports connection to 1Dx II over Wi-Fi work as expected, such as DSLR Controller on Android), but it is a bit bulky and it requires a separate 5V battery pack to power the Pi. Recently I came across a used WFT-E8A and bought it.It supports several ways to transfer data from camera to computers and phones, in general using it as a WFT server is the most robust: large video files (more than just a few GB) always lock up in the middle of a transfer in EOS Utility, even turning the power switch to OFF position does not get the camera back to life; this has nothing to do with the wireless transmitter as the same problem has troubled me on the wired 1Gbps network connection as well. This is what I found in my tests:Connection Type Tool Throughput (Mbytes/sec)Wired (USB 3.0 to laptop) EOS Utility. 36Wired (USB 3.0 to phone) DSLR Controller 28Wired (1Gbps link speed) WFT Server 18Existing 802.11ac Network WFT Server 10Camera AP Mode to laptop (manual) WFT Server 7Camera AP Mode to laptop (auto) WFT Server 2Camera AP Mode to phone (manual) DSLR Controller 7The fastest way to move data is over a USB cable, which is not surprising. I am a bit surprised by the throughput over the wired 1Gbps port, there has to be a bottleneck somewhere inside the camera to cut the transfer speed by half, relative to the USB throughput. When using the WFT-E8 device, the best performance is achieved when connected to an existing 802.11ac network. WFT-E8 is 1x1 (in contrast the upcoming WFT-E9 for 1Dx Mark III is 2x2, which is a multi-in multi-out device that can send 2 spatial streams and receive 2 spatial streams concurrently), with a maximum physical theoretical rate of 150 Mbps for 802.11n (2.4GHz, 40MHz channel, 400 ns guard interval) and 433 Mbps for 802.11ac (80MHz channel, 400 ns guard interval). These rates are for duplex operations, for data going in each direction it is only half of that, and in reality actual data rates depend on a number of factors and rarely hits 70% of the PHY rates - so realistically 150 Mbps (~19 MB/s) is about as fast as it could possibly get. WFT-E8 is able to deliver only half of that when connected to an existing 802.11ac network and even less when running in Camera AP Mode. The 802.11n performance is expected, the 802.11ac performance is slightly disappointing. One thing the user manual does not say is that when in Camera AP Mode, avoid the automatic settings (“easy connection”) because it runs 802.11n on 2.4GHz band with a 20MHz channel width (PHY rate is only 72.2 Mbps) - this is expected because it ensures the best reliability as the 2.4GHz band is very crowded, but it is also detrimental to performance. Choose to manually configure it, as indicated on Page 142 of the manual; what is not said in there is that one should pick a channel above 11 to force it onto the 5GHz band where it will run 802.11ac with an 80MHz channel width.My previous mobile phone, a Samsung Galaxy Note 4, had a 2x2 configuration when it came out in 2014. It’s mind-boggling that at such a high price point Canon has waited till 2020 to add MIMO to WFT-E9. That said, overall I like WFT-E8, and it is a much better integrated solution than both my homemade Ethernet/Wi-Fi bridge as well as a third-party device I purchased but later returned. I take one star off for the high price and lack of MIMO.

When I first got this I could make it work using access points but could not directly connect my Android phone to the camera. (iPhone may be different -- I don't know).It works great once you get it working.... see below for what I had to do.If you are trying to directly connect your phone to the camera (no access point), you may experience the same problem I did. To explain.... you start by setting the camera up for smartphone access, and then you go into WiFi settings on your phone and connect to the camera's WiFi. The phone however will check to see if it can connect to the internet using the camera's WiFi, which it can't. This means the Camera Connect app will not be able to use this WiFi connection to connect to the camera.You can fix this problem, and the fix is different, depending upon your phone. Some phone have a SmartSwitch option (in WiFi settings) which forces them to ONLY use connections that can access the internet and you need to turn this OFF.If you are running pure Android (e.g. a Nexus), you will get a warning on the phone once you connect to the camera's WiFi that says it cannot access the internet. If you tap on the warning, you will then be able to tell the phone to use this connection even though it does not have internet access.I'm giving this 4 stars because it was so difficult to get working and the lack of documentation from Canon. However I will give them praise for working with me until we figured this out (took both of to get it fixed!).If my explanation is not clear, let me know and I'll try and clarify.