Customer Reviews

Nikon WT-4A Wireless Transmitter for Nikon D700, D3 and D300 DSLR Cameras

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Manual is a little confusing, but set up is really easy. Transfer works great. Make sure to buy a battery/charge, not included. Does eat batteries pretty fast and gets warm. Battery would last me 3-4 hours of shooting.

It is expensive but does work very well.

The use of wireless upload to on-line sites is nothing new.
By now you would have thought that Nikon would have it perfected, but as usual they are late to the game and fell a bit short with the WT-4.

For Studio work it's little more than average in performance.
Transfer rate is almost laughable when compared to what is on the market for wireless transfer.
It's very stable when in a controlled environment like a studio, but this is almost pointless when all you need to do is swap memory cards and you're ready to go rather than wait for the transfer to complete.

Then there's the never-ending battle with the interface cable that always seems to be in the way.
The cable loosens mainly because it's only a USB connection that barely snugs into it's port. Making this more secure would be a major improvement. I would even be willing to put up with the slow speed if this were a bluetooth link to the camera. (*hint* *hint* *hint*)

As was pointed out in one of the other reviews, the manual is all but useless, therefore, your best option would be to go on line and search for how to program this unit for use. (The manual is obviously a poorly translated version of the Japanese one.)

If this were married to a 4G network and made less of a beast when it comes to power (yes, one battery will last about 1 hour with light to moderate use,) And this could easily be a world beater, but alas, it's not much more than an expensive toy.

It's handy, but not even close to an improvement for your productivity. If Eye-Fi ever releases an Ad-Hoc mode for it's Wireless card, the WT-4 will go the way of the woolly mammoth.
TFC

OK, now that it is up and running, I love it. But be warned, I am a geek and thing thing took a few years off of my life. After spending more than 12 hours trying to get it to talk to my MacBook Pro, I tried it on my wife's PC and it was running in less than 30 minutes. Downloaded the latest drivers and presto, instant wireless network. But then I went back to my mac. After a few more hours I managed to get them talking. Now I love life. But here is the biggest problem I have had. With the latest version of OS 10. (I have OS 10.5.5) the manual is useless. And you will have no better luck on Nikon's web page for support. The instructions for how to set it up differs on step 3 and never returns to the road the manual takes. You will have to blaze your own trail. So if you are running windows or an older version of Mac, you should be fine. But if you have a newer version of a Mac, you better know the ins and outs of networking or it will be painful. I am a geek and it was painful for me.

That said, once it is running, I have found it to be awesome. The time it takes to download is not as slow as I had expected. I am using a Nikon D300. You can shoot in the highest res Raw + Jpg and it will keep up unless you just fire several shots each second. I tend to shoot about one shot every second and it keeps up pretty good. So if you want to get instant file movement from your camera to to your computer, or if you want the security of knowing that there are two independent storage devices loading your images, this is the way to go.

I picked up a WT-4A on Oct 17, 2008. The Firmware in my unit was 1.0. A search of the Nikon web page http://support.nikontech.com/ with a search for WT-4 got me to the information to do several upgrades. I updated the WT-4 firmware to version 1.1. My Nikon D3 was already running firmware 2.0. I downloaded updates for the WT-4 Setup Utility (version 1.1.0) and Thumbnail Selector (version 1.10).

Configuring and setting up the WT-4 to work with my wireless network in "infrastructure" mode was easy. The camera functioned just fine using Nikon Camera Control Pro 2.2. Using tripod live mode I was able to make focus and exposure adjustments from the computer and take pictures easily. It takes a while to transmit the raw images to the computer, so taking rapid sequences is not possible. Downloads seem to take 5 seconds or so, but I didn't time the download exactly.

I was not able to get Thumbnail Selector to work at all with my setup. Thumbnail selector launches just fine, the connection to the D3 works just fine. But no thumbnails appear in the application even though I can look at pictures stored on the camera using the camera's functions to view stored pictures.

I wonder if this is a function of Apple's software. Aperture 2 is unable to view Nikon D3 thumbnails, either, when the camera USB setting is set up as a camera, rather than as auxiliary storage.

So if you need a way to remotely view, focus, and expose using the WT-4A as your wireless line to your camera, this is a great device. But there are still some problems with the software for other features, namely, the Thumbnail Selector application, which doesn't work with my setup.

The range on this one is simply amazing. For something working on the wireless standards, the range is very impressive.

The setup is short of a nightmare. Not for the technological newby!

My setup is through Vista Ultimate/Win 7 and I am advanced when it comes to computers and it does cause me to pull my hair out.

Again, great when working, very frustrating in the setup.

Bought this only to find out Nikon does not support ANY network protocols under Leopard. They are working on an update. I only found this out afterwards had to go to their support site to understand why the program kept crashing. ONLY on the software update site, way down at the bottom does it say "Not compatible with Leopard". Mac users please read the fine print on compatibility. Only compatible up to 10.4.11 You would think Nikon would be able to release a new product capable of using the current operating system. This was release after Leopard was on the street. Another kick in the teeth for Mac users. Make sure the Leopard update has been release before you buy!!!!!