Nikon WT-5A Wireless Transmitter

Comments about Nikon WT-5A Wireless Transmitter:

I bought the WT-5A to leverage the web server based built in camera control, found on the Nikon D4. Although this unit performs as advertised, and is an amazing little addition to your camera kit, it could use some improvements. My number one complaint about this device is the reduced battery life of the D4, when activated. If you are expecting to have wireless camera controls and wireless tethering, you better have additional EN-EL18 batteries available; don't expect more than an hour shooting time. From my initial test, I only got about 45 minutes worth of shots before I had to swap batteries; and only a few images were chosen to transmit wirelessly using the Nikon software. When you set this thing up, be sure to read the instructions; you will save yourself lots of time if you do. The creation of wireless profiles is done most easily with Nikon's wirless transmitter utility, from your PC/MAC. You can create both ADHOC and Infrastructure based wireless profiles. You can specify your own IPs, or let the IANA self assigned IPs occur in the 169.254.x.x range. I would suggest specifing a fixed IP, as it makes conections from your iPhone/iPad much easier, but if you don't know networking, letting it auto-asign is also OK. My second largest complaint is the price. For a networking component, it is astronomicaly high!! So why did I buy it, you might ask...simple, I hate wires. I really think Nikon should have included their Camera Control software for free with this purchase, but they didn't! :-( My third complaint is the transfer times of RAW files are very long; although that may have been due to wireless interference, something I need to double check by changing the WiFi channel. My final complaint about the WT-5A is its placement on the D4. I have the ReallyRightStuff "L" bracket on my D4, and in order to install the WT-5A, I have to slide the "L" bracket to the extreme left to provide enough space between the bracket and camera. A simple solution for Nikon is to create a short coiled cord adapter to go with the unit to connect to either a camera strap adapter or a hot shoe adapter. This would then get the WT-5A off of the left side of the camera, and onto the hotshoe or a camera strap holder. I will be waiting very anxiously for the third party companies which reverse engineer this device and make it better! I suggest you do the same.