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I've got a setup where I have 3+ cameras with three photographers taking photos. I can only connect my computer to one camera directly via Wifi and download files via the EOS utility or Lightroom.

I'm trying to figure out a good way to be able to connect to all the cameras and download the photos (preferably as they are taken) from all the cameras in the session.

Is there any way to do this at all?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Does the computer connect directly to the camera WiFi? Or does it work some other way, such as through a network? Would using a separate USB WiFi dongle for each camera work? Would the software even support connecting to more than one camera at once? \$\endgroup\$
    – xiota
    Apr 7, 2019 at 1:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ So the way it works now is that I can connect directly to the camera's wifi and run the EOS utility and download the files from that camera. I then would have to change to the next camera and connect via WiFi and do the same thing over again. I'd have to do this for every camera for every session. I don't think I can connect to multiple networks on MacOS even if I have multiple wifi dongles, because the software won't support it. \$\endgroup\$
    – slooker
    Apr 7, 2019 at 1:35
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    \$\begingroup\$ You could try using cheap cellphones (or laptops or whatever) that dump images into a shared folder on the (main) computer. Each camera would connect via its own cellphone (or laptop). \$\endgroup\$
    – xiota
    Apr 7, 2019 at 1:37
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    \$\begingroup\$ I wonder if MacOS has a way to change networks via the command line. Then you could script the entire sequence of switching cameras and downloading pictures. \$\endgroup\$
    – xiota
    Apr 7, 2019 at 1:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ I didn't think about that. That's a great idea. Let me see if I can easily do that. Thanks! \$\endgroup\$
    – slooker
    Apr 7, 2019 at 1:44

2 Answers 2

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I'm trying to figure out a good way to be able to connect to all the cameras and download the photos (preferably as they are taken) from all the cameras in the session.

Here are two options:

Use SneakerNet. You can buy a pack of 10 16GB SD cards for less than $60. Give each photographer two or three cards. After they've been shooting for a short while, have them switch to new cards and hand you the ones they were using. You then download the images to your Mac using an SD reader, delete the images from the card, and hand the cards back to the photographers. By that time they'll have been shooting on their second cards for a little while, so have them swap out the cards and repeat the process. Downloading the images from the SD cards will be faster than doing it over WiFi.

Use Canon Image Gateway. The 6D doesn't have to act as a WiFi access point itself -- it can connect to your existing WiFi network. And it doesn't have to connect to your computer -- it can instead upload photos to online services via Canon Image Gateway. You could have all three cameras set up to upload photos to the same account, so that they'd all be collected in one place for you. There are a lot of drawbacks with CIG though -- the photos have to be fairly small JPEGs, and you have to select and send them one at a time. It works fine for sharing a handful of photos when you're away from your computer, but at least as implemented in the 6D it's not a great solution for sharing a lot.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ So this is for a group of friends that photograph at conventions. SneakerNet isn't a good option because if an SD card goes missing, they can't retake those photos. Canon Image Gateway isn't a good option because of the fairly small jpeg size. I'm a fairly technical guy, so I'm okay with doing some work to get it working, but I need to find a better option. :/ \$\endgroup\$
    – slooker
    Apr 7, 2019 at 15:52
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    \$\begingroup\$ Keep in mind that there's often so much radio traffic flying around in a convention hall that connecting to a 6D set up as a hotspot is going to be pretty unreliable, and putting the cameras on the convention WiFi also may not work very well. If you're really worried about losing a card, then you could always go to the photographers and copy the card on the spot. There are hard disks that can automatically back up cards, or you could use a MacBook or iPad. Maybe give each photog a camera connection kit for their iPhone and an app that reads the photos and uploads them. \$\endgroup\$
    – Caleb
    Apr 7, 2019 at 16:14
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Assuming all the photographers are in the same vicinity, and stationary, you could simply tether each camera to a laptop running its own copy of Canon EOS Utility. The images can be downloaded to a folder that is shared (or to a simple NAS), allowing you to simply copy the images in the folder onto your laptop and import into Lightroom in batches. (Lightroom doesn't support shared databases, so no way to share Lightroom repositories easily).

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