Please note that this method and device still work with Windows 7 (or at least it does with my EOS 5D Mk II and Windows 7 on my PC). However, I did have to install the LATEST version of EOS utility. The original version I had on disk did not recognise the camera for remote shooting, so if you have this problem visit the Canon site and get the Canon EOS utility updater.
Arising out of a comment submitted on the article below, I’d like to make it clear that I don’t claim this as an original idea. Equally I don’t think anyone should or can claim it as an original idea – the concept is too basic to claim originality. The basic principle is replacing a wired USB connection between your camera and PC with a wireless one. That’s the whole point of wireless USB – isn’t it? 
This is something I find particularly useful for teaching purposes but it’s more generally useful for studio work. I’m talking about having a photo taken by your camera immediately transferred wirelessly from your camera back to your PC so that you can see it a decent size instead of relying on the LCD screen on the back of the camera.
The official Canon solution is to buy their WFT-E4 II wireless file transmitter … but this will set you back approx St£600 which I think is a bit steep. You can always go for the standard wired connection but this is quite limiting as you have to have a cable trailing between camera and PC which limits your freedom to move around.
Disclaimer: this worked well for me with my Canon EOS 5D (and should work with any tetherable camera) but it’s a DIY project so it comes with no guarantees. The main issue might be getting your PC to recognise the wireless USB transmitter/receiver but provided you follow the instructions that come with the transmitter/receiver and you have a ‘normal up-to-date’ PC, this should not be a problem.
The DIY solution is really quite simple in principle but so far, finding suppliers of the right USB bits in Europe has been the difficulty. However, after dealing with one very misleading supplier in the UK whom I intend to name when I get time and wasting the best part of St£80 which they would not refund for a return, I finally found what I was looking for from a German website. Unfortunately, their website is in German only but fortunately I had enough rusty German to successfully order it. I think even without German you would be able to stumble your way through the order process.
So what’s the solution? What do you need?
Well, what you need is a wireless USB transmitter/receiver pair. For whatever reason, (at the time of writing anyway), these are very hard to find in Europe. You can get them in the US no problem. In Europe, they seem to largely only be available with connections for VGA video transfer rather than for generic USB connectivity which is what you need for your camera. Eventually I found one from the German supplier I referred to. Here’s the link:
Wireless USB transmitter-receiver
It’s only €44 (at the time of writing) but came to €70 odd after tax and shipping to Ireland. Still a bargain compared to the Canon St£600 solution. Here’s a picture of the adapter set:
So, once you have this adapter set, what’s next? Well you have to do a bit of wiring and soldering but nothing too difficult.
The problem is that wireless USB technology is quite power intensive. For this reason, the camera transmitter end requires a mains power adapter. The camera transmitter end is the item on the left in the diagram above sitting in a circular docking pod. This docking pod requires a power source. Having to plug the pod in defeats the purpose of having a wireless connection back to your PC. You are still constrained by having a mains power connection.
So to get around this, what I did was solder two wires directly to the power connection points inside the device transmitter and solder the other end of these to a 4x AA battery holder compartment (think I got mine from Maplin or maybe Ebay – costs about €1.00).
Four rechargeable 1.5V AA NiMH batteries will give you a voltage of approx 6V when fully charged. This is 1V more than the 5V supply the device is intended to use but it doesn’t seem to do it any damage. ** You need decent power ratings on your rechargeable batteries – e.g. 2500mAH or higher. Please also note that if you buy new NiMH batteries you generally need to charge and discharge them several times before they work efficiently. They discharge very quickly until they have gone through several charge-discharge cycles. This is just the chemistry of NiMH devices and unfortunately you can’t get AA form factor in Li-Ion batteries which don’t require these getting up to speed charge-discharge cycles.
Battery Connections
Close-up Connections
So where was I ? Yes, now I remember. You solder a connection from a 4x AA battery holding compartment to the power connections inside the camera-end remote transmitter device. See my photos as a guide. Be very careful with your soldering. You don’t want to create short-circuits. After soldering the wires, I used a Stanley knife (be careful not to cut yourself) to cut a notch in the base of the device to allow the cables to feed out.
BEFORE making your soldering connections, I strongly advise that you ‘install’ the wireless USB transmitter/receiver using the supplied mains supply for the remote device transmitter. I suggest connecting it to a mouse for this ‘installation’ phase. Follow the instructions that come with the kit to do the installation – comes with a CD and drivers.
Once the PC recognises the transmitter/receiver you can then start hacking at it.
Finished Assembly
I haven’t figured out an elegant way to stick it all together yet. For the moment, I use the USB cable that connects from this contraption to the camera to tie the whole thing together. I’ve also occasionally used black insulating tape. Neither solution is very elegant. In each case I have attached the finished assembly to the camera strap for support. I’m sure it would be possible to somehow mount it on the hotshoe of the camera which would be more elegant. However, I haven’t had time to figure out a good way of doing this yet.
Once you have a connection from your AA batteries to the remote transmitter, you are ready to go. You need to connect the remote device to the USB out terminal on your camera and connect the wireless USB PC receiver to the PC. Then use your normal Canon software to take tethered shots as if you were using a conventional wired tethered connection. The s/w doesn’t actually know you are using a wireless connection. It thinks it is a wired connection but ignorance is bliss … isn’t it?
There is also a way of installing a short command to get your PC to automatically use your favourite image display programme on the PC to display the image instead of just the Canon s/w (assuming it’s Canon s/w you are using – I use Canon EOS Utility). I’ll put the details in the next few days.
I’m afraid I have to dash now. I’ll post an update with some photos of connections etc. and details of the s/w and script in the next few days.
Back soon!
Here are some of the order details in case the German helps you work your way through the website I bought from.
Bestellübersicht:
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Anzahl Bezeichnung Einzelpreis Gesamtpreis
1 Olidata – Wireless USB 44,47 EUR 44,47 EUR
Adapter Set
WUSBKIT01
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Zwischensumme: 44,47 EUR
Versandkosten (Versand EU Länder – Paypal): 25,90 EUR
Enthaltene MwST. 19%: 11,24 EUR
Endsumme: 70,37 EUR
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Hey.
I have been looking for a budget version of the WFT for quiet some time. Thanks for posting this… Im going to give it a go.
Vince
Good luck with it. If you get really stuck and need a hand, contact me via peter@livingimages.ie
You forgot to mention you will need a mini usb to normal usb adapter too.. I am also looking in to doing this for my 7d at my studio. Also what I am considering is ripping the transmitter to bits, buying one of the cheap battery grips, cutting off the bit that goes in to the camera so that I can use the battery as normal in the camera and using the battery power from the grip to power to usb adapter..
What was the transfer speeds like? I am currently using wired tether using the eos utility and its cool but i have to wire it through the roof of my studio so no one trips over it.
Thanks for your comments Barry. Regarding transfer speeds, it takes a couple of seconds for highest quality jpeg on a 5D Mark II. Raw would obviously take longer. When I get a chance, I’ll post some more ‘scientifically measured’ data but I’m tied up for a while so I won’t do that immediately. I don’t think it’s all that much slower than the direct tethered approach. I personally use it mainly for teaching purposes rather than normal in-studio use. For in-studio use, it’s probably best for checking initial lighting at the start of each new lighting setup or pose rather than for checking every individual shot. I like your idea of modifying the battery grip.
Regarding your reference to a mini usb to normal usb adapter, the transmitter bit that attaches to the camera comes with a standard PC rectangular-shaped USB connector (referred to as type-A). The standard USB transfer cable that comes with Canon cameras can then be used to connect this to the camera so hopefully you don’t need any extra cables or adapters that you don’t already have. On the PC-receiver side, the receiver plugs directly into the PC. If I’ve misunderstood your point here, let me know. Regards, Peter.
Well, a hotshoe wire can be bought from a camera store. also did you consider a plug instead of hard-wiring. the other thing is the canon 5d usb communication is no longer supported for windows 7 you must use your computers wi-fi connection. thus the wi-fi update for the 5d camera. which I don’t know if that works either.
Hi Philip, thanks for your post. Here is my experience with Windows 7. When I connected by Eos 5d Mk II, it was automatically recognised by the PC. It was listed as a ‘portable device’ in the ‘Computer’ view. I could double click on it to go in and explore folders on the compact flash card.
However, when I tried the Canon Eos Utility, the button for remote shooting was ‘greyed out’ and didn’t work …. even when I connected the camera directly to the PC rather than via my wireless gizmo. The solution to this was to update the Canon EOS Utility programme. Once I did this, the tethering worked with both a direct connection to the camera and also via the wireless adapters. (Note: I had also reinstalled the original mini disk drivers that came with the Olidata WUSB host and device adapters and even though they were pre-Windows 7, they seemed to install fine. I followed the recommended sequence of first installing the PC host adapter, then the device adapter (directly connected to the PC) and then the device adapter again (this 2nd time via the remote dock). So, it’s all working fine for me with Windows 7. My best guess is that you possibly haven’t got the latest version of the EOS utility s/w. At the time of writing, this can be downloaded from:
Regarding some of your other comments:
I’m not sure what you mean by considering a plug instead of hardwiring. I presume you mean for example getting a cable that terminates in the type of connector that comes with the built in mains adapter and wiring such a connector to the battery source instead of having to solder to the board directly. I did think about this and the only reason I didn’t do it is that the only connector that was the correct diameter that I could easily lay my hands on was the one that came attached to the power supply for the device adapter and I was afraid to break into it in case the whole thing didn’t work and I had to go back to relying on a mains supply.
Based on my experience with the 5D and Windows 7, I have to disagree with you that the usb communication is no longer supported.
Hope some of this helps.