HowTo: Recording images to remote PC over wifi

There was a recent thread where several people expressed an interest in this.

The wifi capabilities of the G7 allow it to be used in many ways, but the implementation is very clunky. This is a walk through of connecting to a PC over the network; this has a lot in common with other uses of wifi on the G7.

There are a few pitfalls along the way, as you will see.

Switch on WiFi - since this is likely to require subsequent use of a touchscreen, don't waste an external button on wifi, I use one of the touchscreen Fn buttons.

I use Fn6 for WiFi control.

Ignore the main display, and press DISP or "Select Wi-Fi Function".

Select "New Connection".

Select the function you want to use, setting up a network connection is the same for all of them. Here we'll use "Send Images While Recording".

Select the destination, in this case "PC". This can be any device that appears as a PC with shared folders on the network - a real PC, or a Wi-Fi enabled hard drive, or in this case I'll be connecting to a NAS.

We connect over the local network.

I usually use the "From List" option - WPS may be easier if your AP is easily accessible.

The camera brings up a list of APs, select the one you want to use.

You enter your key.

The pitfall here, is that for some completely unfathomable reason, the 4 buttons under the pointer ARE NOT TOUCH SENSITIVE.

You cycle through them using the button below and on the right. Case, numerals or symbols are in turn highlighted and available on the keyboard.

Enter the key for your AP and press "Set".

The camera will (usually) connect to the AP...

It won't say what it is doing, but the camera then searches the network for available shares. It probably won't find any, so cancel or wait for it to time out.

After cancelling there will be a delay.

Then an instruction to "Select the PC" (even though there is no PC to select) before bringing up the following dialogue screen.

Select "Manual Input"

Enter the IP address of the PC you want to use as your destination.

Please wait, connection here is usually reasonably fast.

A list of shares available at that IP address is presented. Select the one you want to use.

And wait.

If the share is password protected, you enter your username and password here.

The camera connects to the share and shows the current "sending" settings.

You can change these.

Once you are happy with the settings, select "Set" and you are good to go.

At this stage, a copy of each file is sent by Wi-Fi to the destination folder.

The structure of the folder at the destination appears like this:

The camera can only access the root level in any share, and creates its own file structure that users have no control over. A folder is created at the root level, based on the current date.

Files are put into the created folder directly, not in further subfolders.

Using Wi-Fi in this manner seems fairly useless - you have little control over file organisation, and the effect on battery life is dramatic.

It is worth noting that the same steps that you use to connect to the network are useful for other connections as well - for example, using the Image App for remote control can give you huge range since the camera and the remote control can be at physically opposite ends of the network.

There are some rudimentary network management options available:

While connected, you can select the Wi-Fi Fn icon to manage your connection.

You can terminate the connection, or on the second page, identify the camera IP address.

Select "Network Address"

The camera IP address is displayed, this is useful if you are using 3rd party Lumix control software.

You should also register a working connection to "Favorite".

Makes things easier to connect next time.

As you can imagine, writing out instructions for all the other available functions isn't something you'd want to do for fun, but the same general steps and pitfalls apply.

These cameras are very capable and can do a lot with Wi-Fi, but the implementation is extremely clunky.

It would put me off using WiFi to have to remember all these steps. I only use WiFi for remote control on my GX7 with ImageApp connecting me to my iPad. It's very easy compared to all this. And then  when I've finished shooting I transfer the images from the SD card to the iPad with the Apple connector. Sometimes the manual steps are just more practical.

Maggie