Aputure Gigtube Wireless Review

• Connecting the transmitter to the camera hotshoe (there is no communication through the hotshoe its just a place to put the transmitter).
• Connecting the two cables (AV out and camera trigger cable) to the transmitter.
• Turning on the transmitter and external screen.
• Turning on the camera on and going to Liveview mode.
• Taking a picture.

Use

After turning on the unit we discovered that the Nikon D90 displayed the image on both the camera screen and the external screen while on the Canon 5D MK II only the external screen showed the image. There are relatively small number of options to choose from on the external display such as on/off (called “sleep”), brightness, contrast, auto-screen shutdown and on-screen massaging. Everything was very straightforward.

Operating range

The Gigtube Wireless official operating range is 100 meters (or around 330 feet). With almost every official wireless range specification we tested in the past there are official numbers and then there is reality. So when we came to test the Gigtube Wireless we were actually very pleasantly surprised. Up to about 50 meters (around 150 feet) the image reception on the external screen was flawless. Between 50-60 meters there were minor interference (the image jumped occasionally)  but otherwise it was fairly usable. Up until 90 meters (around 290 feet) it remained more or less usable with some interference and between 100-115 meters those interference became unbearable. Above 115 meters (377 feet) the image was lost completely.

Gigtube Wireless box (photo: Raphael Ben Dor)

A comment on WIFI

When we first received the Gigtube Wireless we noticed that each time we tried to use it – it interfered with our office WIFI (we have a good old faithful Linksys WRT54GL). However this did not happen in Raphael Ben Dor’s Studio or in the presence of other routers so it might have been an isolated incident (the unit can also switch channels to prevent this problem).

Battery life

When we first got the batteries we only had a short time to charge them and so they ran out of power very quickly (this was also reflected in the video below). However after we fully charged them for several hours (sadly there was no led indicator to tell us when the charging ended) we found out that for studio work at least the batteries last almost indefinitely (one charge lasted so far over 3 weeks). Obviously this might not reflect the battery life an outdoor photographer might encounter with a constant use several hours a day, but we can defiantly say that we were very pleased with the results in the battery life department (as long as you remember to fully charge them before each use). One last point  on this subject – the external display has a battery life indicator however we are not sure if it could be trusted since it still shows full battery after 3 weeks of use.

Gigtube Wireless parts (photo: Raphael Ben Dor)

Display

The Gigtube Wireless has a 3.5″ display – larger than any conventional DSLR display. Although 0.5 inch might not sound like much it did feel substantially larger than our Canon 5D MK II display. Resolution is a different matter. Aputure used a 230k resolution display this is relatively low in comparison to most current day semi-pro and pro-level DSLR cameras. We hope that a high-res 3.5″ screen will find its way into the next iteration of the device. The external screen also comes with a an extractable plastic sun protector. This is a nice touch especially  for outdoor photography but for real outdoor use (especially in the harsh Israeli sun) a more serious solution is required (to be honest from our experience no existing camera screen can handle direct sunlight very well either).

Build quality

Our only real complaint about the Gigtube Wireless has to do with build quality. It’s not that it is especially poorly built, but given the fact that it performs everything else so well we really would have loved to see a more robust device and not get that plastic feel (Raphael even suggested in the video that he would have liked to see a metal body to the device although knowing how the industry wok these days, this is probably unlikely). Don’t get us wrong here, the Gigtube Wireless worked fine on our test and did not break or anything of that sort but professional photographers are used to work with more massive equipment and the Gigtube Wireless simply didn’t feel as robust as it might have – hopefully this will be addressed in future versions.

Gigtube Wireless – long range (photo: Raphael Ben Dor)

Video review

To show the Gigtube Wireless and some of its capabilities we hooked up with professional studio photographer Raphael Ben Dor who prepared a 6 minute video for us (The video is in Hebrew but you can use English subtitles in Youtube):