Connecting an Iphone to the Nikon D7200

Fri 18 August 2017

After fairly extensive research on the Internet, I still couldn’t find what was going wrong when trying to get the D7200 to connect to a Iphone. Here is how I finally got them working together - I hope it helps!

Background

Yesterday we were staying with Ed Buziak - helping out in the garden mainly and just enjoying the scenery (and the company!).

Ed is an artist and a photographer for a living, and had just gotten a new Nikon D7200. He bought it mainly for the fact that it was WiFi enabled, which would let him react instantly to anything newsworthy he saw (take a photo, transfer to his phone, send to the studio).

It turned out that his Iphone (which he had bought just to use with this camera), wouldn’t connect to the camera. After some investigation, I finally got it working! I figured I’d share how I did it in the hope that it helps someone else.

Method

  1. Get your hands (temporarily) on an Android phone. Beg, borrow or steal one from a friend or family member - as long as you can install apps on it.

  2. Install Nikon’s WirelessMobileUtility app on the android phone. You might have already installed this on your Iphone (and you will need it later), but we need it on the Android phone at the moment.

  3. Turn on the D7200, and let it start up.

  4. Press the D7200’s MENU button, and scroll down to the WiFi settting.

  5. Press the OK button to go into the WiFi settings, then make sure that WiFi is turned on. It might take a second or two to turn on, so there’s no need to rush to the next step.

  6. On the Android phone, go into Settings. Usually this can be done by swiping down on the top bar and looking for a gear icon.

  7. Tap on Wireless Networks (or WiFi - whatever the phone calls it), and make sure that it’s on.

  8. You should see a list of available networks, and hopefully one of them starts with “NIKON”. If you see more than one, you will have to go onto the D7200 and, in the WiFi settings look at the “View SSID” option - you want to connect to that one. If you don’t see any WiFi networks starting with “NIKON”, make sure you’ve done the first few steps correctly, and check the “View SSID” in the D7200’s WiFi settings - you want to connect to whatever name shows up there.

  9. Ok! Launch the WirelessMobileUtility app, on the Android phone! Hopefully, it should all work. You should be able to take photos through the Android phone, and see all the photos on the camera.

  10. In the app, navigate back to the homescreen, where you have the option to either “Take photos” or “View photos”. Looking at the top-right corner of the screen, you should see a blue gear - press it!

  11. You’re in the settings now, and you want to look for the “Wireless Mobile Adapter Settings” section. Find and tap on that.

  12. Optional: At this point, you can change the name of the camera’s wireless network from the default “NIKON [really-big-long-number]” to something more sensible, like “Oliver’s Nikon”.

  13. Tap “Authentication/encryption”, and in the popup, select “WPA2-PSK-AES” and tap OK.

  14. Select “Password”, and in the popup enter an easy to remember password. It has to be over 8 characters long. Press “Save”.

  15. Press the back button on the phone, until it pops up asking you if you want to save your changes. Of course we do! Press “Ok”.

  16. Okay, you’re done with the Android phone. You can uninstall the WirelessMobileUtility app (if you want to), and give the phone back to whoever it came from.

  17. On the Iphone now, make sure you have the WirelessMobileUtility app.

  18. You’re nearly there now! Go into the “Settings” on the Iphone, and then the WiFi Settings.

  19. Connect to the D7200’s network, which will start with “NIKON”, unless you changed it in step 12.

  20. Close settings and open the WirelessMobileUtility app - this time on the Iphone. It should all work! Hooray!

So what was the problem?

As far as I can tell, the Iphone doesn’t like connecting to the unsecured WiFi network that the D7200 sets up. By changing that to a secured network, the Iphone can then connect and the app can do it’s magic.

The real problem is that you can’t change the network security setting on the camera itself, but must first connect to it via WiFi! A rather ridiculous design that leaves people without access to android phones out of luck.

Anyway, I hope that helps someone!