Canon G9 and Macs

[Antares]

I recently purchased a Canon G9 to replace an old Olympus that was lost/stolen during a business trip last summer. The G9 will eventually be paired with an XSi, later this year. Let me say, I love the G9 so far. However....

* Now, I did a search on this site (along with the requisite Google search) and couldn't find an answer to this question....

When you connect a G9 directly to a Mac (Leopard) via USB, how do you get it to mount as a disk? If I put the card in a memory card reader, it mounts. But if I try to do it directly through the camera, it doesn't. In Tiger, I was able to do this with my old camera without any issue.

The only way I can get pictures off of the card is to go through Image Capture and "import" them. Or worse yet, iPhoto (the most annoying application on the Mac....yet I don't want to delete it, for some reason...even though I never use it). I want to simply be able to drag the files off of the card and into another folder, without having to take the card out of the camera.

Does anyone have an idea on how to this?

 

[termina3]

The only way I can get pictures off of the card is to go through Image Capture and "import" them. Or worse yet, iPhoto (the most annoying application on the Mac....yet I don't want to delete it, for some reason...even though I never use it). I want to simply be able to drag the files off of the card and into another folder, without having to take the card out of the camera.

So what program are you using to edit? Photoshop for all of 'em?

Yours sounds like a painful workflow.

 

[Phrasikleia]

I had this problem with my last Canon camera and ultimately just settled on always using a card reader.

 

[Dimwhit]

I have a G9 here at work and fiddled with it, but I can't find any way to do what you want.

Great camera, though!

 

[disdat]

Did you check Disk Utility to see if it was listed as a disk? It probably won't be, but it never hurts to check.

I never use my camera to download, so I don't know if any of them work or not. I have a G6 and XTi

Good luck

 

[Antares]

So what program are you using to edit? Photoshop for all of 'em?

Yeah, Photoshop.

 

[operator207]

I do not have a G9, but I do have an XTI. It "just mounts". It originally wanted me to use iPhoto, which I do not dislike, but I like significantly less than Aperture. I switched that via a popup in Aperture asking if I wanted to "open Aperture when a camera was plugged in."

I use Aperture for an archival tool mainly, and some editing, but use Photoshop CS3 for my main editing.

This same routine works fine with 2 Sony P&S Cybershots, and a really crappy (like $10 crappy) P&S camera my daughter uses.

Also, check out this thread on another forum:
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22432
Seems it may not have the ability to be a card reader which allows it to be mounted as a drive in OS X. However drivers seem to fix this.

Here is a link to the drivers for a G9: http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/c...ategoryid=144&modelid=15669#DownloadDetailAct

Please make sure I have the correct camera before you download these, I do not want to be part of the reason your camera stops working.

 

[jpetersohn]

A tale of two protocols....

The reason for this is quite simple: There are two ways that pictures can be transfered via USB to a host computer. The two methods are called PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) and MSC (Mass Storage Device Class).

The PTP protocol was designed to be used by applications to download pictures from a camera. This protocol was not designed to offer a mass storage style interface for operating system file system interfaces. The camera manages the content of the storage device, treating images (files) as objects that are manipulated using commands from the host computer.

The MSC class is used by almost all external mass storage devices (disks, flash memory sticks, flash card readers, etc.). The device exposes it's storage medium as storage blocks, independent of the content of those blocks. The host computer uses it's own file system driver (FAT/FAT32) to manage the content of the card. The device does not participate in the content management.

Some cameras (manufacturers) implement PTP, others MSC. Some (Nikon, I believe) implement both and the active one is chosen from the setup menu. I have a Canon S2 IS, it only supports PTP at this time.

It is possible to implement a file system type view on top of PTP, but this is not ordinarily supported by operating systems and generally requires some sort of add-on software.

 

[Antares]

Thanks, guys, for the links and the explanation of the two protocols. I never thought of it as PTP vs MSC. I guess the old Olympus supported both.

Image Capture isn't too bad. I'll just have to get used to it. The reason I don't want to go through a card reader is because I find it more of a hassle...having to take the card out of the camera and then put it back in again. I would rarely have pictures on multiple cards unless I was on a trip or gathering references or shots for a project.

 

[Earendil]

Thanks, guys, for the links and the explanation of the two protocols. I never thought of it as PTP vs MSC. I guess the old Olympus supported both.

Image Capture isn't too bad. I'll just have to get used to it. The reason I don't want to go through a card reader is because I find it more of a hassle...having to take the card out of the camera and then put it back in again. I would rarely have pictures on multiple cards unless I was on a trip or gathering references or shots for a project.

The only thing I'll add here, is that for my Canon 20D, and my particular card reader, the transfer is 50% to 100% faster via the card reader. This alone makes it worth my while when I'm tossing a gig or two onto my computer.
Also, I find the card reader helpful if I am using my laptop in an area where I don't have a safe place to set my camera down as well while it plugs up and downloads. A card reader leaves me the option to keep my camera safe in the bag while I just focus on my laptop. If I had a desktop this last point would be a bit moot.

 

[Baron58]

Thanks, guys, for the links and the explanation of the two protocols. I never thought of it as PTP vs MSC. I guess the old Olympus supported both.

Image Capture isn't too bad. I'll just have to get used to it. The reason I don't want to go through a card reader is because I find it more of a hassle...having to take the card out of the camera and then put it back in again. I would rarely have pictures on multiple cards unless I was on a trip or gathering references or shots for a project.

Post No. 8 got it right. I have a G9. I keep most of my photos in iPhoto. Otherwise, Image Capture is the perfect solution. I'm happy that it does not mount as a mass storage device, so the Mac doesn't litter it with invisible '.DS_Store' and '._filename' files.

 

[jerryrock]

I have been using the G9 with my Mac since September 07 and it is the Camera Window utility that downloads the files to the directory of your choice.

Canon Remote Capture DC is also a great program for controlling your G9 from the computer including live preview.

 

[jpetersohn]

PTP does have an advantage...

With the PTP protocol, only one software stack is modifing the storage card contents. With MSC, the software on the camera modifies the contents when it is writing the pictures, and the PC modifies the content if you delete the pictures on the card.
There have been instances in the past where the card became corrupted because of minor incompatibilities between the way the camera software and the PC modified the card contents.
PTP excludes this possibility since the contents of the card are only manipulated by the camera, on behalf of the PC (commands like get object, delete object, and the like).