Man I feel stupid!

Nikolai · August 28, 2005

One of the HUGE annoyances with my new Canon 20D was that
1) it required a whole bunch of s/w to install
2) pictures were grouped in hundreds, presenting folders named canon101, canon 102, etc. (or something to that extent)

Which effectively rendered my usual copying technique useless.
I could just sort by date and copy the new stuff to a HDD. First I had to figure out which folder the new picture resides, then copy the rest of that folder, then go to each folder with a bigger number and copy their contents individually..
Suffice to say it was a hassle. Such a hassle that I decided temporarily take a break from S*E coding and create a little tool that would simply do this for me.
I even started it.

Luckily, I decided to take a break, have a martini and watch one of my favorite stand-up comedians show, recorded on my PVR. While doing this I also decided to look through the software manual which came with 20D.

Guess what... It turned out that is you switch the camera to the PTP mode (XP and above) - none of the problems exists! You don't have to install any custom s/w. You don't need to dig through endless 100-split folders. Combination of XP, USB and PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) does its magic - you see a conventional drive and a plain list of pictures (well, you have to hit open or explore context menu first, otherwise it shows an empty drive - a bug I can live with).

It's still not as clean and totally explorer-compatible as, say, Sony's version - which is presented as a plain vanilla external drive to which all the typical file/folder operations apply, but it's much more convenient thing than a default "conventional" mode...

At least for me, that is...:-)

HTH

Sam · August 28, 2005

Nikolai,

I'm not sure about all the problems you were having, but here's what I do:

I have the old, out dated 300D, and a little utility / program called zoom browser came with it. I use this, and it goes right to the card reader, I select all, download. At that time I can create a new folder or select what folder I want the images to go to. Soo simple even I can do it. After I am sure the files have been coppied to thr HD, I delete the files from the CF card through zoom browser.

I know your a lot more computer savy than I am. I just thought it might help to see how an other deals with this.

Sam

Nikolai · August 28, 2005

Sam,
thanks for the input!

I still queered by the fact that Canon didn't have enough wits in its HQ to provide a standard explorer name extension to mirror the CF card inside. I mean - any second year college student can do that within a month.

As I said, PTP mode provides a relatively decent way to communicate with the camera on a day-to-day basis. It's just seems very strange that programming level for canon s/w is so out-of-date..

Cheers!

Nik

DRT-Maverick · August 28, 2005

I'm confused on exactly what you're trying to do, as I'm extremely tired and I've been getting ready for school (it starts tomorrow!) I'm not sure how canon works, but with a card reader, and with ACDSee, or CS2 (which has Adobe Bridge), you can just use those as a photo browser.

Nikolai · August 28, 2005

Don't be:-)

DRT-Maverick wrote:

I'm confused on exactly what you're trying to do, as I'm extremely tired and I've been getting ready for school (it starts tomorrow!) I'm not sure how canon works, but with a card reader, and with ACDSee, or CS2 (which has Adobe Bridge), you can just use those as a photo browser.

I'm trying to access data on CF withought extracting it from the camera, i.e. via 20D's USB connection. Had a bad expreinece with a Microdrive in the past, so I'm trying to keep the card in the camera unless I have to. Besides, the review says it's about 20% faster than going throught he most of the readers (can't comment on this, though..)

HTH

gluwater · August 30, 2005

Nikolai wrote:

I'm trying to access data on CF withought extracting it from the camera, i.e. via 20D's USB connection. Had a bad expreinece with a Microdrive in the past, so I'm trying to keep the card in the camera unless I have to. Besides, the review says it's about 20% faster than going throught he most of the readers (can't comment on this, though..)

HTH

I'm not soo sure about this. For me to copy a full 2GB CF using my $20 card reader it only takes 3 minutes. I've had problems copying directly from cameras in the past so I like the card reader, but to each his own.

Nick

jmh · August 31, 2005

I have a 20D too and I have had some timeout issues when using the USB connection and trying to do several things at once while downloading pictures from the camera. Also deleting pictures via the USB system leaves the folders, for some reason they are not erased even though you drag them to the trash. The pictures go away and the space is freed up, but the empty folders remain. My 4GB microdrive is MUCH faster in my media reader then the USB 2 interface.

:

Andy · August 31, 2005

gluwater wrote:

I'm not soo sure about this. For me to copy a full 2GB CF using my $20 card reader it only takes 3 minutes. I've had problems copying directly from cameras in the past so I like the card reader, but to each his own.

Nick

i use only card readers.

rutt · August 31, 2005

Yeah, there is only one time in the last 5 years when I actually hooked the camera up to the computer. Turns out there are a few custom settings for the 1D Mark II that can only be set via a computer hookup. Other than that, I only use card readers and really have never opened the sealed envelope containing the software which comes with the camera. Well, I got a Photoshop 5 LE with an Oly about 5 years ago. But that was it.

lynnesite · August 31, 2005

Card readers only from 2004 on, never had a CF failure but am also quite wary and won't use microdrives, too much to break. Both Firewire and USB. And no installed software from the manufacturer, the Mac OS just handles it with a choice of a dedicated app (Image Capture) or iPhoto, but I now use iView Media Pro.

Onrey · August 31, 2005

I use a sandisk reader with my sandisk cards and then locate my card reader thru windows explorer, wallla, then copy to my destination folder.

Man I feel stupid!

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