Driver to drive?

[Baron]

John Larkin scribbled thus:

I got a Fuji AX650 as a cheap vacation type camera.

My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any
PC as a generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one
needs a driver install to work on any PC. Once that is done, images
will only open into the stupid Microsoft media viewer. You can't even
drag/drop a jpeg file into Irfanview. Why would they do that?

Back it goes.

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory
stick interface on any PC?

I just plug my Fuji into the USB port and turn the camera on. Works
just fine. My old Polaroid won't read the memory into USB unless its
turned off !

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 07:44:50 +0000 (UTC), mroberds@att.net wrote:

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highnotlandthistechnologypart.com> wrote:
My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any
PC as a generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one
needs a driver install to work on any PC.

The USB digital cameras I've used from the mid-00s just appeared to the
PC like a USB flash drive. You could also take out the card, stick it
in a card reader, and see it as a FAT32 filesystem with JPEGs on it.

I have a Nikon Coolpix L20 from about 2009 that implements "Picture
Transfer Protocol". When connected to a PC, it doesn't show up like a
USB flash drive. You need a program that speaks PTP to retrieve the
files from it. I use gtkam on Linux, and I think Microsoft's "Scanner
and Camera Wizard" on XP (or whatever it morphed into on later Windows)
can do it as well. gtkam gives me a "directory tree" view, optionally
with thumbnails. I can select a bunch of pictures and say "download
these", and a little while later I have a bunch of JPEGs sitting on my
hard drive.

I also have an L20. It does appear as a memory-stick device, but the files can
only be opened in the camera folder using the awful Windows Media Viewer. They
are jpegs, but Irfanview can't open them unless I first copy them to a folder on
my hard drive. I asked Irfan about that, and he doesn't understand it either.

I also have the option of pulling out the SD card and sticking it into
a reader. It has to be an SDHC reader for 4 GB or greater SD cards
(and, I guess, an SDXC reader for 32 GB or greater SD cards). When I do
that, it shows up as a plain old FAT32 filesystem with JPEGs on it.

So: You might look for a camera that *doesn't* speak PTP, or that can
have it turned off.

Something else to look out for: Because the entire world could read and
write FAT32, Microsoft introduced a new proprietary and patented
filesystem, exFAT. You have to pay protection money to Microsoft to
implement it, at least in the US. Some newer digital cameras (2012-up)
may want to use this format on their cards. If you always use the
camera as the card reader, you will be OK. If you only ever plug the
card directly into recent Windows (Vista and up, XP with a patch) or OS
X (10.6.5 and up) machines, you will be OK. If you want to plug the
card into something else, you may have trouble.

I figured that Microsoft was involved in this mess somehow.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 08:12:10 -0400, Martin Riddle <martin_rid@verizon.net>
wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:12:29 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

I got a Fuji AX650 as a cheap vacation type camera.

My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any PC as a
generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one needs a driver
install to work on any PC. Once that is done, images will only open into the
stupid Microsoft media viewer. You can't even drag/drop a jpeg file into
Irfanview. Why would they do that?

Back it goes.

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?

My little Canon works just like a USB stick.

Cheers

My older Fuji does too, which is why I bought another one.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 04:35:49 GMT, Wayne Chirnside <w.faux@doentexist.com> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:50:28 -0700, Don Lancaster wrote:

On 3/23/2014 7:12 PM, John Larkin wrote:
I got a Fuji AX650 as a cheap vacation type camera.

My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any
PC as a generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one
needs a driver install to work on any PC. Once that is done, images
will only open into the stupid Microsoft media viewer. You can't even
drag/drop a jpeg file into Irfanview. Why would they do that?

Back it goes.

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory
stick interface on any PC?




EyeFi simplified things for a while, but I seem to have problems with it
lately.

For a while there, you simply set most any camera near a USB port and
the uploads were automatic.

Sir: thank you VERY much for your books TTL Logic and CMOS logic.
They introduced me to digital electronics as well as my eagerly looking
forward to your section in Popular Electronics.

just stumbled in and recognized your address.

Active Filter Cookbook is great.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation

 

[Neon John]

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:12:29 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?

All my Canons operate like that. My current main camera is a
PowerShot SX150is. Has superb glass and an excellent macro mode.

John

John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.fluxeon.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:20:01 -0400, Neon John <no@never.com> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:12:29 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:


Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?

All my Canons operate like that. My current main camera is a
PowerShot SX150is. Has superb glass and an excellent macro mode.

John

John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.fluxeon.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

Thanks; I'll try a Canon next. Maybe an older one.

Hey, did you get the sand?


--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 07:44:50 +0000 (UTC), mroberds@att.net wrote:

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highnotlandthistechnologypart.com> wrote:
My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any
PC as a generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one
needs a driver install to work on any PC.

The USB digital cameras I've used from the mid-00s just appeared to the
PC like a USB flash drive. You could also take out the card, stick it
in a card reader, and see it as a FAT32 filesystem with JPEGs on it.

I have a Nikon Coolpix L20 from about 2009 that implements "Picture
Transfer Protocol". When connected to a PC, it doesn't show up like a
USB flash drive. You need a program that speaks PTP to retrieve the
files from it. I use gtkam on Linux, and I think Microsoft's "Scanner
and Camera Wizard" on XP (or whatever it morphed into on later Windows)
can do it as well. gtkam gives me a "directory tree" view, optionally
with thumbnails. I can select a bunch of pictures and say "download
these", and a little while later I have a bunch of JPEGs sitting on my
hard drive.

I also have the option of pulling out the SD card and sticking it into
a reader. It has to be an SDHC reader for 4 GB or greater SD cards
(and, I guess, an SDXC reader for 32 GB or greater SD cards). When I do
that, it shows up as a plain old FAT32 filesystem with JPEGs on it.

So: You might look for a camera that *doesn't* speak PTP, or that can
have it turned off.

Something else to look out for: Because the entire world could read and
write FAT32, Microsoft introduced a new proprietary and patented
filesystem, exFAT. You have to pay protection money to Microsoft to
implement it, at least in the US. Some newer digital cameras (2012-up)
may want to use this format on their cards. If you always use the
camera as the card reader, you will be OK. If you only ever plug the
card directly into recent Windows (Vista and up, XP with a patch) or OS
X (10.6.5 and up) machines, you will be OK. If you want to plug the
card into something else, you may have trouble.

Matt Roberds

I wonder if the cam would behave better if I plugged in a card that was
formatted with the old FAT32. The card that I bought with the camera is likely
the new Microsoft-locked format.

Too late; it's scheduled for pickup.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation

 

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highnotlandthistechnologypart.com> wrote:

I also have an L20. It does appear as a memory-stick device, but the
files can only be opened in the camera folder using the awful Windows
Media Viewer. They are jpegs, but Irfanview can't open them unless I
first copy them to a folder on my hard drive.

I suspect that what's happening is Explorer knows enough PTP to ask for
the file list from the camera, but isn't smart enough to pull them to
a temporary location on the hard drive for any random program to access.
The Windows viewer probably has enough knowledge of PTP to do it.

As far as I know, PTP works a little bit like FTP; you can say things
like "send me all of file dscn1234.jpg", but you can't say "hey, open
dscn1234.jpg, seek to byte 5678, and give me the next 910 bytes".

I don't think I've ever plugged my L20 into my XP machine, so I don't
know for sure.

> I figured that Microsoft was involved in this mess somehow.

Hey, if Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows did something
stupid... wait, he already does.

Matt Roberds

 

[Jon Elson]

John Larkin wrote:

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?

Linux seems to deal MUCH better with arbitrary cameras and other devices.
I've never had to load any manufacturer-specific software to download images
from them.

Jon

 

[Tim Wescott]

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 21:29:33 -0700, jurb6006 wrote:

"Back it goes."

I agree 1,000%. Whne they do shit like that there is a reason and I
would bet it has something to do with planned obsolescence.

Why else ?

Because the Chinese don't want to spend money on engineering. They want
to buy chips for which the engineering has already been done.

I can't say this for sure, but I'll bet that Microsoft makes it really
easy to get cheap embedded code that only works with Microsoft junk on
the other end.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:35:21 -0500, Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu>
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:



Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?


Linux seems to deal MUCH better with arbitrary cameras and other devices.
I've never had to load any manufacturer-specific software to download images
from them.

Jon

Neither my 2-year old Lumix nor the similar age Nikon pointy-shooty
require anything special. Stick the SD card in any computer and off it
goes.

Problem with those little cameras is that any recommendation is dated-
the half-life of a design must be something like 6 months.

FWIW, I prefer the Panasonic Lumix with Leica lens by a small margin.
It even has GPS and a table of locations built in. It doesn't charge
from the USB port, which sux, but it has better control locations.

--sp

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:35:21 -0500) it happened Jon Elson
<jmelson@wustl.edu> wrote in <EvadnXzI58VfG63OnZ2dnUVZ_rOdnZ2d@giganews.com>:

John Larkin wrote:



Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?


Linux seems to deal MUCH better with arbitrary cameras and other devices.
I've never had to load any manufacturer-specific software to download images
from them.

Jon

I have used gphoto2 on Linux, it has its limitatons,
not all functions on all cameras are supported, especially for Canon.
Canon never made an attempt to be Linux compatible,
My Canon scanner has no Linux driver for example.
But gphoto2 allows me to download pictures from thw Canon camera.
gphoto2 --list-files
gphoto2 --get-files 729-1000 --new
etc, auto detects camera (almost any).
see man gphoto2
Never use it, just get the sdcard and put it in the PC,
much easier.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 24/03/2014 20:39, Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:35:21 -0500, Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?

Unclear why you thin that is rational. It is much more sensible for a
camera to offer to transfer new images to your main machine for you!

Linux seems to deal MUCH better with arbitrary cameras and other devices.
I've never had to load any manufacturer-specific software to download images
from them.

Jon

Neither my 2-year old Lumix nor the similar age Nikon pointy-shooty
require anything special. Stick the SD card in any computer and off it
goes.

Indeed but most cameras will themselves mount as a mass storage device
and some maybe even charge (or flatten ) their battery when attached
as a USB mass storage device - with the SD card still inside the camera.

A few will even do it over Wifi but be sure to set a decent strong PW!

Problem with those little cameras is that any recommendation is dated-
the half-life of a design must be something like 6 months.

FWIW, I prefer the Panasonic Lumix with Leica lens by a small margin.
It even has GPS and a table of locations built in. It doesn't charge
from the USB port, which sux, but it has better control locations.

--sp

Lumix is quite nice if a bit big. If I didn't want something so small I
could palm or pocket it I would probably have gone for one of them. I
prefer Pentax K5 for my main camera and a Canon Ixus 100is as a P&S.

All the cameras I have ever had would mount as mass storage and most of
them would automagically transfer new images to the PC on request. And
that applies right back to my original Kodak DC-120.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, 25 March 2014 01:27:13 UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 04:35:49 GMT, Wayne Chirnside <w.faux@doentexist.com> wrote:
On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:50:28 -0700, Don Lancaster wrote:
On 3/23/2014 7:12 PM, John Larkin wrote:

Sir: thank you VERY much for your books TTL Logic and CMOS logic.
They introduced me to digital electronics as well as my eagerly looking
forward to your section in Popular Electronics.
just stumbled in and recognized your address.

Active Filter Cookbook is great.

Williams and Taylor's "Electronic Filter Design Handbook" is somewhat greater, but harder to use.

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Handbook-Edition-McGraw-Hill-Handbooks
/dp/0071471715

John Larkin does have a copy of that too.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, 25 March 2014 08:19:25 UTC+11, Martin Brown wrote:

On 24/03/2014 20:39, Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:35:21 -0500, Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu
wrote:
John Larkin wrote:

<snip>

Neither my 2-year old Lumix nor the similar age Nikon pointy-shooty
require anything special. Stick the SD card in any computer and off it
goes.

Indeed but most cameras will themselves mount as a mass storage devices
and some maybe even charge (or flatten ) their battery when attached
as a USB mass storage device - with the SD card still inside the camera.

A few will even do it over Wifi but be sure to set a decent strong PW!

Problem with those little cameras is that any recommendation is dated-
the half-life of a design must be something like 6 months.

FWIW, I prefer the Panasonic Lumix with Leica lens by a small margin.
It even has GPS and a table of locations built in. It doesn't charge
from the USB port, which sux, but it has better control locations.

Lumix is quite nice if a bit big. If I didn't want something so small I
could palm or pocket it I would probably have gone for one of them. I
prefer Pentax K5 for my main camera and a Canon Ixus 100is as a P&S.

My wife's most recent camera is a Lumix DMC-XS1 - very compact.
94 x 54 x 14 mm (3.7 x 2.13 x 0.55").

It took over from a Casio Exilim EX-S600 (which still works fine, but doesn't have the latest bells and whistles).

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Adrian Jansen]

On 25/3/2014 12:22 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 07:44:50 +0000 (UTC), mroberds@att.net wrote:

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highnotlandthistechnologypart.com> wrote:
My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any
PC as a generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one
needs a driver install to work on any PC.

The USB digital cameras I've used from the mid-00s just appeared to the
PC like a USB flash drive. You could also take out the card, stick it
in a card reader, and see it as a FAT32 filesystem with JPEGs on it.

I have a Nikon Coolpix L20 from about 2009 that implements "Picture
Transfer Protocol". When connected to a PC, it doesn't show up like a
USB flash drive. You need a program that speaks PTP to retrieve the
files from it. I use gtkam on Linux, and I think Microsoft's "Scanner
and Camera Wizard" on XP (or whatever it morphed into on later Windows)
can do it as well. gtkam gives me a "directory tree" view, optionally
with thumbnails. I can select a bunch of pictures and say "download
these", and a little while later I have a bunch of JPEGs sitting on my
hard drive.

I also have an L20. It does appear as a memory-stick device, but the files can
only be opened in the camera folder using the awful Windows Media Viewer. They
are jpegs, but Irfanview can't open them unless I first copy them to a folder on
my hard drive. I asked Irfan about that, and he doesn't understand it either.

Yes, my Nikon P520 does that, after a driver install. The old Canon
just appeared as a USB drive.

But I have no problem copying the files from the Nikon to a hard drive,
then they open as standard. In fact with Dropbox running on the PC, you
can have the files auto-download to a Dropbox folder as soon as the
camera is connected. Personally I dont like that type of automation,
but it does save doing it manually.

--
Regards,

Adrian Jansen adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net
Note reply address is invalid, convert address above to machine form.

 

[josephkk]

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:12:29 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

I got a Fuji AX650 as a cheap vacation type camera.

My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any PC as a
generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one needs a driver
install to work on any PC. Once that is done, images will only open into the
stupid Microsoft media viewer. You can't even drag/drop a jpeg file into
Irfanview. Why would they do that?

Back it goes.

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?

Good luck with that. The misapplied buying power of megasoft is enormous.
Google is almost as bad already and Amazon is getting there. Thank the
masses of asses.

?-)

 

[josephkk]

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 16:44:07 -0800, Robert Baer <robertbaer@localnet.com>
wrote:

Quit screwing around. Go to school and get a copy of webkit to do the
browser dependence reduction for you.

?-)

I have the following code that works to a point:
script
// discover if browser is crappy Opera or crappy Safari
str=navigator.userAgent; // Agent is unique for our purposes
var sf=str.indexOf("Safari"); // found if browser is Chrome or Safari
var ch=str.indexOf("Chrome"); // not found if browser is Safari
var op=str.indexOf("Opera"); // unique for Opera
var opt=1; // alternate shown below but not used
ovar=window.opera; // is undefined if browser is not Opera
if (!ovar) { opt=-1; } // unique for Opera
// Safari gives sf=91,ch=-1; Opera gives sf=-1,op=7; Chrome gives
sf=-1,ch>0.
// Jump to different markup if crappy browser
if (sf>0 && ch<0 || op>=0) { window.location.replace('Mobile.html'); }
// ** NOTE treat crap as if mobile phone **
// Code is a one-pager; there are mobile phones that struggle and die with
// message "Page too large" "open media site"

var isIE=str.indexOf("IE"); // not found in other browsers
if (isIE>0) { window.location.replace('PCbase.html'); }
var isMozilla=str.indexOf("Mozilla"); // Presumes in all variants;
includes Netscape
if (isMozilla>=0) { window.location.replace('PCbase.html'); }
if (ch>=0) { window.location.replace('PCbase.html'); } // for Chrome

document.write(str+"<BR>");
document.write("At this point, browser is not Safari, Chrome, Opera or
IE or Mozilla"+"<BR>");
// So, ASSuME we have mobile phone browser
// window.location.replace('Mobile.html');
// -----^ always executes; previous valid .replace somehow bypassed
/script

If i un-comment that last window.location.replace line, the proper
execution of going to PCbase.html fails, and i get Mobile.html instead.

How can this be fixed?

 

[Adrian Jansen]

On 25/3/2014 12:22 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 07:44:50 +0000 (UTC), mroberds@att.net wrote:

John Larkin &lt;jjlarkin@highnotlandthistechnologypart.com&gt; wrote:
My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any
PC as a generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one
needs a driver install to work on any PC.

The USB digital cameras I've used from the mid-00s just appeared to the
PC like a USB flash drive. You could also take out the card, stick it
in a card reader, and see it as a FAT32 filesystem with JPEGs on it.

I have a Nikon Coolpix L20 from about 2009 that implements "Picture
Transfer Protocol". When connected to a PC, it doesn't show up like a
USB flash drive. You need a program that speaks PTP to retrieve the
files from it. I use gtkam on Linux, and I think Microsoft's "Scanner
and Camera Wizard" on XP (or whatever it morphed into on later Windows)
can do it as well. gtkam gives me a "directory tree" view, optionally
with thumbnails. I can select a bunch of pictures and say "download
these", and a little while later I have a bunch of JPEGs sitting on my
hard drive.

I also have an L20. It does appear as a memory-stick device, but the files can
only be opened in the camera folder using the awful Windows Media Viewer. They
are jpegs, but Irfanview can't open them unless I first copy them to a folder on
my hard drive. I asked Irfan about that, and he doesn't understand it either.


I also have the option of pulling out the SD card and sticking it into
a reader. It has to be an SDHC reader for 4 GB or greater SD cards
(and, I guess, an SDXC reader for 32 GB or greater SD cards). When I do
that, it shows up as a plain old FAT32 filesystem with JPEGs on it.

So: You might look for a camera that *doesn't* speak PTP, or that can
have it turned off.

Something else to look out for: Because the entire world could read and
write FAT32, Microsoft introduced a new proprietary and patented
filesystem, exFAT. You have to pay protection money to Microsoft to
implement it, at least in the US. Some newer digital cameras (2012-up)
may want to use this format on their cards. If you always use the
camera as the card reader, you will be OK. If you only ever plug the
card directly into recent Windows (Vista and up, XP with a patch) or OS
X (10.6.5 and up) machines, you will be OK. If you want to plug the
card into something else, you may have trouble.

I figured that Microsoft was involved in this mess somehow.

Just one more thought. Irfanview allows to view and download images
using a TWAIN compatible device. Certainly on my Nikon P520, the camera
shows up as a TWAIN source when plugged into the USB port. And
Irfanview will allow to select the camera as a TWAIN source and pick up
the image from it.

Seems better than extracting the SD card each time. Especially when the
cameras start using micro-SD cards.

--
Regards,

Adrian Jansen adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net
Note reply address is invalid, convert address above to machine form.

 

[Kevin McMurtrie]

In article &lt;gk4vi99n62523ftc7t2354vnb6kr550fkq@4ax.com&gt;,
John Larkin &lt;jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com&gt; wrote:

I got a Fuji AX650 as a cheap vacation type camera.

My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any PC as a
generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one needs a driver
install to work on any PC. Once that is done, images will only open into the
stupid Microsoft media viewer. You can't even drag/drop a jpeg file into
Irfanview. Why would they do that?

Back it goes.

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?

The manual (you could read it too) says it speaks MTP and PTP. 3rd
party apps should be no problem.

I'd use an SD to USB adaptor.