Can I mount my Digital Camera as a Drive?

fistful · Jul 19, 2005

So I am able to transfer pictures to and from Compact Flash card?

I have a Canon Powershot A75 with like I said Compact Flash, it's usb 1.1 I believe.

If not I'll pick up one of those PCMCIA cf card read/writers for my powerbook. I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with one of these from sandisk and if they would recommend them?

I assume they are Mac compatible however the site does not say.

Heb1228 · Jul 19, 2005

When you plug in your digital camera, the memory card mounts are a normal volume, so yes, you can use it to store files if you like.

Although if its USB 1.1, it will be pretty slow. The SanDisk PC Card will transfer data much faster.

fistful · Jul 19, 2005

thanks Heb1228,

Now that I know I can I just need to know how? I'm not sure if I'm clear with what I'd like to do, I'd like to mount it as a drive onto my desktop. The way it is now it does not mount to the desktop however I can still import picture through Image Capture and/or iPhoto.

Heb1228 · Jul 19, 2005

That seems strange to me, every camera I've plugged in mounts and appears on my desktop. Try opening a Finder window and seeing if it is listed beneath your other volumes in the sidebar.

Or, just open a Finder window and hold down option and press the up arrow until the finder window won't change anymore and see if the volume is listed there.

Capt Underpants · Jul 19, 2005

Heb1228 said:
That seems strange to me, every camera I've plugged in mounts and appears on my desktop. Try opening a Finder window and seeing if it is listed beneath your other volumes in the sidebar.

Or, just open a Finder window and hold down option and press the up arrow until the finder window won't change anymore and see if the volume is listed there.

My canon S45 also doesn't mount, or show up as a volume. iPhoto automatically pops up and asks me to import the photos. Have you ever been able to make a canon camera mount? Maybe it's a canon issue.

Heb1228 · Jul 19, 2005

Maybe it is, my camera is a Sony and I figured they would all work the same. I can't remember if I've ever tried a Canon or not, but I have used at least 5 or 6 cameras other than mine and they were all the same.

Maybe someone with a Canon camera could answer your question better than I could. Does any information show up in Disk Utility when the camera is plugged in?

ITASOR · Jul 19, 2005

Capt Underpants said:
My canon S45 also doesn't mount, or show up as a volume. iPhoto automatically pops up and asks me to import the photos. Have you ever been able to make a canon camera mount? Maybe it's a canon issue.

Grandpa has a nice new expensive Canon and it won't mount either. Gotta use iPhoto or ImageCapture. Must be a Canon thing!

fistful · Jul 19, 2005

I'll have to check out if it mounts within disk utility tomorrow, my batteries are dead and I don't seem to have any spares atm.

I'll also try it out on my pc tomorrow as well, see if it will mount. I've honestly never tried before, never had a reason.

jaw04005 · Jul 19, 2005

Canon digital cameras do not mount as actual drives like Nikon and Sony digital cameras. I read one time that Canon did that on purpose to prevent users from accidentally destroying the partition table/folder hierarchy on their cards. You can purchase a USB or Firewire card reader that will mount the card.

MacDawg · Jul 19, 2005

joshuawaire said:
Canon digital cameras do not mount as actual drives like Nikon and Sony digital cameras. I read one time that Canon did that on purpose to prevent users from accidentally destroying the partition table/folder hierarchy on their cards. You can purchase a USB or Firewire card reader that will mount the card.

That's odd... I find that mounting as a drive is quite helpful.
My wife's (used to be mine

) Nikon CoolPix 3500 mounts, and it makes it easy to clean up the drive before she takes it to Walmart for photo printing.

Glad to know that about Canon.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

Heb1228 · Jul 19, 2005

Funny Canon would be different... there was some problem with Canon video cameras capturing to external firewire drives a while back, i don't know if thats changed or not.

acedickson · Jul 20, 2005

It's not just Canon, my Sony doesn't mount either...

MacDawg · Jul 20, 2005

acedickson said:
It's not just Canon, my Sony doesn't mount either...

Really? The Sony mentioned above does... is yours old or new?
That's strange.

Anybody know if there is anything in the descriptions/packaging etc, that would indicate one way or the other. In other words, any way to know before you buy the camera and connect whether it will mount or not?

Woof, Woof Dawg

acedickson · Jul 20, 2005

It's from 2001. It's a 2MP so nothing special, lol.

Westside guy · Jul 20, 2005

My Nikon D70 mounts as a drive. It can be handy on occasion.

The Canon Digital Rebel we have at work does not mount as a drive. I suspect they did it for the same reason they artificially dumbed-down the Digital Rebel - they thought it'd give them some economic advantage one way or another.

Gee · Jul 20, 2005

I thought it was yet another bug in Tiger! Had a Sony that would mount fine, then I bought a Canon 350D and Tiger at about the same time, and no mounting.

I'm kinda relieved to find it's actually a Canon thing. Only another 1,235 annoying bugs in Tiger left to cross off my list!

oakdryad5 · Aug 5, 2005

I'm not sure if this is the same problem, but I have a panasonic lumix fz20, and when I plug it in to upload photos on my mac mini, it doesn't show up at all and I can't find it. I'm not sure how to import using iphoto, I've tried 'add to library', but i still cannot find my camera or the pictures. What to do?

Christine

SumDumGuy · Aug 5, 2005

My Sony DSC-F717 would mount as a drive. When I upgraded to my current Canon Rebel XT I was disappointed to find out that it doesn't mount on the desktop as a drive. Annoying.

oakdryad5 · Aug 5, 2005

Also, not only does it not show up as a drive, it also corrupts all the pictures on my camera! This has made me hesitate connecting the camera to the mac at all to try things out since I'm afraid the memory card will get damaged somehow.

fistful · Aug 5, 2005

I forgot all about this thread, thanks for your responses everyone.

stupid Canon!

oakdryad5, here you can find which cameras are supported by OS X, after a quick glance your camera doesn't seem to be supported.

oakdryad5 · Aug 5, 2005

FistfulofAngst said:
I forgot all about this thread, thanks for your responses everyone.

stupid Canon!

oakdryad5, here you can find which cameras are supported by OS X, after a quick glance your camera doesn't seem to be supported.

Thanks for the reply. I wish I would have seen/looked for this list earlier to avoid the picture corruption

I guess I assumed that anything would connect with no problem to the mac. Now to get a card reader..

Christine

Ti_Poussin · Aug 5, 2005

For the lumix fz-20 (it's a Panasonic cam? right?), no OSX native support, but it should be usable through Arcsoft program in classic mode (OS 9 version only). Sadly they seem not to have make any effort for OSX driver. Check the web site of CD that have come with your camera or check http://www.versiontracker.com

Here's the link for info:
http://www.cameraworld.com/webapp/w...10001&langId=-1&productId=13177652&bct=;c1009

oakdryad5 · Aug 6, 2005

Ti_Poussin said:
For the lumix fz-20 (it's a Panasonic cam? right?), no OSX native support, but it should be usable through Arcsoft program in classic mode (OS 9 version only). Sadly they seem not to have make any effort for OSX driver. Check the web site of CD that have come with your camera or check http://www.versiontracker.com

Well, spent quite some time looking on the panasonic support site for the camera's issue, but still no luck. I've sent an email to them about it, I'll let you know if/when they reply.

ic1 · Aug 6, 2005

oakdryad5, here you can find which cameras are supported by OS X, after a quick glance your camera doesn't seem to be supported.[end quote]

Apple's list is not accurate. My Olympus C5050Z mounts and iPhoto lets me play with the photos regardless of the storage medium (Microdirve or flash card). It was scary at first, to this old DOS/Windows guy, how everything simply . . . worked.

I'm still using Panther not Tiger BTW but Apple's site does say OS X.

appleweek · Nov 23, 2006

Hi All!
I have a recent Canon PowerShot A520 connected to a Intel Tiger 10.4.7 PC and can confirm it still does not mount as an OSX volume. After much research it seems Canon camera's lack built-in USB Mass Storage support (instead supports only PTP protocol), hence it doesn't recognize it as a volume. When I take out my SD card and place it in my USB 2.0 Card Reader (which is recognized as a USB Mass Storage class device), I get it mounted as a volume plus Image Capture (my prog of choice) pops open. When the exact same SD card is loaded in the PowerShot, only Image Capture pops open, plus no accessible volume is noted anywhere by the system (Disk Utility, /Volumes, other disk recovery progs, etc). The unfortunate thing is, Windows XP allows you to access PTP-only devices and treat them as regular volumes.

As far as i've been able to tell, their appears no way around this impasse short of buying a Card Reader, which should be unnecessary.

If anyone figures this one out, please update this thread.

Thx

Can I mount my Digital Camera as a Drive?

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