iPhoto and Canon Powershot G3

[weg]

I'm owning a Canon Powershot G3 digicam and a 12" Powerbook (1.5GHz, SD). I'm using MacOS X 1.4.2 and iPhoto 5 (latest version). Alas, I have significant problems with my Canon Powershot G3 digicam. If the camera is set to PTP (picture transfer protocol) iPhoto will not even recognize it and hangs sometimes. If I set the transfer mode to "normal", the camera is recognized and (usually most of) the photos are transferred, but now and then iPhoto claims that some of the photos are damaged or the format cannot be recognized and refuses to import them. I have the impression that this happens when I've lots of pictures on my Powershot G3. Last time it happened, iPhoto refused to import all pictures that it tried to import after a 1.5 minute long avi-movie. I don't think that this is a problem with my Powershot G3, because everything works fine on a Windows XP computer.
I had the same problem with iPhoto 4, and I've filed a bug report a long time ago, so I don't think Apple is gonna fix this. Alas, the camera comes with OS 9 software, so using the software that came with the camera is no satisfying workaraound. Does anybody here have similar problems or can anybody suggest a solution?

 

[Mechcozmo]

What happens when you just plug in the camera and tell iPhoto to import instead of telling the camera to initiate the transfer?

 

[GimmeSlack12]

What happens when you set the camera to neither PTP or the Camera mode? Just leave it off and plug it in. My Dad has a G2 I think, and you just plug it in and boom off it go's.

 

[weg]

What happens when you set the camera to neither PTP or the Camera mode? Just leave it off and plug it in. My Dad has a G2 I think, and you just plug it in and boom off it go's.

That's impossible. The camera is either in PTP or in "normal" mode. Out of the box, normal mode is activated.

 

[freddy11]

Make sure your camera is not going to sleep. I had a similiar problem with my G2 when the card was full. It just took too long to download them all. I solved the problem by pressing the shutter button half way every so often. A card reader put a final end to the problem.

 

[Mcusername]

I am having a similar problem. It appears that if the avi files are too big ( don't know what too big or too long is) they cannot be recognized in iphoto or quicktime or even VLC.

 

[Ddesigner]

This worked for me...

I imported Canon's utility CameraWindow from my old G4Mac into the applications folder on my new iMac OS10.6.8.

CameraWindow.app version 5.0.3.27(7L) accessed all the images including the large AVI file on my PowerShotG3 camera. So I downloaded the problem movie from the camera, direct to my iMac.

I hope this workaround helps someone.