A lot of people ask and I don’t know — it probably does work as it is using a standard Windows way of talking to the camera — WIA — but I don’t have the hardware to test it.
If a camera supports a “PTP” or “MTP” mode — and if when plugged into a PC it is visible in My Computer under the section for Scanners and Cameras
(not as a removable disk drive) then it is liable to work. The only big gotcha I can see is that some cameras — all the P&S I’ve tried — will not let me press the shutter button while they are plugged into the PC. It seems that ability is a DSLR thing.
So, if you happen to have a non-Nikon DSLR handy and don’t mind spending a few minutes testing I’d be delighted to hear whether this script works for you. Obviously for Canon users it’s beside the point as proper remote control software is included with the camera — but it is still technically interesting.
If you get any results please leave me a comment, many thanks!
My Nikon D80 does not show up in My Computer under Scanners and Cameras – it is listed as a removable disk. I have Windows XP SP2
How do I get it to show up as a camera?
BobN, you need to change the USB mode. It’s one of the options in the Spanner / Wench menu — the choices are “Mass Storage” and “PTP”. You need PTP to show up as a camera. If you have Mass Storage set then it shows as a disk drive.
I’ve tried it on the Samsung GX10 unfortunately without success. The options under the USB are ‘scanner’ and ‘computer’. ‘scanner doesn’t work at all and ‘computer’ see the camera as a mass storage device – shame I was looking forward to using this great utility.
nige, thanks for checking and sorry it didn’t work as expected. If the camera can act as “scanner” then that should be functioning as a WIA device. Perhaps it needs a driver installed on the PC. Let me know if you are interested in trying to troubleshoot this.
yea, I wouldn’t mind helping out, let me know what I can do
@nige, could you connect it as a “scanner” then run this WIA Connection test program I just posted about and let me have the output. That should give me an indication if it is possible or not.
Hi Raymond – what a great idea.
I’m trying with a Sony cybershot & have set it to PTP.
It appears in the scanners area fine but when I run the script and select it as my source camera, it pops up and says “This device does not support taking new pictures”. Any ideas on a work around mate?
Cheers
Stu
New Zealand
Stuart, glad someone is trying a different model! But sorry it looks like it might not work. Some thoughts:
– Have you installed the drivers that came with your camera?
– Can you see and control it via the Windows Camera & Scanner Wizard?
– Can you run the WIA testing tool? (Search this site for WIA Test to find it)
– Even though my script doesn’t think your camera can take new pictures (e.g. from the PC) you may still be able to take pictures using the camera shutter release and still have them downloaded.
Raymond:
I have this running on two machines, one XP, and one Vista, with a Nikon D40. Both work great!