[PLUG] Digital camera -- wrong choice?

[Ian Burrell]

On 5/28/06, Michael M. <nixlists at writemoore.net> wrote:
> I'm having advance buyer's remorse ... well, not so much remorse, as
> doubts about whether I made the right choice.  I've avoided the whole
> digital camera revolution up until now, but finally decided to take the
> plunge.  After much review-reading, I decided on a Canon PowerShot S3
> IS.  There's a nice review here:
>
> http://www.dpreview.com/news/0602/06022111canons3is.asp
>
> The PowerShot S3 supersedes the PowerShot S2 and, as this review and
> others note, it's not a revolutionary upgrade -- mostly small
> improvements over the previous model.  I checked the gphoto2 website and
> noted that the S2 was listed as being supported; since the S3 is so
> similar to the S2, I was presuming that there wouldn't be a problem even
> though the S3 was not listed.  I figured it wasn't there only because
> it's a new model and they haven't gotten around to adding it yet.
>
> But subsequent reading about other Canon models and Linux support has me
> wondering if that's a safe assumption.  It seems that not all model
> upgrades necessarily are supported, even when it seems like they would
> be.  I can still stop the order and make another choice if I don't
> dawdle.  Does anyone with more experience in the camera/Linux
> compatibility arena have any advice about what I should do?
>
> If I understand what I've read correctly, is it true that another option
> would be to get a card reader and not worry about whether the camera
> itself is compatible, because I can just upload the photos from the
> memory card via USB?
>

Most newer digital cameras support USB Mass Storage.  They show up as
a flash drive to the computer.  Mine works this way, showing up as a
slow flash drive.  I usually use a memory card reader like others
since it is much faster and doesn't use up the battery.  I couldn't
find anything online about the Canon PowerShot S3 IS supporting mass
storage but I am guessing that since it is newer, it should support
it.

Older cameras used just PTP (or even worse a proprietary protocol) to
transfer pictures. gphoto2 speaks PTP and some proprietary protocols.
It looks like the Canon PowerShot S3 definitely supports PTP and can
likely be used with gphoto2 in PTP mode.

 - Ian