Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 00:40:41 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> To: freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Digital cameras Message-ID: <199907042240.AAA25432@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de>
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Archie Cobbs wrote in list.freebsd-multimedia:
> I'm thinking of buying a digital camera and was wondering which
> ones (if any) use a protocol for downloading pictures that is
> compatible with FreeBSD -- ie, some port exists to download the
> pictures.. or, at least, the protocol is documented somewhere..
Me too! I'm fed up with my old Apple QuickTake (low image
quality, non-extendable small memory, proprietary file format,
requires me to boot NT to download the images).
The Sony "Mavica" family of cameras looks nice, because it
simply writes JPEG files on standard FAT floppies. But the
resolution and picture quality is rather bad (no wonder --
there's only 1.4 Mbyte per floppy).
I currently favour the Kodak DC240. It is supported by gphoto
(in the ports), although that uses only a serial connection,
which is pretty slow. On the other hand, the camera features
an USB port, too, and Kodak seems to freely provide information
to developers, so it might be possible to write an USB driver
for it. This would be definitely cool.
Finally, another way would be to buy a PCMCIA adaptor for
CompactFlash cards (which are used by the DC240 and many other
digital cameras) and a PCMCIA-to-IDE "drive". In theory, you
should be able to just mount the CompactFlash card just like
a DOS drive. Has someone actually done this under FreeBSD and
can confirm that this actually works? (A CF-to-PCMCIA adapter
is ~ $20, a PCMCIA-to-IDE "drive" is ~ $150 -- I'd rather not
spend that money if it doesn't work.)
By the way, the major drawback of the Kodak DC240 is that it
does not support manual focus (it's autofocus only). But well,
you can't have everything...
Regards
Oliver
--
Oliver Fromme, Leibnizstr. 18/61, 38678 Clausthal, Germany
(Info: finger userinfo:olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de)
"In jedem Stück Kohle wartet ein Diamant auf seine Geburt"
(Terry Pratchett)
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